Very interesting :up:

As always: a great conversation Leontiskos, and I look forward to our future encounters! :smile:

No worries, Herg! We all get busy. We can chat anytime. :victory:

I think I see the confusion now. My principle is really:

it is always immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being [against their will] if it is a certainty that they will be killed

This principle does not hinge on the direct vs. indirect distinction. To your point, I don't think that it is always wrong to indirectly intend to kill innocent people in the event that what is indirectly intended is not certain. Is that what you are getting at?

Okay, I am going to start moving away from this thread now. We can try to tie up some of the loose ends as best as possible...

No problem. I will do my best to summarize from my end.

Our real dispute has finally been elevated to the surface, in complete clarity. I find it both immoral to per se and per accidens as well as to directly and indirect intend something bad, but the formers of each are more immoral than the latters; whereas you think that some of the latters are morally permissible, and I still have not heard any real justification for why: providing an elaboration of what the distinctions are is not a justification of why any of them are or are not immoral.

If you cannot bring yourself to analyze the way that something evil becomes acceptable when it is merely a foreseen effect, then you will not be able to assess cases like the trolley case, for you will have no principled way to distinguish an effect that can become acceptable from an effect that cannot become acceptable.

I’ve already elaborated on why it makes no difference to me and what principles I am using, but for a substantial response here is my post to Herg that outlines it in even more detail.

You have provided no justification, e.g., for why some indirectly intended effects or actions are morally permissible other than laying out the “landscape”—which is not justification for it.

In these sorts of claims you continue the strange move whereby you reduce indirect intention to mere intention, contrary to Le1

Both are intentions: they inherent from the concept of intentionality. What you are doing is complaining when I say “all Xs are immoral” where “all Ys are Xs, but not all Xs are Ys”. All intentions are either indirect or direct, and I already elaborated on why they are both immoral in the case of intentionally killing an innocent human being—to say that is not a conflation, it includes both subtypes of intention in it.

Again, I have already addressed your equivocation between a cause and a means in detail in <this post> and <the following post>. You never responded to those posts, and I'm not sure if you even read them

If I didn’t, then I apologize: I must have missed them.

And what could this sentence of yours possibly mean? Give one example of a potential means, if you think your distinction is coherent.

A potential means to getting to the grocery store is my rusty, old go-cart, because I lack sufficient knowledge to say it is a means towards that end. That’s standardly what a ‘potential’ is: it isn’t actual.

Your use of the term ‘potential means’ is semantically weird: you are implying that you know that the means is a means towards the end, but since it wasn’t chosen and used it isn’t a means. Saying it is an ‘actual means’ is a double positive, and saying something is potentially X means it may not be X in all probability.

This is incorrect because your "per accidens means" has nothing to do with the direct/indirect intention of Brock's. What you apparently mean by "per accidens intention" is any intention that is not identical with the "primary intention." Else you should clarify what you mean by a per accidens intention.

I was finishing reading the eudemian ethics the other day, and came across the exact distinction I happen to be making in Aristotle’s Book VI p. 103:

If someone chooses or pursues A for the sake of B, then per se he pursues and chooses B, and A only coincidentally. But when we speak without qualification, we mean what is per se

This is not the same thing as your indirect vs. direct intentionality distinction. What is per se intended is what is chosen and pursued non-coincidentally (viz., as the real end). You are completely overlooking this distinction; but it doesn’t make much a difference with respect to the crux of our dispute. I would just add that per se intending to kill someone is worse than per accidens intending to kill someone; and they are both immoral in the case of an innocent person.

This goes back to the problem about the distinction between natural necessity and logical necessity. If a tyrant says, "I will rape this woman if you drive to the grocery store," then is it permissible for me to drive to the grocery store? Of course it is.

That’s different than my example I gave: I was saying that using the car as a means would result in a side effect of a woman getting raped; whereas your refurbished example makes the rape completely unrelated to any means used to achieve the end.

In the trolley case the death of the one falls under (indirect) intention not because pulling the lever is a means to their death. I repeat, it is not indirectly intentional because pulling the lever is a means. The reason their death is indirectly intentional is because it is an effect of the cause of pulling the lever, and that cause is intended.

Right, it is indirectly intended because one uses the means and that means causes the effect which is not an effect aimed at (directly). I never suggested otherwise.

There is no reason at all that we should be talking about the word "means" when it comes to the relation between the lever and the death. Again, a cause is not the same thing as a means.

The means causes the effect we are discussing; and because the means was utilized by a person intentionally, it will be relevant to our discussion about whether or not the effect is intentional.

Okay, interesting. What if there is an 80% chance, say?

For me, it has to be a certainty; otherwise we are not discussing the same dispute. So I would say, under what I have been outlining, it would not be necessarily wrong to pull the lever in that case; but because my principle doesn’t apply here: I was talking about a certainty.

In the case of “statistical certainties”, which may include this 80% chance you speak of, I would say that it is morally permissible (and maybe even obligatory) if the intended good end is consequentially better than the bad end which has an 80% chance of occurring. I resort to consequentialism here, because I see no other route to take.

So:

1. If I am certain that the pollution emissions from my car is going to kill a person (like in the case that I start my car in a closed garage with a child in it), then it would be immoral for me to start the car.

2. If I am certain that I have a 0.5% chance of killing someone accidentally by simply driving on the streets, as a mere statistical fact, then I am permitted to go to the grocery store because (1) if I were to kill someone in this manner it would be indirectly intended and (2) the good effect (end) greatly outweighs the potential bad effect.

3. If I am certain that I have a 99% chance of killing someone accidentally by simply driving on the streets, as a mere statistical fact (or perhaps I am drunk), then I am NOT permitted to go the the grocery store because (1) if I were to kill someone in this manner it would be indirectly intended and (2) the bad effect greatly outweighs the good effect (end).

The problem is that I think this is what you are trying to advocate for, but the examples you give stipulate certainty simpliciter and not high probabilities, which is a paramount distinction under my view. The airplane crash was stipulated as certain of each outcome happening for example.

If I were teaching philosophy I would not allow my students to examine the trolley problem until we had studied causality, intention, and responsibility in depth.

Fair enough, and hopefully we are doing that now (;

1. There are no moral facts (facts about the goodness of different acts, people, events, etc.)

This should be “moral judgments do not express something objective”. Moral subjectivists believe in moral facts (or at least some of them do): it is just not the kind of ‘moral fact’ you are referring to here (e.g., facts about psychology).

The rest of your OP exposes the key element of moral anti-realism that most people who are (defaulted to) moral anti-realism do not (and this is why I call the masses only half-way through Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra): all values collapse into non-objectivity, and all value disputes collapse into psychopathic/narcassistic struggles of power.

A moral anti-realist that hails pragmatism is just exerting their power over others to try to force people to abide by their desires or beliefs without any underlying justification.

One can perfectly (internally) coherently affirm this sort of view, and thusly respond adequately to your critiques, but it leaves a bad taste on ones mouth afterwards (;

No worries at all. PS: to mention people, you have to use the @ symbol followed by the person's username in double quotes (or use the @ button)(e.g., @'Bob Ross' but with double quotes ["] instead): otherwise, they don't get a notification.

If done properly, when you preview your comment it should turn the @ blue.

To link people, you can either use the @ (like explained above) or reply to a comment that they have made.

the point is that there is a large difference between an intended effect and a foreseen effect.

Even under your characterization of the two, they are both intended effects. If you accept either Brock’s or Aquinas’ characterizations that you gave (above this comment), then it necessarily follows that a foreseen effect is intentional (albeit it of a meaningfully different “type” thereof).

I don’t see how it makes sense in your view to make a dichotomy between an intended vs. foreseen effect in this way. It would only make sense if you accepted that some foreseen effects are not intentional whatsoever; which I do not understand you to be making that claim.

For Anscombe the Cartesian approach to intention is more or less the idea that one can simply and straightforwardly choose which effects of their act to intend and which effects to not-intend.

Interesting. I am not sure I followed, though. This sounds like a view whereof one gets to dictate what they are intending, as opposed to what they end up doing to aim at their intention being intentional—irregardless of what they believe they are intending to do.

All directly intended killings of this sort are impermissible, and this is what we call murder or killing simpliciter. As to indirectly intended killings, some are permissible and some are not.

Again, all intended killings that are illegal are murder: that includes indirectly intended ones. The only way around this is to deviate substantially from common terminology.

When one aims at an end uses a means with two effects, one of which is to the benefit of the end and other merely accidental, then their act of using the means is an act simultaneously towards both effects — Bob Ross

So you are engaged in the use of that word "means" in precisely the dubious and misleading way I explained above. I have explained this many times, so I don't feel the need to do so again.

There was nothing dubious with my statement (other than a syntax/grammar mistake): if one aims at an end by using a means, that means has two effects, one effect ….

Wouldn’t you agree, that all effects relevant to an analysis of intention stem from a means utilized to aim at the direct intention.

The other issue I just realized, is that the direct vs. indirect distinction is not the same as the per se vs. per accidens intention I made. A direct intention points out the flow of the aim, from start to finish, in the particular practical application (and so, for example, a means utilized for the end is directly intended, but a side effect from that means is indirectly intended); whereas a per se intention points out the “final cause”, or “original intention” stripped of all accidental aims enveloped into it by the practical circumstances, which is being set out as the “original end”.

That’s why we haven’t been able to agree on the terminology here; because we are talking about two separate things, but both vital to our discussion.

It is important to note the “directional flow” that is set out, like the aiming of an archer at their target, to understand what is essential to achieving the end in the given circumstance; but, likewise, it is important to note the “bare end” which was set out to begin with, and is not dependent on the circumstances. E.g., an archer that intends to hit their mark on their target directly intends to release the arrow from their bow towards their target in a most optimal manner and they indirectly intend to scare someone if they can foresee the person next to them being alarmed by their release of said arrow; whereas the archer’s end (here) may require releasing the arrow at an odd angle due to windy circumstances (and this release in said manner would be, if it is foreseen, directly intended) but this is NOT a part of the per se intention that they have—for their purposive final cause is to hit their target, which has no relevance itself to the particular windy circumstances of a nuanced, practical situation they may be in (viz., if there was no windy circumstance, then they would still have the same end in sight).

These two distinctions are not the same at all; and our dispute really hinged on a conflation between the two.

The question that is being begged is whether a foreseen effect is a "doing."

How??? It is simple: one does something which results in the foreseen effect.

Here is what you need to address if you want to deny double effect:
Stay with what I already wrote. Is it or is it not morally prohibited to directly intend these emissions? That is the first question you need to consider.

I already answered this. I do not view doing something that results in emissions necessarily immoral; so this is a bad example.

The hypothetical is physically impossible. In that situation you simply do not have sufficient time to deliberate. If one wants a case where there is sufficient time to deliberate, then they will need to cook up a new hypothetical.

Then your car example makes no sense, and cannot be answered. It presupposed that one knows that they either can swerve and kill two, or not swerve and kill four. You are now saying they lack the proper deliberation to know this; which contradicts your stipulations.

As a remote intention they may be trying to land somewhere with no people, but practically speaking they may foresee the effect that at least some people will die. In that case they are trying to minimize death and injury.

Yes, but it isn’t a certain foreseen effect; which matters. I was saying that one indirectly and per accidens intends killing the one when pulling the lever because they are certain of the foreseen effect of killing the one and still did it anyways to save the five. If you stipulate that there is a 10% chance of killing someone if one pulls the lever and one knows for certain that pulling the lever saves the five; then I would say it is morally obligatory to pull the lever.

That's not what "ideal" means, and that's why your definition fails.

I looked up the term, and that is fair. I was thinking of “idea” and not “ideal”. A intention is “an act of volition which aims at some idea (end)”.

Edit: The contentious claim you are making is something like <There is no morally relevant difference between direct intention and indirect intention; between an end and a foreseen effect>.

That is not my claim at all: I can accept that there is a morally relevant difference between a direct and indirect intention and between an end and a foreseen effect while also accepting that it not relevant to the moral fact that one should never intend to kill an innocent human being [against their will]. You find these distinctions to provide some morally relevant reason for making this kind of killing sometimes morally permissible (or omissible), but I don’t see it—but that’s not the same thing as me not seeing or agreeing about the fact that such distinctions are distinctions.

Eh, I think I’ve changed my mind again. :lol:

No worries at all! As you know, I change my mind all the time :smile: . I commend your efforts to genuinely strive after the truth—which is a rare quality these days.

"I accept a relatively uncontroversial form of double effect whereby the unintended effect must only be possible and not certain"
…
That is, it is too intentional, even if it is, strictly speaking, indirectly intended

How can you deploy the principle of double effect, even possibly, in the airplane, trolley, and car examples if your definition of double effect precludes the permissibility of indirectly intentional acts, effects, etc. ?

Viz., your elaboration of the principle of double effect whereof the side effect is unintended: wouldn’t it need to be unintended or indirectly intended for your view to be consistent?

After reading a book by Kevin Flannery a few years ago I became convinced that it is not permissible to pull the lever in the trolley case.*

I put that in my queue of books to read; thanks for the heads up!

Flannery shows that Anscombe’s critique of “Cartesian intention” is correct, and that circumstances are always relevant to moral questions.

Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with “cartesian intention”; so I cannot comment on this part.

That is, it is too intentional, even if it is, strictly speaking, indirectly intended. This is basically what you yourself have been saying.

We are closer to agreeing now, but we have slightly different views here: you seem to be saying that it is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being when it is of a high enough degree of intention (deliberation), whereas I am saying period.

When one aims at an end uses a means with two effects, one of which is to the benefit of the end and other merely accidental, then their act of using the means is an act simultaneously towards both effects; and those effects are both intentional (either indirectly or directly) when one deliberately does it with knowledge of both effects; and if that act is producing something bad, like killing an innocent person, even if it simultaneously produces something good, then they should never intentionally do it (i.e., it is morally impermissible) because a moral agent, not in the sense of just being capable of being moral but actually being moral, does not do bad things.

To me, it doesn’t matter how extensively they deliberated about doing the act; if they did it deliberately at all it is wrong.

The case where the car is about to hit four people is artificial in the sense that it conflates a case where there is almost zero deliberation with a case where we have ample time to deliberate

That’s fair; but it doesn’t change anything because you stipulated that they can only either run over the two (and save the other two) or run over all four. In real life, we can both agree one should swerve but with the intention of missing all four. That’s the key: you’ve setup the hypothetical where the person would have sufficient time to deliberate on whether to run over just the two or the entire four. What you are noting about the difference in deliberation time is a practical critique that doesn’t apply to your hypothetical.

But in the airplane example I think the pilot does need to aim at the area with least people

In practicality I agree, because the pilot would not be intending to kill people in area A as opposed to B to limit the deaths: they would be intending to land somewhere with no people.

Perhaps, you would still say that it is morally permissible for the pilot to intend to kill one person on the ground to avoid crashing into a festival; but I wouldn’t (for the previous reasons above).

In terms of the way I define “intention” as “a power of the will whereof it aims at some ideal”, I am using “ideal” in the sense of “what should be” not what “ultimately should be”: you are confusing these two. If you intend not to get your feet wet and thereby decide to jump over the puddle in the street, then you had set forth an “ideal” to not have wet feet but, to your point, it is not an “ideal” in the sense that ultimately jumping over the puddle was exactly how reality should be (e.g., you might think that ideally there should have been no puddle at all, etc.). I am using “ideal” and “end” interchangeably here: they both refer to some sort of dictation a subject gives about reality such that it should be a way it currently isn’t—and that’s the nature of aiming at an end.

Always good work from Bob, I have been able to grasp my own thoughts a bit better through your exchange with Herg in here. Thanks for all the work and intel you share consistently, it is appreciated. Many others to be thanked in this from me as well, good stuff all around. Cool.

:up: You too, Kizzy!

My argument is relatively simple:

P1: It is morally impermissible to intentionally kill an innocent human being [against their will].
P2: One intentionally kills an innocent human being [against their will] by pulling the lever.
C: It is morally impermissible to pull the lever.

Now, you are contending with P1 (obviously); and I explained that it stems from the idea that beings of a rational kind have rights:

P1*1: It is morally impermissible to violate a living being’s rights.
P1*2: One is violating the rights of a being of a rational kind by intentionally killing them [when they are innocent and it is against their will].
P1*C: It is morally impermissible to intentionally kill an innocent human being [against their will].

Now, I’ve given many reasons for the idea that beings a rational kind should have rights in this comment which you completely ignored.

I will briefly recap that comment:

1. Rational beings are sufficiently civic and social whereof they engage in a “social contract”; and this social contract must guarantee certain irrevocable entitlements of power about themselves which can be exercised on other people—i.e., rights.

2. Rational beings have sufficient free will to engage in their own projects and, in this regard, makes them capable of (1) being moral agents and (2) significantly richer degrees of happiness.

#1 is a point that stems from the idea that rights come from “social contracts”; and #2 stems from the idea that rights are innate. Personally, I go for #2; but either sufficiently demonstrates the bulk of my point (although #2 does it more completely).

With respect to #1, one cannot be fair while extracting work from another being which is engaging and contributing in society and not reciprocate anything back to them. Likewise, they cannot revoke the entitlements which may be granted by way of being a citizen (of said society) when it is convenient.

With respect to #2, the rational capacities of a human, as opposed to other animals, (e.g., free will, self-consciousness, etc.) seems to set them out as (A) more important and (B) an object of respected action and will. With respect to A, I don’t think we disagree on this point; but you don’t see B yet: to treat a rational being with respect, one must respect their free willed decisions—which is not present in respecting irrational beings.

I was traveling today and so I listened to a recent talk by a good philosopher, Kevin Flannery (who is not the best public speaker). He talks about the way that Aquinas views the relation of the means and the end at 18:08-22:19, which is what you are speaking about. (For the whole section on Aquinas' view of intention, see 17:41.)

I listened to it briefly, and it sounds promising. I will listen to the whole video sometime, but I don’t have the time right now.

You are building your definition around a noun, 'ideal.' Even on your redaction, the Google definition is still built around something that directly refers to the verb of acting, "a course of action." The genus of intention is acts, whereas the genus of ideals is ideas. An intention is some kind of act, not some kind of idea or ideal. This may seem like a quibble, but it's really not, as many people make this mistake about intention.

I would say, to clarify, that an intention is an activity of the will + reason such that one aims at an ideal. You can’t strip out the ideality of it: that makes no sense.

The idea is that the intention of the means and the intention of the end are both separable and inseparable. We can view them under different aspects, but to say they are entirely separate is not correct.

Taking this on face value, it is incoherent. I think you are definitely getting at something, but it isn’t fully fleshed out yet.

Flannery speaks of the means as, "The things [the agent] believes or hopes will lead to [his] end."

I think that is a bad definition, because it converts an actual means into a believed means and conflates the two. E.g., I could intend to quench my thirst and go to the store to get water bottles and someone else points out that I could have just went into the kitchen to get water (viz., the fact that I am unaware of the means does not make it less of an means [potential or actual] towards my intention).

You have missed the distinction between a potential means and an actual means. Go back to my tennis racquet example. Before I begin playing the three racquets are each a potential means to playing tennis. Once I choose the Wilson racquet and begin playing, the Wilson racquet is an actual means to playing tennis. A potential means is that which can be used to realize some end. An actual means is that which is used in order to realize some end.

I was just commenting that the semantics seems a bit confusing and in need of refurbishment; but I understand the distinction you are making (although it doesn’t make any relevant difference to me with respect to our discussion). The racquets you don’t choose to use are actually a means to your end (of playing tennis): to say they are potentially a means is to imply that they are not currently a means; which is clearly false.

They are still a means because they can facilitate your end. Remember, we defined means in such a way where what you call a “potential means” fits the definition of a “means” simpliciter. Saying it is potentially a means is to say it isn’t a means right now, which is clearly false given the definition I outlined before.

Our whole proximate goal is to distinguish a means from a foreseen effect

I am pretty confident I have already clarified this; but let me do so again. A means is something which can facilitate an end (i.e., intention). A foreseen effect is an effect that one knows with sufficient probability is going to occur before it happens.

for example by pointing to the fact that the car's polluting emissions are not a means to getting groceries, but they are a foreseen effect

I agree: the pollution emissions is an effect of the means used to achieve the end (in this case).

So then you tried to make a distinction on intention to clear this up, with "essential intention" and "accidental intention." But now you say that both a means and a foreseen effect are intended per accidens,
…

Right, and you don't yet have the tools to even see the difference between a means and a foreseen effect. At this point it is invisible to you

Both a means and a foreseen effect can be intended (per accidens or per se); it just depends. I’ve already outlined what I mean by all the concepts involved here.

A means is intended, if one is aiming at using that something (which is question) to facilitate their intention (i.e., end).

A means is intended per accidens, if it is intended only for the sake of another intention which they currently set out to achieve.

A means is intended per se, if it is intended for the sake of the primary intention which they are currently setting out to achieve.

In the trolley problem:

1. A means to saving the five is the lever.
2. Saving the five is an effect (of pulling the lever).
3. Saving the five is an intention (that one is aiming at achieving).
4. Killing the one is an effect (of pulling the lever).
5. The effect of saving the five is per se intentional, because it is directly related to the initial, primary intention at play.
6. The effect of killing the one is per accidens intentional, because it is indirectly related to the initial, primary intention at play.
7. The means (of pulling the lever) is per se intention, because it is directly …

If your car is essential to actualizing the intention (i.e. it is an essential means) then it is not right to say that the car is "unessential to the intention which I have."

You are just getting confused in colloquial speech. I’ve already clarified that the unessentiality is to the ideal which one is aiming at; and which it can be readily seen that the car is unessential in this sense because if there was no car one would still have the exact same intention.

To say that "it could be an actual means towards Q [but in this case it is not]" is just to say that it is a potential means towards Q. That's what a potential means is.

Saying it is potentially a means is to say it isn’t a means right now. A, in the V diagram, IS A MEANS to Q even if one directly intends P—that’s what you are missing.

To your point, what you are really conveying is that if one doesn’t use the means, then it wasn’t used; but, to my point, it is still a means.

No it's not, because for Brock an actual means is directly intended

I agree; and you just aren’t seeing that yet. By “actual means”, all you mean is “a means that was used”; and I completely agree that only the means that are used for one’s aims are per se, directly, intentional. There’s no problems with that.

No, this is a case of negligence, and is quite different from what we are considering.

Can we at least agree that indirectly intending to kill someone is murder? You can’t possibly think that the legal definition of “manslaughter” would encompass indirectly intentionally killing someone. That was my point.

Regarding this third wall, suppose there is an evil and it is morally impermissible to directly intend this evil. Does it follow that it is impermissible to indirectly intend this evil?
…
I think not. Take the matter of the especially bad car emissions due to a faulty exhaust system. Is it impermissible to directly intend those emissions? For example, to allow your car to idle for the sake of the emissions? I think so. Does it follow that it is impermissible to get groceries in the car, even when you know it will produce those emissions? No, I don't think so.

I think this is a bad example, then, because I don’t see bad car emissions as necessarily evil (i.e., intrinsically bad). Whereas I do think that indirectly intending to kill someone is wrong and is an example of indirectly intending to do evil.

For example, imagine that the only way you could get to the grocery store was use a car that you knew would (somehow) result (as a side effect) in raping someone: is that permissible under your view? Or do you revert back to some sort of consequentialist view at that point?

But the moral compass is off if you think that, all other things being equal, you must sit idly by when you could save some people from dying

I never suggested otherwise.

it is intention that most of all makes one a moral agent, not the act.

Correct; but they are closely connected.

This begs the question between us, which is whether killing Alan and Betty is an immoral act if it is the only way of saving the lives of Charles and Dora.

I was just answering your question.

How do you know which actions, on the one hand, are immoral, and which, on the other, are permissible or obligatory?

Ultimately based off of what is Good; and how best to progress towards and preserve it.

You need to work that out first, and then that will tell you whether someone is a moral agent or not. So actions are more central to normative ethics than being a moral agent.

Actions are a part of being a moral agent; and what one needs to “work out first” is knowledge of The Good.

In terms of what I think the highest good is, and why I think it is immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being, I have already explicated this to you—but you never responded to them. I would suggest you reread them and respond if you want to engage in that aspect of the conversation.

To put it starkly, 'intend' is a verb whereas 'ideal' is a noun.

I am not entirely understanding your critique for this part. Here’s a basic google definition: “have (a course of action) as one's purpose or objective; plan.”.

As far as I can tell, all I have to do to avoid this critique is refurbish my definition to “to have an ideal of which one is planning or trying to actualize”—now it is a verb, and is still closely connected to ideality.

If you are just noting that I was using ideal somewhat interchangeably with intention; then you are correct: that was a mistake on my end.

An intention of the end can be more or less essential depending on how it relates to my telos and my will; an intention of the means can be more or less essential depending on how it relates to my intended end, etc

I think we are just analyzing the essentiality (or lack thereof) of different aspects of the examples. I agree with you that a means may be essential to actualizing my intention; but that’s NOT what I was distinguishing with per se vs. per accidens intentions.

You are determining what is essential to actualizing an intention; whereas I am determine what is essential to the intention. E.g., if my intention is to get groceries and the only means of doing so is using my car, then my car is essential to actualizing the intention but unessential to the intention which I have (viz., if the car wasn’t essential towards my intentions, I would still have that intention and it would be unaltered by the omission of the car as a means—so the intention to use the car as a means towards my intention here would be a per accidens intention).

I would say a means is NOT an intention; but means can be intentional. — Bob Ross

So if you intend to quench your thirst and you begin filling your glass at the faucet, you would say that you did not intend to fill your glass? Filling your glass is a means.

You have to be careful with what one is analyzing. Filling your glass is a means and an intention in your example here; and not in the sense you would like it to be (viz., that a means is itself an intention): the ‘entity’ is separately attributed both.

The intention is to quench one’s thirst.
The means towards that intention is filling up your glass.
The intention to quench one’s thirst requires another intention to fill up your glass.
Filling up your glass is a means, and it is intended (with an intention separate from the other intention, but closely connected).

This is not a gradient of intention: they are separate intentions (but closely related).

Colloquial we use "means" in two related senses: actual means and potential means.

This is a fair assessment; and, yes, I was referring to one sometimes and the other sometimes. E.g., pulling the lever is a means towards killing the one, but if I intend to save the five then pulling the lever is not an actual (albeit potential) means for killing the one because it is not a means towards my actual intention.

I would be wary to call it potential vs. actual; because some means towards one’s intentions aren’t necessary “used”. It seems cleaner to distinguish between means for this vs. means for that. Potential means for this do not relate to potential means for that; and potential means for this are means for this, but not necessary utilized (actualized) means towards this.

Walking into the kitchen is an actual means, and quenching your thirst is an end, and both are intended. I was asking about the relation between the actual means and the foreseen effect, not the relation between the end and the actual means.

The foreseen effect(s) are always intentional, because they, even if they are not means towards one’s intended end, are enveloped into the original intention as per accidens intentions. E.g., if I pull the the lever, which is a means towards my intention to save the five, knowing that it will also result in the effect of killing another person; then I am intending to kill that other person, per accidens, to achieve my, per se, intention of saving the five.

The problem is that you are falsely implying that A is an actual means to Q. I would rather say, "a foreseen effect of a chosen act is indirectly intentional."

Although I see your point, it could be an actual means towards Q; but the intention here (stipulated) is towards P; so A is not a means towards Q when working towards P.

Nevertheless, Q falls under the agent's intention because it is accepted as a known consequence of his action. But sticking with Brock's language, we can simply say that Q is indirectly intended.

This “indirect intention” is what I mean by “per accidens intention”.

We agree that Q is indirectly intended, but I would not say that he means to bring about Q, nor that he is required to achieve Q. I would not say the first because A is not an (actual) means to Q, and I would not say the second because it is not an accurate use of the word 'achieve'. I would say that he is required to accept Q, not achieve Q

This is just because “he means to” is being used vaguely: we have circled back to using “intention” vaguely. I would say, more precisely, that he per accidens intends Q (viz., he indirectly intends Q), and this is a form of intention—i.e., it is intentional. All we are disagreeing about is what kind or type of intention is at play.

I think that any intentional killing of an innocent human being is immoral; whereas you seem to disagree with that in the case that it is “indirectly intended”.

Indirect intention does involve a kind of absence of intention. Involuntary manslaughter does work that way. Negligence is a form of indirect intention. The trolley lever-puller might be charged with involuntary manslaughter, but they would not be charged with murder.

NOOOOO. I see now why we are disagreeing. The indirect intention you previously described is not accidental in the sense that the person doesn’t know what they are doing (i.e., that it is not intentional). Now you are using the term “intention” is weird ways and incoherent ways.

If a person intends to do P by way of A and they know A also results in Q; then they thereby intend Q. Either you have to reject that Q is intentional (and thusly is not a form of indirect intention) or you have to agree that the person is at least intended Q. You can’t turn around and treat intentions as if they AREN’T intentions.

Manslaughter is unintentional: that’s its defining feature in contrast to murder. No court would ever agree with you that manslaughter is a form of intention.

I think what you are trying to convey is the following:

if a person intends to drive while texting and they know that there is a chance that they might be too distracted by it and kill someone, then they have not thereby intended to kill someone in the event that they do become too distracted and kill someone—and this you are trying to describe as “indirectly intended”. Notwithstanding the previous problems I outlined with your use of “intention” here, another problem is that, even by both our analysis of indirect intention, knowing there is a chance of killing someone is not enough to implicate someone, in itself, in intending (even indirectly) to kill someone. Instead, a better example would be:

if a person intends to drive while texting, and they know this will result in them getting too distracted, crashing, and killing an innocent bystander, then they have thereby intended to kill someone—albeit an per accidens (indirect) intention. THIS IS MURDER, although perhaps not in the first degree.

So the first wall of your castle was the idea that a necessary condition indicates a means, and we have overcome that wall. The second wall is the idea that A is a means to Q, and I think we are close to overcoming that wall. The third wall is now in play, which is the idea that A is impermissible because Q is indirectly intended.

:up:

In the case of Alan, Betty, Charles and Dora, where the driver let Charles and Dora die by not turning the wheel, can we at any rate agree that you consider the lives of Charles and Dora to be less important than obedience to the rule that you should not kill an innocent person by positive action?

I believe so (if I am understanding correctly). What you are saying is that, under my view, saving Charles and Dora is less important than not doing immmoral acts; and that I certainly agree with (and I think so should you).

I am a virtue ethicist, so I think a moral compass is the most vital and important aspect of normative ethics--it is the kernel so to speak. Being a moral agent, in the sense of embodying what is good and not what is bad (by doing at least morally permissible and obligatory actions), is of central and paramount importance. Any theory that posits otherwise seems to be missing the point of normative ethics entirely (IMHO).

This just begs the question.

Leontiskos: I haven't forgot about your original response: I will respond later to it, as I don't have enough time right now.



I just wanted to clarify something about my response; because I think I slightly blundered in a couple spots.

If I let something facilitate my goal, it does not follow that I used that something to facilitate my goal: the latter is an action, but the former is about inaction. However, something which facilitates my goal, even if it is already in play (and so I didn't actually use it), is something which is a means (and, to Leontiskos other point, an actual means) towards my end; because that something is facilitating my goal. So it does follow that my inaction of not pulling the lever, which is to say that the lever not being pulled, is the means by which I achieve my intention of having no effect on the situation.

In the example you gave, letting the five die nor killing the one is a means to my desired non-effect: not pulling the lever, or more precisely the lever not being pulled, is that means. The five people dying is an effect of that means being utilized, which in this case is already being utilized because it is already in play. So, to recap:

1. I did not use the five, by letting them die, as a means because there is no action I took which leveraged a means towards that end; and

2. Letting the five die is not a means towards the end of doing nothing: it is, rather, an effect, in some cases, of doing nothing.

I disagree. You have fallen into the consequentialist trap. You think it is ok to use people as a means towards (or at as sacrifices for) good ends.

So we either fail to treat two people as ends, or we are complicit in the failure to treat millions as ends.

Again, my whole view hinges, in this case, on whether one can save the millions without committing anything immoral; and, to keep things simple, this hinges on whether or not they are intentionally killing innocent people. We are just approaching it totally differently. Your conclusion here is utterly consequentialistic.

Firstly, my argument, which has been refined quite a bit with the help of @Leontiskos, does not hinge on a principle of “never treat a person as a mere means, but always simultaneously an end-in-themselves” (EP) because I don’t think it is enough: I am thoroughly convinced, by the help of @Leontiskos, that swerving is the means to saving the two and killing the other two is not a means towards that. However, killing the two is still immoral; because I maintain that it is an intentional killing of two innocent human beings.

I hold a much stronger principle than EP, which is something like “never treat a person without the dignity which they innately deserve”. We can call this DP. IP, as you called it, stems from this principle (ultimately).

Secondly, what exactly do you mean by “treating someone as an end” vs. not <...>? I would say that, although one is not treating the sacrificed two as a means towards saving the other two, one is, by intentionally swerving with the knowledge that it will kill them, violating those two sacrificed people’s right to not be killed when innocent and, in virtue of that, are thereby not treating them as an end-in-themselves. Your distinction rests on the assumption that not treating someone as a means entails that they are treated as an end-in-themselves—which is a false dichotomy in my view.

Thirdly, letting something bad happen to someone because one intends to not do immoral acts is not a means towards that intention. A really easy way to explain why is by example: if I intend to abide by your EP principle and I am faced with either (1) doing nothing or (2) treating them as a means, then by your own logic if you choose #1 you have actually treated them as purely a means towards EP and so #1 collapses into #2.

The reason this absurdity occurs, is because you are using the term “means” entirely too loosely (which I have done as well—so you are not alone in this [; ). Nothingness cannot facilitate anything, so it cannot be a means; that is, not acting can never be a means because it cannot facilitate anything (since it is purely negative: it is nothing) nor can whatever is inacted upon as a means be a means because nothing was acted upon.

What you are implicitly doing, is thinking of non-activity like activity. If I act in a manner where I pull a lever with the intent to save the five, then the lever and (arguably the) action is a means towards that intention; but if I don’t pull the lever (which is purely a negation of what could have been done) with the intent to not sacrifice the one (or simply to not save the two), then there is nothing being used, by the agent which did not act, all else being equal, which facilitated that intention. Instead, in the latter case, what facilitates the intention is already in play--and that is the whole point of not doing something for the benefit of an intention.

It follows that the consequences of not doing something can never be a means, nor can the inaction itself. So I reject that when I let the four die, that I am using them as a means towards my intention.

However, I would like to note that because I do not use them as a means by letting them die it does not immediately follow that my inaction is morally permissible; because, although I am not intentionally killing them, it may be wrong that I am letting them die (e.g., if I could save them easily without doing something immoral, then letting them die is morally imperissible). You simply do not have this sort of distinction in your view, because you just view it through the lens of means vs. ends.

Okay, fair enough, and this is a good post. I will offer a few more posts, but I don't know how long I will stick around. I was limiting myself to the "means" question in large part because I don't have time to get drawn into all of the other related topics.

Fair enough.

Somewhat, but I would not call it "an ideal."

It is an ideal insofar as it is an idea about how reality should be. When one takes on a purpose, they are implicitly conceding that they believe reality is not the way it should be. To your point, it may not be an ideal insofar as it is ultimately how reality should be.

"The end is first in the order of intention; the means is first in the order of execution."

:fire:

My essential or per se intention is that which adheres most closely to the aim that my will has formed.

Not quite. The per se intention would be the ideal which you are trying to actualize, and any means of achieving it would be accidental. That which adheres most closely to that aim is just a means that adheres most closely to that aim—and so it is accidental, not per se.

So:

As a metaphor, the fastest and most efficient route to the grocery store adheres most closely to my end, my intention to get groceries.

Getting groceries is the per se intention; and the fastest and using the most efficient route to the grocery store is the per accidens intention.

I think we are distinguishing per se and per accidens differently, perhaps?

The danger here is attaching intention too strongly to ends such that it becomes unattached to means

I would say a means is NOT an intention; but means can be intentional.

. You have an intention to quench your thirst but you also end up forming an intention to walk into the kitchen

But a means is not identical to an intention: there are means which one doesn’t not intend (e.g., they are not aware of them). The intention towards walking in the kitchen is a separate intention from quenching my thirst, but they are closely connected: the latter is the essence of what I am intending to do, whereas the former is just an accidental means towards it. I still intend both, just differently.

Likewise, if I did not intend the former, it would not change the fact that it is a means to the latter.

Means and ends are both kinds of intentions

Not in the sense as I defined it. I guess, what is your definition of a ‘means’? It can’t be how I defined it, because that definition does not preclude unintentional means.

do they become equal parts in the intention of the end?

Not in the sense that I think you mean it. I only intend to walk to the kitchen because I intend to quench my thirst.

This is what Brock means by direct intention vs. indirect intention. A means is directly intended whereas a foreseen effect is only indirectly intended.

Ok, that’s fine then.

A is a (chosen) means to P, and Q is a foreseen effect of A, but does it follow that A is a means to Q?

A is a means to Q because A is useful for facilitating Q—even if one accidentally intends or doesn’t intend at all Q.

You are right that Q is a foreseen effect; but that doesn’t absolve A from being a means toward that effect.

This is where it becomes important to recognize that a means must be appropriated by a volitional subject in order to truly be a means.

Then you reject the definition I gave, and don’t know what definition you are using.

1. "He means to achieve P"
2. "He means to achieve Q"
3. (both)
[4. “He per se intends P, and per accidens intends Q” ]

I can appreciate what you are going for: he “means” to achieve P and not Q in the sense that P is the main, primary goal and Q is not at all. But this does not absolve him, in this scenario, from intending Q; because a foreseen effect of a chosen means is intentional.

If Q is merely a foreseen effect then he neither means to achieve Q, nor does he mean to not-achieve Q. The fact that he does not mean to achieve it shows that it is not directly intended (in Brock's language). The fact that he does not mean to not-achieve it shows that it is indirectly intended on the presumption that he chooses/intends A. If he means to not-achieve Q then he would not choose/intend A. As I said above, "Supposing !(A → Q), would I still choose A?"

It seems like, then, you are agreeing with me with different words: Q is, in this example, intentional—but indirectly. Then it is not true that “He means only to achieve P”: he means to achieve P, and this requires him to achieve Q as well (simply because A is a means towards both and never one or the other).

If A were a means to Q, then you would say that A is useful for some intention (with respect to Q). But what intention is that? The intended end is P, and A is only intended because it is a means to P.

It is useful for achieving Q—which has not direct relation to any intention. There could be no intention towards Q, and it would still follow that Q can be facilitated by way of A.

A is "a means" to Q in the abstract sense, but it is not a means that you appropriate via intention

It is appropriated via intention if one accepts my premise that “if one foresees an effect (Q) of a means (A) and chooses to use that means (A) to achieve their intention towards another effect (P), then they thereby intend Q”.

Throughout you have been making dozens of very minor mistakes which I overlook for the sake of time. Here is an example of that. Your first clause is technically true, but the description is inaccurate. Action A (swerving) is not done "to kill two people to save two other people."

“to” in that sentence does not imply that it is a means: it is referring to an intentional effect facilitated equally in order to achieve the other effect. I think you may be splitting hairs here a bit.

So the whole point of my conversation with you is to demonstrate that a means and a foreseen effect are both intended, but in different ways!

That’s fair and I agree now.

Is it always wrong to accidentally-intentionally kill innocent people? More precisely, is it always wrong to indirectly intend to kill innocent people? Is voluntary "manslaughter" always negligent?

This is why I was wary to call it “per accidens”, because I am NOT referring to a colloquial usage of the term “accident”: the latter is used commonly to refer to something someone didn’t intend to do. Manslaughter is when someone unintentionally kills someone: having a per accidens intention to kill someone for the sake of a per se intention to save someone else is NOT an unintentional killing.

The accidental aspect I am referring to, is the part of the intention, which is still an intention, that is required in the specific circumstances to achieve the original, per se, intention. Both are intentional, even if they are intended in different ways. That’s not how manslaughter works.

Another thing that we haven't directly delved into is the difference between causal necessity and logical necessity.

Yes, that’s fine; it was stipulated in the trolley problem to avoid that kind of conversation.

This relates to intention because indirect intentions and per accidens causality tend to go hand in hand. The closer to per se causality an act approaches, the less plausible is the idea that the effect was not directly intended. For example, it makes some sense to say that you pulled the lever without (directly) intending to cause the person's death, but it makes no sense at all to say that you pulled the lever without intending to switch the track

I would say that what you are truly getting at, is that knowledge one should have about what they are doing is tied to what we believe they intend. This is absolutely true, and can ride, pragmatically, on a per se vs. per accidens causality.

Correct. If they know that they are going to kill an innocent person by intentionally killing hitler; then they are intentionally killing that innocent person to kill hitler.

You have a lot of good points, but I am, to be honest, losing track of the course of this conversation. So I am going to take your advice and wipe the slate clean. I am going to attempt to provide a more clear and robust analysis of what I am trying to argue: consider anything in here that is contradictory to what I have previously said as a concession.

I am going to keep it short and sweet, and let you navigate the conversation from here.

An intention is an ideal meant to be actualized.

An intention can have two aspects: what is essential and what is accidental.

The accidental aspect of an intention is the part of the ideal which is only in virtue of the particular circumstances in which it is being actualized.

The essential aspect of an intention is the part of the ideal which is not dependent on the circumstances whatsoever; and comprises the essence of it.

The course of action chosen in a situation to actualize the intention is a part of the accidental aspect of it. E.g., if I intend to quench my thirst and I decide that I should walk into the kitchen to get a water bottle (or fill up a glass with water), then doing so is something I intend to do but merely because in the particular circumstances it is best for actualizing the essential aspect of my intention (which is to quench my thirst).

A means is something useful for an intention.

A means is not necessarily necessary. E.g., if I have the intention of getting groceries, then using my car or my bike would be a means towards that end—but neither are necessary per se (since one could be used instead of the other).

Something that is necessary to accomplish an intention is necessarily a means towards that intention. E.g., if I have the intention of getting groceries and I can only get them by way of using my car, then my car is a necessary means towards that intention.

A means that is utilized for an intention always becomes a part of that intention. E.g., if I have the intention of getting groceries and I can use my bike or car and I choose to use my car, then using my car becomes a part of the ideal (but as an accidental aspect of it).

The foreseen consequences of a means always become a part of the intention which utilizes that means. E.g., if I have the intention of getting groceries and I choose to use my car of which I know will pollute the atmosphere, then my car polluting the atmosphere is a part of the ideal (but an accidental aspect of it).

It follows that in the V diagram, Q is not a means towards P; and P is not a means towards Q. A is a means towards Q and P.

It follows that swerving to kill two people to save two other people is a means towards saving the two people; but that the killing of the two people was not a means to saving the two people but, rather, an effect of swerving.

It follows that the effects of swerving are twofold: killing two people and saving two people; and that both are intentional, because the foreseen consequences of a means (which, in this case, is swerving) are always intentional (albeit a part of the accidental aspect).

It is always wrong to intentionally kill innocent people; so utilizing a means which has a foreseen consequence of killing an innocent person (thereby making it a part of the accidental aspect of the intention) is wrong.

What say you?

For example the lever-puller will say that they merely let the single person die in order to save the five

Which would be clearly false under my view, because them killing someone is not an inaction.

To intend and cause the death of someone is to intentionally kill them

No it is not: letting someone die is not an intentional killing—killing is an action. By “cause”, we could be saying that one’s action or inaction caused the person’s death.

It makes no sense for you to say that you intend and cause their necessary death but you do not kill them.

Do you not agree that “killing” is an action which results in the death of a living being? If you do, then it should be very apparent to you that letting someone die is not a killing—irregardless if you believe that, in some or all cases, letting someone die is morally impermissible.

Edit: If Bob Ross were right, then one would have a magic get-out-of-jail-free card for any moral quandary: just do nothing

This is either the biggest straw-man of my position I have had yet (to-date); or you have not grasped what I have been arguing. Letting someone die is morally permissible IF one cannot save them without committing an immoral act.

Now I should say again that your definition of a "means" is not a good definition.

You just keep asserting this, and I keep responding with the fact that I see no difference between Herg’s vs. my definition. Demonstrate why it isn’t good.

"something useful or helpful to a desired end."

That’s fine, and essentially the exact same as how I defined it.

One of the fundamental problems here is that your account is unable to distinguish between the "V" and the "7" in my diagram. So then either 1) There are no relevant moral differences between "V" situations and "7" situations, and therefore your inability to distinguish them is unimportant, or 2) There are relevant moral differences between "V" situations and "7" situations, and therefore your inability to distinguish them is problematic.

Like I said before, the V diagram is an incomplete representation of the examples we have had. Let’s take the car example: Q is required for P in this specific scenario S, although Q is not required to bring about P all else being equal (let’s call it E).

In S, one can represent it with the V diagram but with Q and P being both required for A; and one cannot remove Q without removing P.

So it would instead be, "Q is not a means to P in 'V' because if one disconnects Q from A then P is still connected to A." Note that Q is not a means because it does not mediate A and P.

Which is an inaccurate representation of, for example, the car example. One cannot save the two without running over the other two, so Q is required for A.

Let's get back to fundamentals again. There are two basic principles in conflict:
• Pdfs: The principle of the diffusiveness of intention
• Pndiv: The principle of the non-divisiveness of intention

I reject “P<ndiv>”. Why should one accept that?

“P<dfs>” seems directly contradictory to “P<ndiv>”.

You seem to be committed to the position which says that when I drive to the grocery store I am intending to consume fuel. This isn't correct. I intend to get groceries, and the consumption of fuel is a side-effect that I would prefer not occur. I only assent to it because I don't know how to get to the grocery store without consuming fuel.
…
if for some reason fuel is not consumed during my trip, the trip is successful all the same. If I get back to my home and see that the fuel has not been diminished, I do not say, "Oh no, my purpose was not achieved!"

Firstly, I am saying that if you intend to get groceries and you know that you have to consume fuel to do so, then you intend to consume fuel to get groceries.

Secondly, intending to consume fuel to get groceries does not result in the purpose being uncompleted if fuel didn’t end up getting consumed: consuming fuel was the means to the end (i.e., purpose) and not the purpose itself.

My point is that if one has a purpose X and knows that they need Y to achieve X, then they have the purpose of using Y to achieve X. You seem to be confusing this with the claim that Y is itself the purpose.

Remember that the key is the relation between P and Q.

In the car example, one cannot achieve P without Q, so Q is a means to achieving P because a means is something useful to a desired end, and Q is useful towards the end P. Not only that, but it is also necessary for achieving the end; so it is a necessary means.

But again, to know whether Q is means to P we must understand the relation between P and Q, and the conditional necessity that you are betting all your chips on is represented by (P → Q).

No I am not. P does not entail Q nor does Q entail P in the car example: A → P & Q. Q is a means towards A (A → Q), and A is the intention towards P (which can’t be expressed in the logic we have been using) and results in P (A → P).

So first, A is not "swerving to save four people." Saving four people is impossible, and we do not intend the impossible

That was a slight typo on my end, and you completely missed the point. Swap out “swerving to save four people” with “swerving to save two people” in this:

Now, an easy way to understand the flaw in your reasoning is to reflect on your 7 diagram; because it implies that if you were to remove P that Q is still connected to A, which is not true, for example, in the case of the car swerving example. If A is “swerving to save four people” and P is “saving four people” and Q is “hitting two innocent bystanders”, then removing P does not result in A → Q. Viz, if the intention is to save four people, then the effect of hitting two innocent bystanders is no longer connected with the intention in the event that there are no four people to save.

Now if we are aiming at Q then we don't need to achieve P (although we could). So we can remove P without removing Q. But in fact we are not aiming at Q; we are aiming at P, and Q is not a means to P as
↪Herg
so helpfully demonstrated.

The point is that if we are aiming at P then we have to achieve Q: that we don’t need to achieve P if we aim at Q is irrelevant (at best).

Q is a means to P, because one cannot achieve P without Q. Q is a necessary, utility towards P.

The central point has to do with whether Q is a means to P.

This is the central point for our debate whether or not, in our examples, the person is intentionally killing anyone; but it is not the central point for our debate about whether or not letting a person die is always immoral.

If you want to say that Q is still intentional killing even in the "V" case then that is a separate argument from the claim that Q is a means to P

I would say they cannot be separate, because I hold, which you accept, that Q is intentional if it is a means towards the intentional end (that is being actualized).

• A "means" is asymmetrical. If A is a means to B, then B cannot be a means to A. Two things cannot be a means to one another.

Sure, that’s fine: maybe I misunderstood what you were originally saying. I am saying is that Q is a means towards A, and A is an intention towards P. Q is intentional then, if one accepts that Q is intentional if it is a means towards A (that is being actualized).

"Supposing !(A → Q), would I still choose A?"

What you are noting is the original intention, stripped of the necessary means towards A in the application of A in scenario S. That’s fine, but you can’t stop there: irregardless if I would still choose A if !(A → Q), in S A → Q and, therefore, Q is a means towards A in S.

I would prefer we just refer to it as intentional killing vs. killing: that is the most clear way of presenting it. — Bob Ross

Yes of course you would, for that would aid your position. Likewise, I would prefer if we just refer to it as killing vs. non-intentional killing. So again, I suggest we not use the word "killing" without a prefix.

How does that aid my position? And how is a distinction between killing vs. non-intentional killing and intentional killing vs. killing any different? They are both the same distinction as intentional vs. non-intentional killing.

I didn't say not turning the wheel was an action, I said it was a choice, so it is not true that I am "confusing decisions (or choices) with actions". You are changing what I wrote. Please don't do that.

I apologize: I must have misunderstood what you said then. It sounded like you were considering them both actions.

Either way, the issue, as will be expounded later hereon, with your idea of “having no choice” is that you tie it to “killing”--viz., it is morally permissible to choose to kill someone when they have no choice to not kill them.

The scenarios you keep giving, are NOT examples of a situation where one does not have any other choice than to kill people—that’s what you keep missing. Letting someone die is a choice, but not a choice to kill someone. Killing is an action.

I don't agree that it is UNCONDITIONALLY immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being

Ah, I see where we disagree. You don’t believe an innocent person has the right to not be killed (or you hold a view of ‘rights’ which is confused and incoherent [such as claiming that they can be revoked for the greater good]).

I think people have rights, rights are inherently deontological, and that the most basic one is to not be killed if one is innocent.

As I've said, I think it is morally acceptable if either one has no other choice, or it is done in order to prevent a greater wrong.

In the case of the latter, you are denying that a person has a right not to be killed; and in the case of the former, this is muddied (as exposed in your examples you keep giving): saying one cannot choose to not kill someone because they only have the option to kill someone or let them be killed is just to confuse what it means to make a decision to (1) kill someone vs. (2) let them die—either I accept the face-value of your assertion that “one has no other choice” and in the car example it would then (according to you) be morally impermissible to swerve (because they have the choice to not kill people but, rather, let them die), or I have to, again, interpret your assertion as ~”one has no other choice but let someone die or kill someone” and then I simply disagree (because letting someone die is morally omissible in some cases).

This is perhaps the essential bone of contention between us. I think we owe each other an explanation of why we take the positions on this that we do. I will start by explaining why I think the way I do.

Fair enough.

I am an ethical naturalist and hedonist

Cool. I am an ethical naturalist and a neo-aristotelian.

I believe that the only intrinsic good is pleasure (strictly, pleasantness), and the only intrinsic evil is pain (strictly, unpleasantness)

I believe that there are plenty of intrinsically good “things” (because intrinsic goodness is identical to intrinsic valuableness and intrinsic valuableness is grounded in intrinsic “motivational-ness”). Hence, I completely agree that pleasure and pain are intrinsically good and bad (respectively) but disagree that they are the most intrinsically good and bad. E.g., a state of deprivation and decadence is surely worse, in terms of its power to intrinsically (negatively) motivate, than pain; and the sate of supreme flourishing is surely better, in terms of its power to intrinsically (positively) motivate, than pleasure.

The most intrinsic good is to be a eudaimon; because it is the richest, most persistent, and deepest state of flourishing, well-being, and happiness.

From the fact (as I see it) that pleasure and pain are the only intrinsic good and evil, I derive the more or less Benthamite view that the entities that have moral status are all and only those entities that can experience pleasure and pain. These are therefore the entities we should treat as ends, not as mere means.

I can mostly get on board with this. Living beings are special, insofar as they are the only beings capable of these intrinsically valuable states; and the more complex the living being, arguably, the more potency of well-being they can achieve (and thusly making them more valuable than simpler living beings).

As a side note, I don’t think a principle of ends-in-themselves is compatible with your view; but that’s a separate issue (I guess).

I would not say that we should always treat living beings as ends-in-themselves and never merely as a means; because I find it perfectly permissible for higher living beings to use lower living beings as means towards their ends (within certain limits and with certain stipulations) because they are more valuable and there is no feasible means for them to survive otherwise.

We do not treat an entity as an end if we kill it without good reason. We also do not treat it as an end if we let it die, when we could save it, without good reason.

“without good reason” is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here; so I am not sure how to address this.

I would say that beings of a rational kind deserve rights which beings of irrational kinds do not—such as not being killed when innocent—and, although we do need to treat all life with a certain amount of respect, we can use beings of non-rational kinds as means towards good ends (to some extent). E.g., if pulling the lever in the trolley problem results in killing an innocent cow to save five people, then I am morally obligated to pull the lever.

The mere fact that letting an entity die does not involve physical action, whereas killing an entity does, is not a good reason, because the only intrinsic evil is pain, and the good (i.e. pleasure) that that entity would have experienced is equally lost either way.

I agree one can be held morally responsible for letting someone die; but letting someone die can be morally omissible--specifically in the case that one cannot do anything to save them that is morally permissible. That is the big difference between our views. I hold that one cannot commit an immoral act to save someone, whereas you do.

I would now like you to tell us the reasoning that leads you to conclude that it is UNCONDITIONALLY immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being.

The floor is yours.

Hopefully I answered this adequately; but to elaborate a bit more: beings of rational kinds have rights which beings of irrational kinds do not have—such as not being killed when innocent. The reasons for this are that beings of rational kinds are:

(1) capable of rational, civic, and social contributions to societies. A human being that contributes, as a citizen, to a society deserves some basic rights that cows do not (for example) since they are engaging, rationally, in a social contract with society.

(2) rational beings have the sufficient free will to engage in projects, which makes them significantly more valuable than irrational beings because they are significantly more capable of being moral agents.

(3) rational beings have significantly higher levels of complexity, awareness, and consciousness than irrational beings. They are impacted, in terms of well-being, more potently and at a wider-range than irrational beings. E.g., if I kill an ant, the other ants will not be as impacted (in terms of their well-being) than if I kill a human being’s brother or sister.

All of these render, to me, a warranted belief that beings of rational kinds have these innate rights that we typically associate with human beings in well-developed societies.

This post is pretty up-to-date on my ethics (although I have sublated it a bit since then). Let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss it further. Perhaps we should go into that thread to avoid derailing this one.

When you say that 'eudamonia is the highest moral good' is the ultimate underpinning, do you literally mean that nothing further underpins that? Because if so, then I must ask you, what reason do we have to believe that the proposition 'eudamonia is the highest moral good' is true?

I meant in the sense of what morally grounds it. Being the highest moral good, it is the ultimate good which everything else is assessed under. Of course, I believe there are reasons to believe that it is the highest moral good.

It doesn't appear in my view because I don't think it is morally significant.

It is morally significant if one accepts that they cannot commit immoral acts to avoid bad or produce good outcomes.

If one agrees that it is immoral to intentionally kill an innocent human being and they cannot save a person without intentionally killing an innocent human being, then the only morally permissible option is to do nothing.

He has two choices: if he doesn't turn the wheel, he will kill all four, whereas if he turns the wheel, he will only kill two. To kill four is worse than to kill two, so he turns the wheel.

He should continue and kill all four; because doing so is not an action. He is deciding to not change the course he is already on, thereby letting four die instead of swerving (which is an action resulting in intentionally killing innocent people).

The point is that not turning the wheel is just as much a choice as turning it

You are confusing decisions (or choices) with actions. Deciding NOT to do something, is NOT an action.

Ok, good points.

By “means”, I mean “a necessary utility expended to produce an desired outcome”.
By “intention”, I mean “a purposeful or deliberate course of action”.

Because I accept the premise that “if I cannot achieve A without causing B, then I cannot intend A without intending to cause B”, I reject the premise I previously accepted (that “If I intend A and A causes effects P and Q, then I do not necessarily intend Q, even when I know that A causes Q”).

You are trying to say, “If in causing P I necessarily cause Q, then Q was a means to P.”

Correct; and I like your diagrams for explaining it. I understand that, from your perspective, P is not a means to Q in V because if one removes P from A then Q is still connected to A. The problem is that when Q and P are necessary utilities for bringing about A, then A cannot exist without being connected to Q and P: you cannot remove P and keep Q connected to A—A disappears.

If I draw out your diagram without having to share a dropbox, then I would represent the V like this:

P ← A → Q

The problem is that this doesn’t completely represent the relationship whereof Q and P are necessary for A. I don’t know how to represent it this way, but in logic it would be “A → (P & Q)”: you can’t say that A → P is true when Q is false given “A → (P & Q)”.

What you are doing is conflating the necessary conditions for facilitating A in specific example E with in a general example G. In G, you are absolutely right: A → P is fine. In E, this is not necessarily true; and is false in the case of the examples we have been using.

Now, an easy way to understand the flaw in your reasoning is to reflect on your 7 diagram; because it implies that if you were to remove P that Q is still connected to A, which is not true, for example, in the case of the car swerving example. If A is “swerving to save four people” and P is “saving four people” and Q is “hitting two innocent bystanders”, then removing P does not result in A → Q. Viz, if the intention is to save four people, then the effect of hitting two innocent bystanders is no longer connected with the intention in the event that there are no four people to save.

A: Give water to the first person
• P: The first person lives (because of the water)
• Q: The second person dies (for lack of water)

If we look at the quotes from your previous post, we find that you must hold that Q is intentional killing, because you must hold that Q is a means to P

Fair enough--except for the killing part: it is not a killing. Yes, from what I have said, and I did not catch it on my last response, it follows that letting the second person die is a means towards saving the first person: I accept this.

In the water case, without the second person dying for lack of water, one cannot avoid the death of the first person. P cannot be achieved without Q. Therefore on your reasoning, Q is a means to P, and is therefore intended.

Correct.

3. Hitting the two people to save the five is an action which results in the deaths of the two; which is thereby an act of killing (as opposed to letting them die). — Bob Ross

In the water case, depriving the second person to save the first is an action which results in the death of the second person. On your reasoning, this is an act of intentional killing, where P cannot be achieved without Q.

NO! You lack a distinction between letting something bad happen and doing something bad. My action was to give the first person water to save them; and the simultaneous deprivation of water (from that act) of the second person is an inaction: it is a negative counter-part to a positive. You do not seem to have fully fleshed out this kind of distinction, and instead insist on everything being an action.

I intentionally let, in this example, the second person die: I did not kill them. This is morally permissible because (presumably) there was no morally permissible way to save them.

2. (A → (P ^ Q)) → (A → (P → Q))

This premise is false in the examples we have given: A entailing P and Q does not imply that A entails that P entails Q—you are thinking in terms of the 7 diagram instead of a reciprocated V diagram (where A cannot exist without being connected to both Q and P). Take the car example, I am actually saying (as opposed to this premise 2):

{A → (P ^ Q)} → {![(A → P) && !(A → Q)]}

If you remove Q (or P), then A no longer exists (in the diagram).

The other absurdity that results from your view is that Q is a means to P and P is a means to Q

That’s exactly what it means for a thing to be dependent on two other things that are independent of each other. Operating this computer with two screens requires two different monitors. Monitor 1 and Monitor 2 are independent of each other analogous to the V diagram, but A (which is the operation of the computer with two screens) requires both. If you remove 1 or 2, then you cannot operate the computer with two screens (A); and it is not like the 7 diagram either: the monitors are independent of each other and mutually required for A.

By murder I mean intentional killing, and by “causing death” I mean killing that is not necessarily intentional. The simple word, “killing,” is completely inadequate to our purposes given its ambiguity with respect to intention. I suggest we avoid using that word unless we prefix it with “intentional” or “non-intentional.”

I would prefer we just refer to it as intentional killing vs. killing: that is the most clear way of presenting it. Murder is usually defined differently than what you said here.

@Herg

If you are right, and the killing of Alan and Betty is required in order to save Charles and Dora, then that must mean that if Alan and Betty had not been there, the car could not have swerved and saved the lives of Charles and Dora.

Please see me and @Leontisk conversation which I am responding to here as well. I addressed this with their diagrams above.

BTW, I hope it is clear that you can give up the belief that the killing of Alan and Betty is a means to saving the lives of Charles and Dora, without also giving up the belief that it is wrong to kill an innocent person. I agree that it is wrong to kill an innocent person, except in circumstances where it cannot be avoided, or where it is necessary in order to prevent some greater wrong

I agree that an exception is when one cannot avoid it; but we are differing on what we mean by “avoid it”. I make a distinction between letting someone die vs. killing them that doesn’t appear in your view at all.

CC: @Herg

Okay good, but the key thing you need to do is explain the case in which Q is not intended. Are you saying that it is not intended whenever it is not a means to P?

I already explicated this in my response: Q is not intended if Q is not a means towards P and P was intended.

This business about judging one's responsibility for an omission vs. a commission comes from my charge that the pilot's omission of ceasing to fly the plane is a culpable omission.

No. I explicitly stated in my response that it is immoral for them to cease flying the plane.

A: Some action done by P1
• P: Some effect
• Q: P2's death

Did P1 kill P2?

I am assuming you meant to draw up a scenario where P1’s action results in P2’s death. If so, then it obviously follows that P1 killed P2.

Or to be more precise, did P1 intentionally kill P2, or else did P1's action merely cause P2's death?

Whether or not P1 intentionally killed P2 is a completely separate question, which you cannot conflate. That is going to rest on whether or not P1 deliberately did it.

So I propose we avoid the verb "kill" altogether, and talk about murder vs. causing death. "Murder" isn't a perfect word, but it's better than anything else I can think of.

By “murder” do you mean an unlawful, premeditated, killing OR an immoral, deliberate, killing? I am going to straight up reject the former (legal) definition if that is what you meant; because it is going to derail the conversation substantially.

Your argument is that <A means is a necessarily utility expended to produce an desired outcome; Q is a necessarily utility expended to produce an desired outcome; Therefore Q is a means>.

This is unwieldy. I like @Herg's definition better:
A means is something that facilitates or enables the performance of some action.

I don’t see any difference between our definitions. Everything I said in #6 still applies with Herg’s definition.

Now Herg's point was that pulling the lever is what enabled the person to save the five, and killing the one person is not what enabled the person to save the five, and I agree with him.

Everything you said in this section of your response was a reiteration of what you already said and did not address the #6 point I made; so it was unhelpful. I understand already what you both are arguing, and addressed it in #6.

A point that Herg and I have both made is that a clear case of using one as a means to save five occurs in the hypothetical where one person is killed so that their organs can be transferred to five people in dire need of an organ transplant. When this case is compared to the trolley case, it is clear that the death of the one is a means in the transplant case but not in the trolley case.

Nope. You are right to say there is a valid distinction between the two cases, but it is not that one is a means and the other isn’t: it is that one is an immediate means and the other isn’t. Again, it does not help your case to demonstrate that ideally an act can be carried out without X when X is necessary to carry out that act in the specific scenario we are discussing. You completely ignored this part of my response.

The problem with this analysis is that to discretely decide to continue sitting is an act. It is a decision to omit standing. If someone decides to omit an act then they have acted, by deciding to continue in the course they were already in. But again, I am going to leave this omission vs. commission question for another day.

This rests on a false understanding of an act. Deliberating staying seated is not an act: it is choosing to NOT act. One is choosing to NOT get up.

I actually have to run, so I am going to post what I have so far and return to this tomorrow. Most of what you say relates to the omission vs. commission question, which I think is better left for later. Still, I will try to revisit anything I have missed in your post. Hopefully what I say here will be enough to go forward.

I don't think you addressed anything really that I said, to be completely honest.

Actually I think Bob is taking the straightforward position that it is always wrong to deliberately kill an innocent person. If I understand him, he regards this as an absolute moral truth, completely non-negotiable, so that 'you must not deliberately kill an innocent person' is a moral imperative that admits of no exceptions, however bad the consequences of obeying it. He will no doubt correct me if I have misunderstood him.

This is correct insofar as it applies to beings of a rational kind.

If I have understood him correctly, then I would like to ask him what, in his view, underpins this truth? Does he, for example, think that it is a moral truth because God makes it so?

I would say the immediate underpinning is that beings of a rational kind have rights, rights are inherently deontological, and they have the right to not be killed if they are innocent. The ultimate underpinning is that eudamonia (viz., flourishing, well-being, and happiness in the deepest, richest, and most persistent sense) is the highest moral good; and the best way to pragmatically structure society is to give people basic rights to best promote and progress towards a world with the richest and most harmonious sense of eudamonia.

CC: @Herg

By “intention”, I just mean a “deliberate” or “purposeful” course of action; and I don’t know how else to explain it than that. An intention is not merely a purpose nor a deliberation: it is a deliberation or purposeful contemplation of a course of action. Perhaps that is just to reiterate what what already there in the term “intention”—but doesn’t it suffice?

I agree that “if I intend A and A causes effects P and Q, then I do not necessarily intend Q even when I know A causes Q” and I agree that “Q is intended when it is a means by which P is achieved. However, here’s what I think you are missing: letting something happen is not the same as doing something: the former is inaction which has its consequences (due to its absence), whereas the latter is action which has its consequences (due to its presence).

I didn’t explicate this very clearly before, because quite frankly I am having to dive in deeper into this (conversing with you) than I have before, but letting an innocent person die is not necessarily immoral; whereas killing an innocent person is. This is the relevant difference in your examples.

To determine whether or not one is killing an innocent person or letting them die, one needs to determine if an action which they committed is responsible for their death—viz., “if action A from P1 results in P2’s death, then P1 killed P2”. This is separate from whether or not a person intentionally kills or lets them die; and what we are discussing is the combination of one killing (i.e., taking action which results in a death) in conjunction with one’s actions being deliberate (or having knowledge which would implicate them).

To allow us to dive into our differences, I am going to pick one of our examples, specifically the car one, and dive deeper into it. If we can make ground on the car one, then we can move on the rest; because they all have the same commonalities vital to our differences.

So for the car:
• A: Swerve right
• P: Avoid hitting all four people
• Q: Hit the two people on the right

Multiple things to note:

1. Q is intended in this case because it is a means towards P. Without hitting the two people, one cannot avoid hitting the four people—that’s exactly what it means to use something as a means (i.e., it is a necessarily utility expended to produce an desired outcome). This is no different than the case where one steals the water to quench someone’s thirst.

2. Continuing to drive, thereby hitting the four, does not result in any action from the driver that caused the four to die: they are letting them die—as it is a result of their inaction that causes them to die.

3. Hitting the two people to save the five is an action which results in the deaths of the two; which is thereby an act of killing (as opposed to letting them die).

4. You might say that, in #2, continuing to drive is the act which causes the four people’s death, and so it is not a case of letting them die but, rather, a case of killing them: continuing to do something is NOT an act. If I sit down in a chair, then I have thereby acted in such a way as to sit down in a chair. Every second I am just sitting there is not another action of sitting in the chair—to continue sitting there is not an action: it is inaction. Therefore, to continue to driving, when was driving all the same before, is not itself an action; and so to continue to driving when one cannot avoid hitting four people (because they would be sacrificing other people to save them) is an inaction. On the contrary, swerving to the right is an action which results in the death of two people; and so it is an instance of killing two people, and, separately, was intentional (so it is immoral).

5. It follows from what I have said thus far, that you are right that I intend to let people die by not swerving; but I am not killing them.

6. That the act of swerving is the immediate means of saving the four, it does NOT follow that killing the two people was not a means of saving the four. If the course of action intended requires the sacrificing of an innocent person, even if it be mediated, then the sacrificing of that innocent person is a means towards that course of action (i.e., end). I understand that you are making a (valid) distinction between an effect which is vs. is not necessary ideally to bring about the end; but in the scenarios we are discussing it is necessary for bringing about the end. Saying that technically the same end could have been accomplished differently in a different scenario such that it was without X (where, for example, the two people aren’t on the side of the road) does NOT takeaway from the fact that one cannot in this scenario achieve the end without X.

Here you are actually responding to my counterclaim that if the pilot ceases to fly the plane he intentionally kills:
• A: Cease flying the plane
• P: Avoid actively killing anyone
• Q: People will die

Ceasing to fly the plane would be immoral; because it is an action which results in the deaths of (at least) the passengers. Doing nothing and continuing to fly is an inaction which results in people dying BUT not an immoral act being committed.

A should be “Continue flying the plane”.

I think what is happening here is that you are hoping that the deaths that occur via the pilot's omission are better than the deaths that occur via the pilot's commission, even if more people end up dying on the omission. But Q still occurs on the omission, it does not go away.

Exactly.

Herg’s point is that the death of the one is not a means to the saving of the five, and we know this because something could happen where the one frees himself from the track and the five would be saved all the same. This is completely different from the transplant case. In that case if the one frees himself and does not die then the five do die. In one case the bad effect is a means, whereas in the other case it is not.

This would be true if the second supposed means was, in fact, needed to save the five; but as Leontiskos has pointed out, it isn't:

See #6.

"Killing one person to save the five is what enables the person to save the five. "
This is false. Suppose at the last minute the 1 person rolls off the track and saves himself. The operator has still managed to save the other five, and that is because it was using the lever that enabled him to save them, not the presence of the other 1 person. The means is the same whether the 1 person is killed or manages to save himself.

This is changing the scenario: that’s not a valid option for the person pulling the lever. They either pull the lever, thereby sacrificing one to save five, or they don’t and five people die.

Since they know that pulling the lever necessarily results in killing one person and that this is the only way for them to save the five; then they are intending to sacrifice the one to save the five.

What you are noting is that the mechanism being used to save the five is the lever; which is uncontroversially true.

"Without being able to kill the one person, they cannot save the five."
If you mean that they would be unable to save the 5 if they lacked the ability to kill the 1, that is true. But this is not because the 1 is the means of killing the 5, it is because to be able to kill the 1 person they need to be able to switch the train, and it is this switching that is the means of saving the 5, not the killing of the 1.

You are confusing using someone as a means towards something, with the means of using them as a means. E.g., the lever is the means to using the one person as a means to avoid the bad outcome [of five dying].

Yes - I’ve changed my mind regarding the trolley case. I now hold that pulling the lever is permissible if the conditions of double effect are being adhered to.

I am glad we can at least agree on the full consequences of your view (:

I think I see a bit of the confusion and mistakes on my end; so let me explicate it more clearly.

I was originally thinking that: if a person knows A is an (reasonable and probable or certain) implication of B and they intend B; then they intend A. This is not true: an intention is a purposeful course of action; and sometimes the purposeful course of action can have consequences which are not in the purposeful plan (of action) one had.

However, I don’t think this changes much in my view at all. Let’s go through an overview of each example we’ve had so far:

1. Standard 1 vs. 5 Trolley Problem: the person who pulls the lever to save the five is purposefully taking a course of action of sacrificing one as a means to save the five. This is immoral.

2. Same as #1, but amended such that the person deciding to pull the lever (or not) is the operator of the train. The train operator that veers into the other track to save the five at the expense of the one is purposefully taking a course of action that sacrifices the one to save the five. This is immoral. The train operator continuing to steer the train on the tracks that has the five on it is not purposefully running over the five; because they are not purposefully running over the five but, rather, continuing to drive because they cannot sacrifice their passengers (in the event of steering off both tracks unsafely) nor the one on the other track to avoid a bad outcome—their intention is to avoid deaths without committing any immoral acts.

3. The Pilot Example: I would say the same as the train operator example. The pilot is not intentionally killing the group of people by continuing to fly until the plane naturally crashes because their purposeful action is to try to save lives without committing any immoral acts—their intentions does not include killing people but, rather, their purposeful course of action is to avoid doing immoral acts.

4. The Car Example: Ditto.

5. The Water Example: I agree that if one has water and has to choose between quenching the thirst of one person or another and they intend to quench one person’s thirst, then they are not intending to deprive the other of water. This is because their purposeful course of action does not include depriving them of water; whereas in my original example, it did.

This is instructive because you speak about "committing an immoral act for its own sake." This is obviously not what is happening any any of the scenarios. Not even someone who does evil for the sake of a good end is committing immorality for its own sake. :chin:

By “its own sake”, I was referring to the duty to safely fly the plane and not the immoral act.

How? Both situations have a person who knows they have to sacrifice someone to save someone else, and they act upon it. To me that is a sufficient condition to say they intended to do it. — Bob Ross

They don't intend to do it in different ways? Again, on your principles to cease flying the plane is to intentionally kill.

I would say that they don’t intend it in different ways, because both have the purposeful course of action of sacrificing one person for the sake of others.

I would also like to add that sometimes knowledge of B implying A and intending B does implicate one in intending A: the knowledge one has can implicate them in a purposeful course of action that they may not have been sufficiently aware of (self-reflectively). E.g., if I am aware that I am intending to quench the thirst of person A and I know that that requires me to steal the water from person B, then, even if I am not aware that I am intending to, I am thereby intending to steal water from person B when I intend to quench the thirst of person A. The relevant question is the actual and full course of action implied by one’s purposefulness—not what one is aware of as the course of action implied by their purposefulness.

I am seriously struggling to see how the police officer would not communicate in their report, just based off of your statement to them here, that you intended to kill the guy on the shoulder to avoid hitting the two on the median; and this is essential to your argument that you provide a basis against this. — Bob Ross

I brought up murder because it is obvious that this person would not be convicted of murder. They may be convicted of manslaughter, but not murder.

I genuinely believe that the police officer would say you intended to sacrifice the person for the other people; and I am surprised that is controversial to say. If your purposeful course of action is to save the people you are about to run into and you know the only way to do so is to sacrifice someone else, then the full course of action that you are purposefully taking is using one person as a means towards saving the other people. No?

So, this just boils down to the hierarchy of moral values. I think that rights are more fundamental than social duties (like flying airplanes, driving buses, etc.): the latter assumes the duty to protect and are birthed out of the former, so the former must be more fundamental. — Bob Ross

But this doesn't answer the question. If I have a duty to not-kill one person, then why don't I have a double duty to not-kill two persons? At stake are two duties.

What do you mean “double duty”? It doesn’t compound: one has the duty to not kill innocent people intentionally, and that duty applies to any being of a rational kind.

I am going to come back and make a full response when I have more time

No worries at all.

According to what you say here the driver should be convicted for murder, no? You seem to think he murdered the pedestrian on the shoulder.

Correct. I am assuming you disagree: the fact they are swerving to avoid other people, although they are still intending to run over other people to save them, seems to be the relevant difference for you that makes it (presumably) morally omissible.

I see! I agree that being moral is a choice; but being a moral agent, which is a choice, entails that one has, upon choosing to be such, moral responsibilities. I am NOT actually a moral agent, even if I make the decision to be one, if I don't have a duty to not do immoral acts and to do moral ones: that would be akin to saying that a firefighter doesn't have a duty to put out fires. Likewise, we determine what we are morally responsible for by way of analyzing deliberate acts and lack of acts (e.g., negligence) in relation to what is (intrinsically) good and bad.

Without moral responsibility, an ethical theory cannot supply any analysis of moral agents; which is arguably the most practical and, consequently, important aspect of ethics.

You didn't strike me as one to believe in fate. So because one innocent person would die if you saved five people, you would let the five people die because other forces that are already in motion would lead to their death. If that is your answer, how do you arrive at that decision?

I don't believe in fate; and I am not following how that relates to the trolley problem.

My position is simple: it is immoral to kill an innocent human being. In the trolley dilemma, I am not morally responsible for abstaining from committing an immoral act (e.g., sacrificing the one person) to avoid a bad outcome (e.g., the five dying). If I can only do immoral acts to prevent something bad from happening or I can do nothing, I am always going to do nothing: one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a bad outcome or produce a good outcome.

Letting something bad happen is sometimes morally omissible.

From what you said (in the above quote), you are implying that I would be equally morally responsible for the five deaths as the one; and thusly it wouldn't make sense to, then, let the five die at the expense of the one. However, this rests on a false understanding of moral responsibility: especially how it relates to intentions and actions. Letting something happen is NOT an action, and some inactions are morally omissible exactly because no action can be taken which is morally permissible.

Does that help? I wasn't sure how fate got sprinkled into the conversation (:

Does the pilot have "a separate but related duty to cause as few deaths as possible in the event where he cannot avoid causing deaths"?

Yes, if by “he cannot avoid causing deaths” you mean his actions. If he has to either (1) kill 2 innocent people or (2) 4 innocent people; then I agree he should go with 1. But that is not the situation the pilot is in in your hypothetical.

So I am wondering if they have a second duty at all. If they do then we have a case of what is sometimes called moral perplexity, where two duties come into conflict.

I guess. I would say that the duty to fly the aircraft safely is a duty which does not obligate one to commit anything immoral for its own sake; whereas it seems like you may think that it might.

Presumably you are saying that the relevant difference between the airplane and car scenarios is that in the car scenario all of the potential victims were initially in the path of the vehicle?

Yes, that is what tripped me up for a bit.

It's not at all clear that the same thing is happening in the car scenario.

How? Both situations have a person who knows they have to sacrifice someone to save someone else, and they act upon it. To me that is a sufficient condition to say they intended to do it.

If someone is on the shoulder, and I hit them, and I knew I was going to hit them, it does not follow that hitting them was a means to avoiding the others. The circumstances here are very different from the transplant case. In the transplant case two literally need to die in order to save the four. How do you differentiate these two cases?

I think the difference you are talking about is merely that it seems like the person in the shoulder example is intending to save the pedestrians and the person on the shoulder is just an unfortunate side-effect; whereas the two in the transplant are definitely not a side-effect.

I disagree; and here’s the real difference between us: when you speak of intentions in these two examples, you are referring to only what the person is aware of what they are doing. I, on the other hand, attribute what they know into what they intend even if they don’t realize it.

For example, if I see someone in need of water (as perhaps they are thirsty) (let’s call them the first person) and I see someone else with water (let’s call them the second person) and I walk over to the second person and take their water to give it to the first person, then I am intending to take the water from the second person to give it to the first person even if my self-explicated intention is to get the first person water. You are saying, by analogy here, that if the person is just intending to help the first person in need, and isn’t executing consciously a plan to take it from the second person, that the taking of the water of the second person is merely a side-effect of the intention.

The difference between the transplant and the shoulder example, is merely that in the former the person is consciously aware that they are using people as a means. The latter example is iffy: someone may realize they have to kill the shoulder person to save the other people and continue anyways (thereby making it a conscious intention of theirs) whereas another person may not realize it and only think to themselves that they are saving the pedestrians.

A police officer might investigate and ask my why I swerved. I might say, "I swerved to hit the guy on the shoulder, because I knew that if I could hit that guy on the shoulder then I would be able to avoid the two on the median."

I am seriously struggling to see how the police officer would not communicate in their report, just based off of your statement to them here, that you intended to kill the guy on the shoulder to avoid hitting the two on the median; and this is essential to your argument that you provide a basis against this.

you would have to sufficiently demonstrate that swerving to hit two people instead of four is based on the intention to hit those two people to save the four. What say you?

If they know that swerving will most certainly (or as a probabilistic certainty) will kill those two people and they continue with their plan of swerving, then they thereby intend to kill those two people to save the other people. I am tying the sufficient knowledge the person has, to what they intend to do. I think this is pretty standard practice in law.

The plane/car will cause the death of innocents no matter what, and therefore the first act is inevitable, and one is not responsible for the inevitable.

But you are responsible if you veer the plane/car to sacrifice innocent people….. (:

(Again, I have no idea how I would square my own reasoning with the trolley :lol: )

To be completely honest, I think your line of reasoning entails that one should pull the lever.

Why is B a more important duty?

So, this just boils down to the hierarchy of moral values. I think that rights are more fundamental than social duties (like flying airplanes, driving buses, etc.): the latter assumes the duty to protect and are birthed out of the former, so the former must be more fundamental.

Interesting. So if we have the trolley problem, both sides have innocent people, and both sides plead for you to save them by throwing the switch or walk away, what would you do?

Walk away. I cannot sacrifice innocent human beings to save other innocent human beings: the consequences are not what dictates what is right or wrong but, rather, the act—and the act is immoral.

This is a completely different scenario though witli different connotations where you are introducing another malevolent agent who you are bargaining with. This makes the scenario a lot less straightforward. You have also completely complicated the choice because here it is not about an arithmetic of deaths but also torture.

This is a totally vastly different scenario to one where you're driving in a car and for whatever reason, lets say just a horrible accident, there are 4 people in the road and you can make a choice to save 0 lives or 2 lives. The scenario you have brought up just now cannot be compared and the car one is much more straightforward.

I agree they aren’t the same; but I brought it up to counter your view that: “It seems very straightforward to me that in a scenario where either everyone was going to die or only two people, it is better to choose two.”.

My point is that just because its we can mitigate much if not all of the blame for killing someone in self-defence doesn't mean that killing anyone still isn't bad. To my mind, the idea of this forfeit you talk about implies that this badness is completely removed. Thats why I dont like this language. It works better in a kind of legal context, not a moral one imo.

Are you saying that it is bad to kill a person in self-defense, to some degree, while still being morally permissible to do so (in appropriate self-defense scenarios)?