Leaf - this is so wrong (other than the given restriction that the bystander has only 2 options). Good acts can result in deaths and so can evil ones. So the fact of a death is certainly not pivotal. The death being in the object is what matters.
The whole scenario is more fluid, certainly less clearly defined. Could there be a case where pilot action to divert equated, directly - just as the trolley targets - to a killing? I really don’t know. The dilemma is expressed with train tracks because they compel a direct outcome.
So could the plane example. You run out of fuel flying over a city. Do nothing and you’ll crash and take out a city block. Divert the plane intentionally over the 'burbs and you’ll take out a couple of houses.Elf01:
The whole scenario is more fluid, certainly less clearly defined. Could there be a case where pilot action to divert equated, directly - just as the trolley targets - to a killing? I really don’t know. The dilemma is expressed with train tracks because they compel a direct outcome.
If a plane example could ever resemble the train track example - in terms of the directness of known outcome to act - then the analysis would evidently be the same.
It is. On the assumption that you are going to crash into uildings of some sort, you do nothing and hundreds die or reroute the plane and a few die.Freddy:
If a plane example could ever resemble the train track example - in terms of the directness of known outcome to act - then the analysis would evidently be the same.
I’d suggest it is probably not. The word “directness” is key. We aren’t talking about mere foreseeable consequences. But if you see it that way, then as pilot, you’ve constrained your options.
It’s a hypothetical. There are only two options. You don’t have Sully’s choice of putting it down on the river. It’s the city or the suburbs. Again, which would you choose?Freddy:
I’d suggest it is probably not. The word “directness” is key. We aren’t talking about mere foreseeable consequences. But if you see it that way, then as pilot, you’ve constrained your options.
That does not distinguish between the pilot and the bystander. In both cases death is the object of the act to direct the vehicle toward one person.
It can be very well-defined. And the trolley problem can be less defined. Perhaps the one person on the track sees the trolley coming and lays down between the tracks so that the trolley can pass over him harmlessly. Perhaps the bystander is mistaken about which track the man is on, and diverting the trolley will send it to a track that nobody is on. Perhaps the people on the trolley are going to stop the trolley somehow before it strikes the one man. As for the pilot, it can be crystal clear what the choices are. The fuel has run out. The plane is definitely going down. The pilot is familiar with the area and knows that it is heavily populated everywhere he could reach, except for this one small open field. No morally relevant features have been described that distinguish between the pilot’s choice and the bystander’s choice. They both take the choice that kills one person on the ground.
The tracks are no more direct than and airplane deliberately guided to a specific spot.
In the real world of handling a plane, there are not “only two options” (alternative acts) equivalent to the trolley. But if there were, the answer is the same as the for the trolley. While both scenarios are hypothetical to a degree, the real-world differences are key. If you “conceptually” force them to be the same (which requires arm waving about the pilot situation) you should expect the same conclusion. A pilot can seek to minimize harm, even believing his action will almost certainly lead to the death of some who were previously safe. He just can’t directly kill. I think that can be avoided for the pilot - but not for the trolley bystanders - because the bystanders act directly kills. It’s all about the meaning in moral theology of “direct”. [It’s not about consequences as Leaf incorrectly asserted above.] Now - if the pilot has a button to target the high rise, or the low rise he can’t push it - he can’t directly kill. All the constraints (brought about by tracks and switches) make the trolley readily analyzable.
On the basis of your second sentence, you’re forbidden to take the action because of the evil moral object you choose. You do agree that choosing an act with an evil moral object is impermissible?
Agreed in that if you actually target an innocent with a trolley, or a plane, or with electrocution or with a bullet - you’ve done wrong - even if in that act you saved others. But does the pilot target an individual or desperately & continuously seek a better option? The bystander at the trolley did not because the real-world definition (not arm-waving) intends to make clear the directness I’ve spoken about, and which I suspect you’re not grasping, cannot be escaped.
I told you I don’t understand that “moral object” stuff. I only understand examples. Can you explain the difference in moral object between the pilot and bystander? Why is the one man on the track a moral object, but the one person in the open field the pilot lands on not a moral object?LeafByNiggle:
On the basis of your second sentence, you’re forbidden to take the action because of the evil moral object you choose. You do agree that choosing an act with an evil moral object is impermissible?
Yes, the pilot seeks a better option, but at some point he decides there is none and directs his plane to land on the open field with one person on it. And I suppose the bystander seeks a better option as he sees the trolley speeding toward the switch point. But at some point he decides there is no better option and throws the switch.
That is true. I do not grasp the supposed directness of one action vs the other. They both seem equal in directness to me. If you want to see the tracks in the sky, consider that the high-density housing surrounding the park form an effective track, constraining the pilot to land exactly between them, just as a track constrains the motion of the trolley (assuming the pilot chooses to avoid high-density housing).
“At some point”… But at the moment he pulls up or in some other direction, to miss the approaching high rise, he is targeting no one - he acts to avoid. And at some point — he can do no more.
So all this analysis rests on the principals of moral theology, which includes the 3 fonts of morality. The moral object is one of those fonts - any evil in that font condemns the act. I’ve done my best to explain how “directness” places the evil in the object font as opposed to merely the consequences. Sorry, I don’t think I can improve the clarity.
It does not work like that. The pilot assesses his options while he is still high enough to see all of them. He sees the open field and heads for it - deliberately. He *chooses not to do more because anything else he could do would only make matters worse. It is exactly like the trolley situation. At the moment he makes the decision to head for the field, the innocent is targeted.
I didn’t ask you to explain that. I asked you to explain why the two cases were different, and that you have not done.
Exactly right.
A great part of the problem we’re having is that the meaning of words, far from being established, seems quite fluid. If you want to define direct and indirect so we know how you’re using them, please do. If you’re not using those words with their normal meaning then you have a responsibility to explain exactly what they mean when you use them.
No, this is not at all accurate; there is no possibility using the definition of object provided by JPII (that I have repeatedly endorsed) that such an argument could be made. Direct and indirect are to this point undefined terms that are applied to win the argument by assertion without having to engage in an actual discussion.
The man may duck. No such potential in the trolley case. Throwing the switch is inherently targeting the individual.