If something is "necessary", it implies there are no other options. This is intended to account for situations (for instance) where mutual survival/safety is impossible due to environmental circumstances (I call this a break-down of morality). The "justifiable" part is highly ambiguous though, and purposefully so. Different people will have different standards of justification (which can change with the environment), and so to keep the razor simple I would rather not provide an omni-answer for all moral question by trying to give a formula for any and all "moral justifications". :)

With utilitarian calculus you can indeed justify some horrendous actions, but I would reject them as unjustified and unnecessary. Killing one person to become an organ donor to save five people for instance is a hypothetical which fractures or breaks-down morality in general because when it comes down to it the five people or the mad doctor might be willing to use force to carry it out. Without mutual agreement and consent, (on the part of the victim in this case) all we have is the arbitrary use of force in a survival situation.

To live in this society with it's given laws, we give tacit consent to be incarcerated if we do crime. If we don't then the onus is on us to remove ourselves from the midst of society. If it was permissible to arbitrarily sacrifice the few to save the many in any positive exchange (per utilitarian calculus) then we would all probably decide to separate ourselves from that society lest our own lives be dispensed as the currency of another.

The answer is that the sanctity of an innocent life is high on the hierarchy of values.

I agree. Both good points.

If something is "necessary", it implies there are no other options. This is intended to account for situations (for instance) where mutual survival/safety is impossible due to environmental circumstances (I call this a break-down of morality). — VagabondSpectre

Please provide an example. As it currently stands, I can argue that, for example, it is immoral to wear certain colors because the majority of people might not like those colors. Because these colors are unnecessary, I am causing unnecessary harm by wearing them and, therefore, am doing something immoral.

The "justifiable" part is highly ambiguous though, and purposefully so. Different people will have different standards of justification (which can change with the environment), and so to keep the razor simple I would rather not provide an omni-answer for all moral question by trying to give a formula for any and all "moral justifications". — VagabondSpectre

But at this point, the razor is effectively useless. Unless you ascribe to some sort of divine command theory that is completely devoid of any human welfare connection whatsoever, everyone agrees causing harm for no good reason is immoral. A razor allows one to divide something into two categories. For example, Occam's Razor allows one to divide competing theories- ideas that are simpler are more likely to be true because unnecessary parts are superfluous at best and dead wrong at worst. However, as you admit, the qualifiers for this razor are vague, thus making it not a razor, but really just the groundwork notion behind morality.

With utilitarian calculus you can indeed justify some horrendous actions, but I would reject them as unjustified and unnecessary. Killing one person to become an organ donor to save five people for instance is a hypothetical which fractures or breaks-down morality in general because when it comes down to it the five people or the mad doctor might be willing to use force to carry it out. Without mutual agreement and consent, (on the part of the victim in this case) all we have is the arbitrary use of force in a survival situation.

To live in this society with it's given laws, we give tacit consent to be incarcerated if we do crime. If we don't then the onus is on us to remove ourselves from the midst of society. If it was permissible to arbitrarily sacrifice the few to save the many in any positive exchange (per utilitarian calculus) then we would all probably decide to separate ourselves from that society lest our own lives be dispensed as the currency of another.

The answer is that the sanctity of an innocent life is high on the hierarchy of values. — VagabondSpectre

I guess I'll start with the glaring issue, as I have some many nitpicks with the above passage. A runaway trolley is going down a track towards five people who cannot get out of the way in time. You can flip a switch and case the trolley to veer down a different path, but on this path is one person. You can either let the five people die or kill the one person. What is the moral option? If you pick to kill one person, please explain why this logic does not apply to the doctor case. If you pick to let the five people die, explain your reasoning and how it does not prevent us from every taking any consequentialist stance, no matter the cost.

Please provide an example. As it currently stands, I can argue that, for example, it is immoral to wear certain colors because the majority of people might not like those colors. Because these colors are unnecessary, I am causing unnecessary harm by wearing them and, therefore, am doing something immoral. — Chany

For example, let's say that I'm a new addition to your prison cell-block, and it's expected of me to fight each of my new cell-mates in turn in order to establish my position in the pecking order. In this environment, in order to protect my life and health, it's basically necessary for me to engage in harmful actions. If I had to inflict harm to save my own life, I would call it necessary.

But at this point, the razor is effectively useless. Unless you ascribe to some sort of divine command theory that is completely devoid of any human welfare connection whatsoever, everyone agrees causing harm for no good reason is immoral. A razor allows one to divide something into two categories. For example, Occam's Razor allows one to divide competing theories- ideas that are simpler are more likely to be true because unnecessary parts are superfluous at best and dead wrong at worst. However, as you admit, the qualifiers for this razor are vague, thus making it not a razor, but really just the groundwork notion behind morality. — Chany

In addition to eliminating moral positions not based on human welfare, this razor also ignores moral arguments which seek to maximize positive moral value (which is very difficult to agree on) in favor of focusing on moral arguments which seek to minimize negative moral value (many of which we can very easily agree upon).

I guess I'll start with the glaring issue, as I have some many nitpicks with the above passage. A runaway trolley is going down a track towards five people who cannot get out of the way in time. You can flip a switch and case the trolley to veer down a different path, but on this path is one person. You can either let the five people die or kill the one person. What is the moral option? If you pick to kill one person, please explain why this logic does not apply to the doctor case. If you pick to let the five people die, explain your reasoning and how it does not prevent us from every taking any consequentialist stance, no matter the cost. — Chany

I don't even think it's a decision that qualifies as falling within the realm of morality. They're amoral dilemmas. What I mean by this is that when mutual survival is not possible, strategies of mutual cooperation oriented around human welfare break-down as each of us values our own lives above that of a random stranger (or tends to). If you happen to find yourself tied alone to track #2 (opposite the 5), would you assent to a moral system that then sanctions your death (at that moment?) If you were one of the five, would you not beg the switch-man to flip the switch? Would you call it moral? What if a mother flipped a switch to save her child which resulted in the death of even more people? What if you were stuck on the track but had control over the switch yourself? It's expected that extreme environments can lead to a moral breakdown making either option or outcome neither moral nor immoral.

Flipping the switch and not flipping the switch are both not immoral decisions (they're amoral per my moral views). When it comes to the transplant dilemma, not kidnapping a vagabond for parts is definitely not immoral, but I would hazard to say that doing so would be immoral because such a practice would break the moral system to which I currently subscribe (by making it intuitively harmful in a way that neuters it's persuasive power).

For me "fairness" is a necessary part of having a functional moral system. It needs to be fair because it needs to be appealing for people to actually employ it. As soon as we start randomly plucking individuals to sacrifice (against their will) for the greater good, people will start deciding they're better off on their own and morality breaks down.

It seems that you want to call difficult, uncertain decisions "amoral".

All decisions, to the extent that they are non-random, are ultimately predicated on some value judgments. I don't really see a point in differentiating between "moral" and "amoral" values for the purpose of decision-making. Either way, when we deliberate on a decision, it all comes down to pitting conflicting value-laden imperatives against each other.

t seems that you want to call difficult, uncertain decisions "amoral".

All decisions, to the extent that they are non-random, are ultimately predicated on some value judgments. I don't really see a point in differentiating between "moral" and "amoral" values for the purpose of decision-making. Either way, when we deliberate on a decision, it all comes down to pitting conflicting value-laden imperatives against each other. — SophistiCat

What happens when our shared value laden imperatives are at odds with one another?

If morality is a rational strategy of cooperation meant to promote and preserve mutually shared values, how can it exist where our chances of survival are mutually exclusive? What we get are two parties who each think it morally justifiable to kill the other in what I prefer to call a break-down of morality.

In the trolley scenario all we get is a utilitarian count of innocent lives at stake where there is no possible beneficial or mutual compromise between both parties. But in the transplant scenario we're also ourselves responsible for choosing and forcing an arbitrary or random person to play the role of sacrifice. That arbitrary force and selection is what repulses me from assenting to the utilitarian choice in the transplant dilemma. To make that selection would be akin to the trolley villain strapping the single victim to track #2 in the first place in order to actually create the dilemma...

If a moral judgement makes a necessary demand on your life then it's certainly not appealing or beneficial to you, and so becomes mostly useless and irrelevant as a broadly persuasive social norm. If an environment actually necessitated that you forfeit your life, then my entire moral system based on shared values breaks because it loses on of it's strongest appeals (that you value your own life) and literally breaks-down due to the unwillingness of individuals to conform to it.