- I don't neglect certain truths for the sake of my own personal agenda. I try not to be ideological. That we should not neglect the facts of statistics does not mean that statistical prediction should play a disproportionate role in our thinking - that would be the opposite error of what the progressive falls into. Your posts are filled with rhetoric and a lack of balance. You are trying to paint statistics and discrimination as evil. Well, good luck with that sort of propaganda.

You will note I said views not the current argument brought about by said views. — Outlander

And again, I see no evidence of that.

This is the point of contention: "on average." As it stands, your statement of fact is correct. However one is best to bear in mind that that is all that it is: a statement. — Outlander

No, you just contradicted yourself. It is not just a statement, it is a correct statement. It is a true statement. There is quite a large difference.

Not a particularly great example but sufficient for the moment. Perhaps this prospective room has a magnificent view overlooking the sea (representing the increasing opportunity for positive and lasting change for group X) that is not present in said snapshot (your sampling data of group X). Or, of course, perhaps there is a rather unpleasant occupancy of bed bugs (representing the ingrained habitual patterns and, yes your "likelihood" of regression and perpetuation of said undesirable outcomes) also not present in said snapshot. As you can see, this "snapshot" or "current sampling of available data" is a fickle indicator, whether it be positive or negative, for what the future truly beholds and as a result the best choice of action to take. — Outlander

Whether a truth can be incorporated into your hotel will of course depend on how amenable your hotel is to truth. Maybe your hotel can't handle the truth, and maybe the truth is not welcome. Maybe you have to lock and bar the doors lest certain kinds of truths come 'round, looking for lodging. I suspect you will need a healthy helping of discrimination in deciding which kinds of truths are acceptable and which are not. :wink:

As I've said, progressives lock and bar their doors against certain truths of the mathematical variety, and it looks like you are up to the same thing with the aid of some flowery rhetoric. This is more or less the definition of ideology: sacrificing truth to one's agenda. Brainwashing out the truths that do not suit the agenda. Such is always a house of cards and a matter of time.

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. — Bob Ross

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.

An intention is an ideal meant to be actualized. — Bob Ross

Somewhat, but I would not call it "an ideal." That has connotations of optimality. We could say that an intention is an action or effect meant to be actualized, or that it is something that one plans to bring about, or something that one aims to bring about. So if I intend to build a computer, then I plan or aim to bring about a computer. Looking now at Merriam-Webster's 'intend', it gives, "to have in mind as a purpose or goal : Plan."

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. — Bob Ross

I think it is right to distinguish essential (per se) intention from accidental (per accidens) intention, but in all such cases we want the essential/per se to be primary (whereas you made the per se definition parasitic on the per accidens definition).

On an Aristotelian view intention is something like the force by which will/volition has an effect on things. It is how volitional beings exercise their volition. Because of this the essence of intention has to do with what is most central to the will/volition of such a being. So if I will the end of getting groceries, then it is natural to me to plan or aim to bring about the getting of groceries, namely to intend it. Once this intention is formed the first step in the execution of my will has been formed, and as Aquinas says, "The end is first in the order of intention; the means is first in the order of execution." After recognizing my will to eat, I first intend to get groceries (end), and then I think of driving my car to the grocery store (means). The end precedes the means in the order of intention. But in executing my plan I begin with the means by getting into my car, and finish with the end by purchasing the groceries. The means precedes the end in the order of execution. This structure is divisible: for example, I must turn the key in order to drive my car (and this is a means to the end of driving the car, which is a means to the end of getting groceries); and I must collect my key in order to start the car, etc. The intermediate ends are also a means, and each means is a means to each subsequent end.

My essential or per se intention is that which adheres most closely to the aim that my will has formed. As a metaphor, the fastest and most efficient route to the grocery store adheres most closely to my end, my intention to get groceries. A circuitous route to the grocery store does not adhere as closely to my end, my intention to get groceries. Thus if a road is closed and I am forced to take a detour, then although I intend to take the detour for the sake of my end, the taking of the detour falls under my intention in an accidental manner. The accidental part of my intention is that which falls away or fails to closely adhere to my proper intention (end). As you recognize, accounting for accidental or per accidens intention requires the explanation of something that is circumstantial in one way or another. It is worth noting that essential and accidental intention differ by way of a spectrum, and are not black and white logical categories (i.e. they are contraries rather than strict contradictories).

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. — Bob Ross

The danger here is attaching intention too strongly to ends such that it becomes unattached to means. It is true that intention is most perfectly found in the end, and that all means are "accidental" to one degree or another. Nevertheless, we do intend the means to an end. You have an intention to quench your thirst but you also end up forming an intention to walk into the kitchen. The obtaining of the water bottle is also something you plan or aim to bring about, even though it is subordinated to your aim to bring about the quenching of your thirst. Both are intended, but the force of will that intention serves is always stronger and more direct in the case of the end, and therefore the quenching of thirst is more fully intended than the obtaining of the water bottle.

A means is something useful for an intention. — Bob Ross

Means and ends are both kinds of intentions, and both must be appropriated by an agent. There may be a cup of water sitting nearby that you are not aware of. This cup of water is "something useful for [the intention of quenching thirst]," but it is in no way an actual means to that end if you are not aware of it. This is tricky, because we can talk about means and ends apart from appropriation by an agent, for example, "You could aim at that end. You could achieve that end by such-and-such a means," but what is being proposed is the possibility of appropriation; the possibility of intentionally using the means in order to achieve the end. We could say that an unknown means is a kind of per accidens intention ("he would intend to use it if he knew about it"), and in relation to this a known means is a kind of per se intention. But it is simultaneously true that, in relation to one another, the end is a per se intention and the (chosen) means is a per accidens intention.

This is part of the subtlety of Aristotle's thought: that essential/accidental constitute a relational dyad more than two distinct and clear-cut categories. Intention is one of those things that modern modal logic can't really capture, for example:

A means is not necessarily necessary. — Bob Ross

Yes, exactly, and what this means is that the nature of a means is neither necessary nor merely possible. It is not modally representable. It is the actuation of a tendency or final cause; to intend is a kind of tending towards, not a merely logical reality.

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). — Bob Ross

Yes, but:

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). — Bob Ross

So we have it that a (chosen) means becomes a part of the intention of the end, and the foreseen effects of a (chosen) means become a part of the intention of the end. But the same crucial question that I asked earlier arises here: do they become equal parts in the intention of the end? Do they become parts in the same way? They do not, because whereas the means is a kind of accident of the end, the foreseen effect is a kind of accident of an accident of the end (i.e. it is an accident of the means). What follows is that the foreseen effect does not adhere as closely to the formal intention (the intention of the end) as the means does, and therefore the foreseen effect and the means fall under the intention of the end in different ways. (Aquinas talks about the essence/accidents of the intention as well as the matter/form of the intention, which provides some additional resolution).

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

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. — Bob Ross

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? Are all causes means to their foreseen effects? With respect to Q, A is the cause of an effect, not the means to an end. Only with respect to P is A a means to an end. 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. Consider the question, "Why did he cause A?" There are two main answers on offer:

1. "He means to achieve P"
2. "He means to achieve Q"
3. (both)

I would say the correct answer is (1). 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?"

But the same sort of conclusion would seem to follow on your own definition:

A means is something useful for an intention. — Bob Ross

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.

A is "a means" to Q in the abstract sense, but it is not a means that you appropriate via intention. A is a cause of Q, not a means to Q. If we intend an end, we also directly intend any (chosen) means to that end; but if we are using A as a means to P, it does not follow that we are also using A as a means to Q. The intention of an end flows into the means, but the intention of a means does not flow into all of its various effects. Q is indirectly intended given A, but we are not using A as a means to Q.

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. — Bob Ross

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." This is like the claim that driving to the grocery store is done to emit pollution to get groceries. The bolded "to" indicates that Q is a means to P, which is exactly what you deny in your second clause. That "to" should attach to "swerving," and, "to kill two people" should be omitted altogether. One is swerving to save two people, not to kill two people to save two people. Throughout this thread you have been committing these minor infelicities which subtly bolster your position.

A driver could do what you represent here, but if I were the driver I would not do it that way. My actions would only be properly represented if those four words were omitted. A is a means to the intended end, and that intended end is P, not Q. A is done for the sake of P, not for the sake of Q. Therefore I am "swerving [for the sake of] saving people," not for the sake of killing people. A is a means to saving, not killing. Only if I intend Q would A be a means to killing people, and in that case I would be committing murder. In that case I would be using A as a means to my intended end of Q. If I were the driver I could perhaps be charged with manslaughter, but not murder. Your approach can't seem to distinguish the two.

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). — Bob Ross

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! As Brock says, the means is directly intended and the foreseen effect is indirectly intended. If a foreseen effect were a means then there would be no difference between a means and a foreseen effect. For insight into the import of this, see the most recent quote from Brock that I provided.

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. — Bob Ross

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? Those are the questions that need to be answered.

P.S. Another thing that we haven't directly delved into is the difference between causal necessity and logical necessity. For example, in the trolley case we can think of two logical propositions, 1) If I pull the lever then the track will shift, and 2) If I pull the lever then the one will die (A → Q). (1) is causal and (2) is merely stipulative. Because the lever is physically connected to the track, to pull the lever is to shift the track. The movement of the lever has a per se causal ordination to the shifting of the track. Track-levers always shift tracks. (An even more direct and per se cause is that to pull the lever is to cause the lever to move spatially.) But (2) does not have a per se causal ordination to the death of an individual. (2) is merely a per accidens cause, and this is why it needs to be stipulated within the problem itself (i.e. we need no explanation that track-levers shift tracks, but we do require an explanation for why pulling a track-lever would result in someone's death). 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. Pulling the lever and switching the track are very nearly the same thing.

That I believe is the disconnect between the opposing views present in this exchange. — Outlander

No, I see no evidence of that. Here is the statement that Lucky has attempted to disagree with:

But it is reasonable. If group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z, then—all things being equal—someone belonging to group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z on average. Progressives have a difficult time recognizing the simple fact that there are rationally sound inferences which move from group data to individual data. — Leontiskos

Note that this has nothing to do with a present/future distinction.

Your commentary would make logical sense in cases where individual data doesn't exist (all you have to go on is group data). — LuckyR

It is valid to make inferences from group data to individuals regardless of whether we have the individual data that produced the group data. Whenever we aggregate the data of individuals into group data we are doing so in order to use the group data, and that group data can provide us with information that was not available at the individual level. Hence the whole point of sampling.

However, no thinking person would use group "probabilities" preferencially over individual data. — LuckyR

No one said they would.

Of course, you know all of this already, hence my surprise why I'm forced to to review the obvious. — LuckyR

I think the reason you are forced to offer strawmen is because you won't admit that you are wrong. You are wrong in claiming that it is always invalid to make inferences about individuals based on their statistical group data. Your point was false, "My point was it isn't reasonable when group statistics are used on individuals" (). The inability to admit that it is not necessarily unreasonable to make inferences about individuals on the basis of group statistics is a form of irrationality that accompanies progressivism.

I would like those responding to suggest how principles could be used to ground morality and gives potential examples of such. — Ourora Aureis

One way to see the problem with your view is to understand how we experience morality via principle. For example, when someone is accused (by themselves or by others) if they repel the accusation they will make a universalizable excuse, i.e. an excuse based on a principle. "You are on a diet, why are you eating a cookie!?" "Every dieter deserves an off-day once a week."

This is because the rationality that underlies thinking and speech always involves universal or categorical premises, or principles. Paying attention to experience shows us that rationality and principles are part of experience.

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. — Leontiskos

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). — Bob Ross

Egads. A is not an intention and has never been an intention. It is an action. In the trolley case it is to pull the lever, in the car case it is to swerve, etc. A is carried out for the sake of the end, P, but A is not an intention. It is an intended means to P. Similarly, your claim that “Q is a means towards A” makes no sense. It is not true in the trolley case that, “Killing the one is a means towards pulling the lever,” or in the car case that, “Killing the two is a means towards swerving” (even though both of these really would follow on your dubious claim that anything which is conditionally necessary is a means).

Now you still haven’t managed to recognize, “The other absurdity that results from your view is that Q is a means to P and P is a means to Q, which is of course impossible” (). For example, take your claim:

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

As I have noted multiple times, (P ↔ Q). We cannot achieve P without Q and we cannot achieve Q without P. Again, therefore on your own reasoning, P must be a means to Q and Q must be a means to P, which is utterly impossible.

I gave the logic for this earlier: "In other words: (A → (P ^ Q)) → (A → (P ↔ Q))" ().

Feel free to check it to make sure that it is valid (link).

No I am not. P does not entail Q nor does Q entail P in the car example: A → P & Q. — Bob Ross

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 — Bob Ross

Again, (A → (P ^ Q)) → (A → (P ↔ Q))

Note that contained within this is, for example, "2. (A → (P ^ Q)) → (A → (P → Q))" ().

At this point you are committing formal logical contradictions. You are affirming the antecedent and denying the consequent of a tautology.

Note too that given (A → (P ^ Q)) → ((A → P) ^ (A → Q)), your strange theory would have it that P and Q are both a means to A, as well as being a means to one another. This is yet another absurdity of your view.

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. — Bob Ross

How is “hit two people” useful or helpful to the desired end of “avoid hitting all four people”? Or in the trolley case, how is the death of the one useful or helpful to the desired end of saving the five? Again, I would suggest you try to actually respond to ’s excellent analysis.

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. — Bob Ross

You have all sorts of different, overdetermined arguments for your conclusion, like a castle with multiple walls. Whenever one suffers a defeat you silently switch to another. One has to do with intention via means, one has to do with direct intention, one has to do with omissions, etc. I am only interested in the question of intention via means, namely determining whether Q is a means to P. Your persistence even in the midst of formal logical contradiction makes me think that it will be a miracle if we ever settle that simple question.

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. — Bob Ross

Diagram “V” only makes sense relative to diagram “7”. Diagram “7” represents Q as a means between A and P, whereas diagram “V” represents Q as a non-means effect of A.

We can use a temporal argument to give another reason why Q_v is not a means. In the trolley example as soon as I switch the track the five people are saved, and yet the one person does not die until the trolley eventually runs over them. Now Q cannot be a means to P if P occurs before Q in time, and yet that is precisely what happens in the trolley scenario. By the time Q occurs, P has already been accomplished and completed. How could anything be “helpful or useful” to a desired end that has already occurred?

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

I was hoping the grocery case would help illustrate why. As I said:

Suppose an act has two effects: I press the accelerator and two things happen: my speed accelerates and my fuel is consumed. Do you think Aquinas is right, and it is possible to intend one effect without the other? When I press the accelerator do I intend to accelerate and do I intend to diminish my fuel? And even if so, do I intend them in the same way? Is the word "intend" being used in the same way for both of these effects? — Leontiskos

Again, “Do I intend them in the same way?” That was the key question I was asking.

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. — Bob Ross

If the intention were, “Consume fuel to get groceries,” then the purpose would be uncompleted if fuel didn’t end up getting consumed. Then I would get back home, look at the fuel gauge, and say, “Crap! I didn’t manage to complete my intention of consuming fuel to get groceries! I got the groceries but I didn’t consume any fuel. What a failure of a trip!” The very absurdity of such a thing shows that the intention was not, as you say, “Consume fuel to get groceries.” But I grant that the fact that fuel is a causal means complicates the example, and that is why I didn’t press it when you ignored it. What it shows is that even known causal means can be indirectly intended, and this is probably too subtle.

A better example than fuel consumption might be emissions, in the case where my exhaust system is broken and therefore my car emits especially harmful pollution. If the direct intention before was not accurately captured by, “Consume fuel to get groceries,” then the direct intention now is certainly not captured by, “Emit pollution to get groceries.” The emission of pollution and the getting of groceries are not intended in the same way, and you are in need of a theory which accounts for this fact.

But if you want to see how Brock elaborates a bit, here is what he says:

The above account of indirect objects of intention seems to correspond to what Chisholm calls the principles of the ‘diffusiveness’ and ‘non-divisiveness’ of intention. The principle of the diffusiveness of intention is that if someone intends p, knowing that p entails q, then he intends the conjunction p and q. For instance, if a man intends to drive off in a car parked nearby, knowing that it belongs to someone else, then he intends this: to drive off in a car parked nearby that belongs to someone else. The principle of the non-divisiveness of intention is that if someone intends the conjunction p and q, he does not necessarily intend q by itself. The man may not intend just this: to drive off in a car that belongs to someone else.22

That is, he may not be doing what he is doing because it will deprive someone else of a car, but only because it will provide him with the quickest means of getting to his destination. Again, this is the difference between direct and indirect objects of intention: only the former are explanations of the action that fulfills the intention. But despite this difference, if the man knows that the car belongs to someone else, it would be ridiculous to say that he positively meant not to drive off in someone else’s car.

The point is subtle. Many authors disagree with the diffusiveness of intention principle.23 Donagan, following Bratman, while not explicitly addressing Chisholm, uses this example: ‘If you intend to run a marathon and believe that you will thereby wear down your sneakers, it does not in the least follow that you intend to wear down your sneakers.’24 This example is similar to one used by St Thomas. ‘If someone often or always gets his feet wet when he goes to a muddy place, then granted that he does not intend this, nevertheless it is not said to be by [bad] luck.’25 But what Aquinas means is that although he does not intend simply to get his feet wet, this still falls under his intention. What Chisholm’s critics seem to ignore is the other principle, the non-divisiveness of intention.26 When taken together with it, the principle of the diffusiveness of intention appears to fit very well with the doctrine that actions are individuals, i.e. that one and the same action may admit many true descriptions whose combination is logically contingent. — Stephen L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action, Ch. 5: Praeter Intentionem, p. 204-5

Also relevant:

Consider the frequent objection to the moral significance of the question of the directness or indirectness of some result, e.g. someone’s death. If what you do kills him anyway, what difference does it make whether or not you were aiming at his very death? It makes at least this much difference: if you did not aim at his very death, then, provided that you do succeed in bringing about what you did aim at, you will not mind if something happens to prevent him from dying after all.47 That is, even if his death is a nearly certain result of your succeeding in what you are doing, it is not you who are making certain of it. Of the things that might happen to thwart the killing of someone, at least some are things that someone bent on killing him would take into consideration and try to stop, while someone not having that aim would not. At any rate, his death cannot be as certain, on the supposition of your accomplishing your aim, as it would be if it were your aim, again on the supposition of your accomplishing your aim. The certainty of your getting what you aim at, if you get what you aim at, is plainly greater than the certainty of the occurrence of something other than what you aim at, if you get what you aim at. Still, this difference, which is only one of degree of certainty, is perhaps not very significant morally. At any rate the fact that you are not directly aiming at anyone’s death does not at all entail that no matter what you do, you cannot be guilty of murder.48 — Stephen L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action, Ch. 5: Praeter Intentionem, p. 210

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

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 — Bob Ross

Sure I can, because this is what it means for Q to not be directly intended.

So at this point in the conversation I am guessing you will have the good sense to reject your claim that "1. (P → Q) → (Q is a means to P)" (). Remember that earlier in our conversation you doubled-down against my proof and decided to reject our mutual principle instead of your false (1). The mutual principle was, "<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>. (the idea here is that P is clearly intended)" (). Now that you presumably understand that (1) is false, there is no reason for you to reject this principle. What you ought to do now is start from scratch and try to figure out what it means for Q to be a means to P, for it most certainly does not mean that (P → Q) (i.e. "You can't get P without Q").

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. — Bob Ross

Then I would say that you need to refine what you mean by a cause.

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 — Bob Ross

Sure, but I would hold that if I have not killed them then I have not caused their death. In general you are lacking distinctions regarding causation and intention. You are making these things more black and white than they are.

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. — Bob Ross

Okay that's fair, I retract and apologize for the claim that you think "letting happen" is morally indifferent.

If the objective in your example is to equalize the treatment of men and women at the cost of additional death, then the egalitarian dictate makes sense. What you're simply pointing out is that decisions are made without thinking through the consequences and not properly prioritizing objectives. — Hanover

Yes, this is a large part of it.

If, at the end of the day, the left's military results in some military losses and greater deaths but greater domestic equality among the sexes, then the final question as to whether that result is better than more military wins and less gender equality, that can be answered by the democratic vote. — Hanover

This is precisely where I take you to be mistaken, here and in previous posts. The democratic vote does not determine whether gender equality is better than less military deaths. Perhaps simply pointing it out is sufficient for you to see that? If Plato is right then the democratic vote will tell us much the opposite.

In a democracy we determine whether to implement that form of gender equality by a democratic vote or process. Such is the reason for the decision, not the measure of the decision. Presumably you will now want to argue that democratic procedure produces optimal decisions.

I'm voting for the more military wins, but I don't know that makes me more rational. It just makes me someone who prioritizes safety over domestic equality. Obviously if the left's military is so weakened by their desire to create gender equality that it cannot protect itself from foreign invaders, then it would be irrational, but as long as the plan is to give more people the opportunity for military advancement without overly weakening the military, then it could be rational. From my perspective, sacrificing people for an objective of equality is a stupid idea because I do not consider equality a social virtue. — Hanover

I agree very much, but my point was that, "This is a problem beyond the instrumentalization of reason, and goes to the fact that many of our taboos do not have rational grounds. It is that something can even be moral and irrational."

For someone like (and very many otherwise rational progressives), being moral means that I cannot admit the mathematical fact that group data provides statistical information about individuals in that group. They will deny the legitimacy of "profiling" even to the degree of denying mathematical facts. This is more an individual issue, but it creeps into law and policy as well. Now you might say that it is not necessarily irrational to prefer death to inequality (in the military), but is it irrational to deny mathematical facts?

Huh? Philosophy degrees need a statistics requirement. — LuckyR

Yes indeed!

If I tell you that the Atlanta Braves team batting average in 2024 is .244 (the median in MLB), what does that tell someone about Marcell Ozuna's batting average in 2024? Nothing. He's got the 5th highest average in baseball. — LuckyR

You don't think the team batting average of the Braves tells us anything about the batting averages of Braves players? Pray tell, where do you think "team batting average of the Braves" comes from? It comes from the individual members of the team! It tells us, for example, that any player on the Braves will probably have a higher batting average than any player on a team with a lower team batting average. Your counterexample fails because the logic does not tell us exact data about each player on the Braves. "Ozuna's batting average is not .244, therefore the team batting average tells us nothing about individual players' averages," is a fallacious argument. The group statistic informs us of probabilities, and we are constantly using probabilities to make decisions.

- Okay, I finally caught up in this thread. I think you are talking past me a bit. This is how I see it:

• Leontiskos: You said, "I agree with Gerson that Rorty is too general and reductive in how the practice is conceived" (link). How you would go about opposing this Rorty-esque approach to philosophy?
• Paine: Gerson incorrectly lumps Rorty and Rosenberg together.

I'm not sure what you wrote in your post addresses my question. If you agree with Gerson that Rorty is too general and reductive, then what sort of corrective would you provide to Rorty?

[Gerson] then says:

"What I aim to show is that Rorty (and probably Rosenberg) are right in identifying Platonism with philosophy and that, therefore, the rejection of the one necessarily means the rejection of the other."

In presenting this statement, there is more than a little sleight of hand in play with Gerson joining Rorty and Rosenberg together as fellow "anti-Platonists": — Paine

Has Gerson said that Rorty and Rosenberg are fellow anti-Platonists, or has he merely said that they are right in identifying Platonism with philosophy? It seems to me that he has said the latter, and it does not follow that both are anti-Platonists (or that both are anti-Platonists in the same sense).

[Rorty and Rosenberg are different] — Paine

I agree that they are different, and I don't see that Gerson has claimed they are not. Still, I am curious what corrective you would offer to "this Rorty-esque approach to philosophy" ().

That is a very sharp either/or. I don't know what that does not exclude from the pursuit of natural causes. — Paine

I think it will not exclude a pursuit of natural causes in line with Gerson's five points of Ur-Platonism.

2) Whether you think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of thing in their own day? — Leontiskos

This is where I think Gerson should not quit his day job before becoming a philosopher of history. He establishes himself in that role but not in a way that can be compared with other attempts. That is why I had to agree with your observation about the futility of comparing Ur-Platonism with Heidegger. — Paine

So I take it you don't think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of naturalism in their own day?

- Well, you brought up the payment to Daniels, not me. You brought it up because it happened prior to the election, and it is at least temporally possible that something that occurred before the election influenced the election. Then I asked if he was charged for the payment, and you started sprinkling red herrings all about. The article asks how actions taken in 2017 could have influenced an election in 2016. If you're abandoning the payment to Daniels as the action taken, then what action influenced the election? It should go without saying that the action should be related to the charge.

That there are reasons to do something doesn't mean it ought be done. — Hanover

Sure, but we are discussing whether it is reasonable, not whether it ought to be done.

That it might increase profits to be racist doesn't force a conclusion that one should be racist. — Hanover

The lurking question here is, "Is racism irrational?" Or also, "What is racism?"

For Aquinas that which is immoral is always also irrational. For us something can be immoral and rational. This is a problem beyond the instrumentalization of reason, and goes to the fact that many of our taboos do not have rational grounds. It is that something can even be moral and irrational. For example, our colloquial definition of racism would seem to be, "Discriminating on the basis of race without having any good reason to discriminate on the basis of race," and this verges on psychological impossibility. Or closer to this thread, sexism would be, "Discriminating on the basis of sex without having any good reason to discriminate on the basis of sex." This looks like liberal-egalitarian dogma. "Don't do it even if you think you have a good reason to do it."

So now just making up an example, suppose I am in a combat situation in the military, and our liberal-democratic dogmas have prescribed that women must be admitted to the military on equal footing with men. I am paired with a woman in combat; I go down; she is not strong enough to carry me out; I die. Why did I die? Because the liberal-egalitarian legislation irrationally created a suboptimal situation on the basis of the falsehood that women are equal to men in strength. Irrational failure to discriminate can have real consequences.

To the extent though anyone actually argues that cis and trans folks can't be meaningfully distinguished, that is stupid. I don't think people really do that, but the definition games often get played in a way that it pretends there is some confusion there. — Hanover

But of course people do this, and the reason is transparent. Discrimination (or "distinction") leads to unequal treatment, therefore it cannot be allowed. For example, should I be able to filter trans folks out of my eHarmony search? Many would say 'no'.

Every time I engage in an act of discrimination I do so in order to act on that discrimination, either in thought or in outward action. So if I discriminate the white from the black chess pieces, I do so in order to determine which pieces to move. Discrimination is logically necessary, discrimination always results in unequal treatment, and sometimes unequal treatment is illegitimate. So the question is always whether to err on the side of free discrimination or to err on the side of opposing unequal treatment.

Trump is no statesman; he's a fraudster, of which this particular (trivial) crime is just the latest example. — Relativist

Yes, and in the video I linked it is construed, "Trump is crimey, therefore he must have committed a crime." This is the basic thinking. And he may have committed a misdemeanor. Hard to tell.

But the broader context is the inherent immorality of the acts. Trump supporters tend to gloss over this, as if everything is fine as long as it's not illegal. — Relativist

Trump made it important by flagrantly disrespecting the rule of law — Relativist

The conviction seems to be a flagrant disrespect of the rule of law, and it seems that the only interesting question is whether this kangaroo court will significantly harm our rule of law. Courts are for legal matters, not non-legal moral matters. You yourself are showing a disregard for the rule of law in construing his conviction as a moral matter rather than a legal matter.

Trump is immoral, but were he especially criminal I would expect that a clear crime could be found! No one even knows what he is supposed to have done. The jury itself couldn't even agree on that.

You claim that the antinatalist is secretly religious... — schopenhauer1

No, I am saying that antinatalism is non-naturalistic. I wrote out responses to all of your claims, but then I shelved that post because it was so long. Instead I focused on the simple argument () and the foundational Gnosticism ().

Regarding the simple argument, I will ask you a simple question: Is it true that we should not procreate in a world where everyone receives one pinprick of pain followed by 80 years of pure happiness? Yes or no? Presumably some have ambitions of achieving such a world someday.

Here is an easier way to envision the foundational Gnosticism problem. The evolutionary naturalist says:

1. Reasoning, including moral reasoning, is a result of evolutionary adaptation
2. Evolutionary adaptation is ordered to survival
3. Therefore, moral reasoning is ordered to survival
4. The argument which says we should cease procreating would lead to extinction
5. Therefore this argument is unsound; contrary to evolutionary adaptation ordered to survival

This argument is a microcosm of the anti-Gnosticism argument, for the Gnostic must reject naturalistic premises akin to (1). For the naturalist, antinatalism is by definition irrational, as it is directly contrary to nature. Your arguments are all dubious, but one of the fundamental reasons they are all dubious is because you are essentially importing knowledge from a different "god," a god that is foreign to our nature, culture, religions, etc. In denying moral naturalism you must necessarily be appealing to some form of supernaturalism. Think of it in terms of the microcosm: if your ethic is directly contrary to evolutionary survival, then it must be coming from something above and beyond evolutionary survival.

My point was it isn't reasonable when group statistics are used on individuals. — LuckyR

But it is reasonable. If group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z, then—all things being equal—someone belonging to group X has Y percentage chance of committing action Z on average. Progressives have a difficult time recognizing the simple fact that there are rationally sound inferences which move from group data to individual data.

Yes. The payment to Stormy was made before the election, and it was made to kill the story (interfering with the election). — Relativist

1. Was Trump charged with paying Daniels?
2. Were the actions he was charged with performed before or after the election?
3. Was a payment to Daniels illegal?
4. Is withholding information election interference?

I am late to the game, but the Libertarians seem correct: the logical and legal reasoning involved here is remarkably bad. "Jungle juice" jurisprudence:

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”). — Bob Ross

Okay, so you are doubling-down and rejecting the premise.

Now I should say again that your definition of a "means" is not a good definition. I understand the word itself better than I understand the word-salad definition you are giving. Because your definition is less clear than the word, it is a bad definition. If you don't like 's definition then I suggest we take Merriam-Webster as a point of departure, "something useful or helpful to a desired end."

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. — Bob Ross

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. Note that in both "V" and "7" Q is conditionally necessary for P (i.e. P → Q).

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. — Bob Ross

Yes, but let's continue referring to P as the good effect and Q as the bad effect. 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.

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. — Bob Ross

Let's get back to fundamentals again. There are two basic principles in conflict:

• P_dfs: The principle of the diffusiveness of intention
• P_ndiv: The principle of the non-divisiveness of intention

The above account of indirect objects of intention seems to correspond to what Chisholm calls the principles of the ‘diffusiveness’ and ‘non-divisiveness’ of intention. The principle of the diffusiveness of intention is that if someone intends p, knowing that p entails q, then he intends the conjunction p and q. For instance, if a man intends to drive off in a car parked nearby, knowing that it belongs to someone else, then he intends this: to drive off in a car parked nearby that belongs to someone else. The principle of the non-divisiveness of intention is that if someone intends the conjunction p and q, he does not necessarily intend q by itself. The man may not intend just this: to drive off in a car that belongs to someone else.[22]

[22]: Roderick Chisholm, "The Structure of Intention." — Stephen L. Brock, Action and Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action, Ch. 5: Praeter Intentionem, p. 204

(I take it that Chisholm's contemporary approach will be more accessible.)

You have a good grasp of P_dfs but you are letting it override P_ndiv. Let's go back to my example that you did not respond to:

Suppose an act has two effects: I press the accelerator and two things happen: my speed accelerates and my fuel is consumed. Do you think Aquinas is right, and it is possible to intend one effect without the other? When I press the accelerator do I intend to accelerate and do I intend to diminish my fuel? And even if so, do I intend them in the same way? Is the word "intend" being used in the same way for both of these effects? — Leontiskos

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.

Brock uses the terms "direct intention" and "indirect intention." I directly intend to get to the grocery store; I indirectly intend to consume fuel. Key here is the relation of each to my purpose: if my direct intention does not come about then my purpose has not been achieved, but if my indirect intention does not come about it does not follow that my purpose has not been achieved. 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!" Yet I do precisely this if I get home and realize that I have no groceries in the car. Direct and indirect intention are different, and any theory that cannot make sense of their difference is inadequate as a theory.

I would suggest reading Aristotle's account of the sailors who throw cargo overboard in Book III, Ch. 1 of the Nicomachean Ethics (link). It is very often referred to in this area of philosophy. A key element of that story is that the cargo is thrown into the sea even though doing so is undesirable and not directly intended.

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)”. — Bob Ross

Right: this is the antecedent of (2) of the argument I gave: < 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). — Bob Ross

On the contrary, the premise is tautological, and is therefore always true. It is nearly the logical representation of what you said just above, "you can’t say that A → P is true when Q is false given 'A → (P & Q)'." The point is that you cannot say that (P → Q) is false when (P ^ Q) (i.e. given A, both follow). Remember that the key is the relation between P and Q.

Take the car example, I am actually saying (as opposed to this premise 2):

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

Sure, that's fine. It is true that (A → (P ^ Q)) → ((A → P) ^ (A → Q)). But again, to know whether Q is a 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).

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. — Bob Ross

So first, A is not "swerving to save four people." Saving four people is impossible, and we do not intend the impossible. Here is what I already said:

A: Swerve right
P: Avoid hitting all four people
Q: Hit the two people on the right — Leontiskos

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 so helpfully demonstrated.

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. — Bob Ross

Okay, and I addressed your claim about "killing" in my post above. As I said, that seems to be a tangent. The central point has to do with whether Q is a means to P. 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.

The other absurdity that results from your view is that Q is a means to P and P is a means to Q, which is of course impossible. This is because in (2) (P ^ Q) is interchangeable with (Q ^ P), and what this means is that A leads both to the conclusion that Q is a means to P and to the conclusion that P is a means to Q. In other words: (A → (P ^ Q)) → (A → (P ↔ Q)). — Leontiskos

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. — Bob Ross

No, not at all. Some points:

• 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.
• Monitor 1 and Monitor 2 are not a means to one another, nor is either one a means to the other.
• The operation of the computer does not require two screens.

Now you want to make A "Operation with two screens." Erm, okay, but then this would be the "two birds with one stone" scenario, not the (Car → (Groceries ^ Gas)) scenario. Remember that we are talking about double effect, where P is a good effect and Q is a bad effect. You are talking about a different thing, where there are two good effects (two effects directly intended). The computer scenario and the car scenario are both "V" scenarios, but the crucial point is that the intention is different in each of them. Your desire to have a second monitor is not parallel to my desire to consume fuel. You want a second monitor and I don't want to consume fuel.

The question of a means can be represented by a particular sort of counterfactual, "Supposing !(A → Q), would I still choose A?" On "7" scenarios the answer is no, whereas on "V" scenarios the answer is yes. Again, this is not to deny that (A → Q) might dissuade me from choosing A, but it does mean that whenever I answer 'yes' to the counterfactual it follows that Q is not a means to P.

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.

- Good post.

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

This is exactly right. As I said:

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. — Leontiskos

Now I would say that a decision is an act, but the larger point is that we are responsible for our decisions, and therefore we are responsible even for decisions that do not terminate in (external/transitive) "acts."

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. — Bob Ross

Strictly speaking I admit a distinction between commissions and omissions, but I would say your theory simply cannot support this distinction in our current context. This is because your only tool of analysis is conditional necessity. "I let them die," is (arguably) equally applicable to all of our other cases. For example the lever-puller will say that they merely let the single person die in order to save the five. If we analyze these cases according to conditional necessity, then each case is the same insofar as you perform an action in which you "intend" and "cause" the necessary death of someone (according to your own claims). To intend and cause the death of someone is to intentionally kill them. It makes no sense for you to say that you intend and cause their necessary death but you do not kill them. Some of this will hopefully clear up when I respond to your full post.

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

Herg's analysis was quite good, and should be addressed. He is making the same claim I am making but doing it in a more natural way. As he says, "whether Alan and Betty are present has no bearing on whether the car can swerve and hence save the lives of Charles and Dora."

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! For example, if a pilot (like Sully) found himself in a difficult situation, then he would just do nothing and apparently on Bob's theory he could never be blamed. This is incorrect because it is often wrong to do nothing (and the choice to do nothing is often the wrong choice to make).

- Thanks Paine, I will try to offer a response sometime in the next few days.

Oh, discrimination is not only not a negative, it's essential to human existance. Since in it's absence we'd treat each other identically ie we'd never learn from experience. — LuckyR

I agree. :up:

Of course, there is a key difference between discrimination between groups and individuals. For example it is more than reasonable for an insurance company to charge more for all businesses in a neighborhood (that happens to be majority Black) that experiences more vandalism. It's completely unreasonable to charge a business that happens to be own by a Black man but located in a neighborhood with average vandalism, a high premium. — LuckyR

Well, if the insured businesses are more likely to be vandalized then it is reasonable for the insurance company to charge higher premiums, regardless of whether groups or individuals are involved.

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

No, you have not already explicated that. You gave a case when Q is not necessarily intended, and this is different from giving a case where it is not intended.

So now you say <If Q is not a means to the intended P then Q is not intended>. Okay, it is good that you answered, even though your answer is false. If A is throwing a stone, P is hitting bird 1, and Q is hitting bird 2, then Q is intended even though it is not a means to P. This is the “two birds with one stone” case that I already gave, which is the same as the “V” circuit where vertex P and vertex Q are both intended.

But what you have failed to do over and over again is to tell us when Q is the means and when Q is not the means. You have been begging the question by repeating, “Q is a means in the trolley/plane/car case!” Herg and I have been providing analyses of when something is a means and when it is not, and we have been trying to lure you into a real analysis of what it is for something to be a means. Of course you have now provided an analysis in terms of conditional necessity.

What I am going to do is focus on the water case, because that is the sole case where you claim that Q is not a means to P. If it is shown that your claim fails there according to your own analysis of what it is to be a means, then it will become more apparent that you have offered no substantial analysis of what it is for something to be a means. For parity let us assume that the water is necessary to live:

• 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:

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 — Bob Ross

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.

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.

6... does NOT takeaway from the fact that one cannot in this scenario achieve the end without X. — Bob Ross

One cannot achieve P without Q, therefore on your reasoning Q was a means to P.

Your error in all of this is conflating conditional necessity with the presence of a means. You are trying to say, “If in causing P I necessarily cause Q, then Q was a means to P.” This is actually contrary to our mutual premise 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>. The presupposition behind this premise is that P is a good effect and Q is a bad effect, and that there are cases where we cannot get P without also getting Q. That is the whole point of the rider: even when I know that A causes Q. You are more or less just denying that rider by claiming that whenever A is known to cause Q, Q is automatically a “means” to P. If P were possible without Q then A would not cause both P and Q.

Or else, go study the diagram I drew up, paying particular attention to the “V” shape. If we are aiming to provide current to vertex P, then we must apply current to vertex A, and this will necessarily result in current flowing to vertex Q, but it does not follow that the current flowing to Q is a means to the current flowing to P! A will supply current to P whether or not Q exists, and this is completely different from the “7” shape.

It’s not so hard to logically demonstrate the contradiction:

1. (P $\to$ Q) $\to$ (Q is a means to P)
2. (A $\to$ (P ^ Q)) $\to$ (A $\to$ (P $\to$ Q))
3. A $\to$ (P ^ Q)
4. ∴ A $\to$ (Q is a means to P)
5. Contradiction with respect to our agreed premise: <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>

(If (4) were true then Q is necessarily intended given that P is intended.)

Your error is (1). It does not follow from the conditional necessity of Q that Q is a means. Note that, "One cannot achieve P without Q," is the same as (P $\to$ Q).

The other absurdity that results from your view is that Q is a means to P and P is a means to Q, which is of course impossible. This is because in (2) (P ^ Q) is interchangeable with (Q ^ P), and what this means is that A leads both to the conclusion that Q is a means to P and to the conclusion that P is a means to Q. In other words: (A $\to$ (P ^ Q)) $\to$ (A $\to$ (P $\leftrightarrow$ Q)).

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. — Bob Ross

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 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. — Bob Ross

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?

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). — Bob Ross

So as I said, "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." What is at stake is a distinction between a commission and an omission.

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. — Bob Ross

Okay, fair enough, and I agree with that, although you would apparently disagree with my opinion that killing a person must necessarily involve an intention to kill them.

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). — Bob Ross

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. I am going to set aside that question for the time being given that it places too many dishes on our plate.

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

Did P1 kill P2? Or to be more precise, did P1 intentionally kill P2, or else did P1's action merely cause P2's death? "Kill" is ambiguous as to whether intent is involved. 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.

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. — Bob Ross

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. — Herg

You responded:

Killing one person to save the five is what enables the person to save the five. Without being able to kill the one person, they cannot save the five. — Bob Ross

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.

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.

I gave two cases of intent: "two birds with one stone," and "the basketball bank shot." Consider the metaphor of passing an electrical current through the shape of the letter "V" and the number "7". We feed current into the bottom vertex and our goal is to get current to the upper left vertex ("P"), as can be seen at <this link>.

Now Q_v is not a means to P_v, but Q₇ is a means to P₇. Do you see the difference? In the language of one way of expressing double effect, P_v and Q_v both follow immediately from A_v, but P₇ follows Q₇ mediately from A₇. Because P_v and Q_v follow immediately from A_v, Q_v cannot be a means to P_v.

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. — Bob Ross

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.

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.

However, I'm not sure that this means that I can agree with you that — Herg

Sure - I edited up that post after I realized this, but it looks like you began replying before my edit went through.

I don't believe, even if there were such a thing as moral guilt, that this would make him morally guilty, because I believe his moral responsibility would be to minimise the number of people who are going to be killed, and killing the single person intentionally is unavoidable if he is to do this. — Herg

Sure, I can see that point of view.

That fairly points to the limits of my thought experiment. — Paine

Okay, so from the "Aristotle's Metaphysics" thread:

Before going into the details of what Aristotle said or did not say, I would like to think about Rorty as the poster child for what Gerson militates against. Rorty is baldly "historicist" in his description of the 'end of philosophy'. I agree with Gerson that Rorty is too general and reductive in how the practice is conceived. But is Rorty the best exemplar of what Gerson opposes? I have been questioning the unity imparted by Gerson upon classical texts in previous discussions. The assumed unity of what is being opposed by Gerson needs some consideration. — Paine

From this I am led to believe that you agree with Gerson's larger project, but disagree regarding his specific means. So I am wondering 1) How you would go about opposing this Rorty-esque approach to philosophy, and 2) Whether you think Gerson's "Platonists" were opposing the same sort of thing in their own day?

Actually I think Bob is taking the straightforward position that it is always wrong to deliberately kill an innocent person. — Herg

It seems to me that the question at hand asks what it means to deliberately/intentionally/purposefully kill. Although you and I may disagree on a great deal, we do agree that to pull the lever is not to use the death of the one as a means. My claim is that if his death is not intended as a means and it is not intended as an end, then it is not intended, and he has not been intentionally killed.* Bob Ross has his foot in the door insofar as he has admitted that not every effect of an act is intentional, even if it is known that it will occur.

Good posts, by the way. :up:

* I think it would be helpful for Ross to understand that if the trolley scenario were changed so that instead of one person there were ten people on the second track, then the doctrine of double effect would not permit switching the trolley to the second track, even though doing so is not necessarily to intentionally kill the ten. One cannot intend to kill, but even when one is not intending to kill it does not follow that their act will be moral.

But then, there are more rigorous, more fundamental ways of grounding truth and meaning than by means of identity and rationality. — Joshs

I don't think so, and I don't think it's a coincidence that your sentence reads like a necessary falsehood. Apart from very odd and idiosyncratic definitions of "rational," something less rational or less plausible is not more robust.

Far too often, we seem to read the modern rationalist vs empiricist debate back into Plato and Aristotle, which misses their deep connections. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Very true, just as, in an even more extreme way, many of the Wittgenstenians in these parts assume that if you disagree with them you must be following Russell.

Interestingly, he points to Ockham and Scotus as the end of the classical metaphysical tradition and the birth of "subject/object" thinking and "problems of knowledge"... — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is probably a complementarity here between Gerson and Perl given the way Gerson will identify those later themes in earlier thinkers (e.g. materialism in the atomists).

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

Okay.

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. — Bob Ross

First, I don't know how helpful this is given the fact that "intent" and "purpose" are synonyms. Now you've just said all the same things you were saying before, but with the word "purpose" instead of the word "intent." This is apparently only a superficial shift of which word is being used.

So the principle we now agree on is: <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>. (the idea here is that P is clearly intended)

Now I have claimed that Q is intended when it is the means by which P is achieved, or else when it is willed as an end. For example, when I shoot a "bank" shot in basketball (off the backboard) I intend the ball to ricochet off the backboard into the basket. In this case the ball hitting the backboard is Q and the ball going into the basket is P, and the very fact that Q is a means to P shows that I intend the occurrence of Q. For the second example, if I try to hit two birds with one stone, then I am intending both P and Q (hitting bird 1 and hitting bird 2) as ends. Only in these types of cases do I intend Q.

You haven't given any explanation of when Q is intended. You just said, "It's not always intended," and then you went on to give your exact same opinions with the word "purpose" instead of "intent." To take your fourth case:

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. — Bob Ross

So for the car:

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

Remember that we agreed on the principle, <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 claiming that although one does not necessarily intend Q, they do intend Q in this case. But why is that? We have agreed that, "Because they know it will happen," is an insufficient answer.

Or the trolley:

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. — Bob Ross

• A: Pull lever
• P: The trolley misses the five people
• Q: The trolley hits the one person

Why would one think that the lever-puller is intending or purposing to kill the one person?

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. — Bob Ross

• A: Give water to the first person
• P: The thirst of the first person is quenched
• Q: The second person is deprived of water

Now how is this any different from the other scenarios? To merely assert that their purpose/intent does not include Q is to beg the question. If I can not-intend this Q, then why can't I not-intend the other Q's?

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. — Bob Ross

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

Why isn't the pilot responsible for Q? He knows Q will occur if he stops flying the plane, so on your reasoning it seems that he intends Q.

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.

I would also like to add that sometimes knowledge of B implying A and intending B does implicate one in intending A... — Bob Ross

I agree, along with Aquinas.

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. — Bob Ross

Again, this is just an assertion. I could do the same thing if I said regarding case 5, "He intends/purposes to sacrifice the second person for the sake of the first person." This is not to reason or explain; it is merely to assert.

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? — Bob Ross

I suppose we could look up some cases like this to see if they are convicted of murder, if you actually believe they would be so convicted.

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. — Bob Ross

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.

- :up:

- #1 is a chapter in book #2, not a book in itself. When it comes to citations ChatGPT is apt to make errors such as this.

Since the historical basis of the seperate bathrooms was the result of the sexual distinctions and not the gender based distinctions, you cannot allow the gender based women access simply because of the happenstance of their both now using the term "woman." — Hanover

I think it's always been a gender-based social enforcement, even if we used the language of sex. — Moliere

I think the question is not so much, "What have we done in the past?" as it is, "Why have we done it?"

Why did we make two bathrooms in the first place? That is where the discussion needs to start.

I think it's always been a gender-based social enforcement, even if we used the language of sex. — Moliere

The common premise here is that, "We now think of gender and sex as different things, therefore we always thought of gender and sex as different things." Hanover says we used to think about them as different things and "man"/"woman" referred to sex, and Moliere says we used to think about them as different things and "man"/"woman" referred to gender. I say we didn't use to think of them as different things. Bathroom labels didn't use to mean sex-but-not-gender or gender-but-not-sex. Actually, they still don't for the vast majority of people.

Attacking those buildings doesn't really come through as much of a coup d'état attempt by itself, but I might definitely be missing something. — jorndoe

Right, of course.

Might be more interesting to back-track what participants/organizers did, whether they got together beforehand, where (or from who) their ideas originated or otherwise were reinforced, what their motivations were, ... — jorndoe

Maybe, but it may well lead nowhere. I don't know that it was well-coordinated or thought-out in any sense.

- Well Heidegger is tricky, but for starters I would want to say that both Gerson and Heidegger could offer a true lens, even if those two lenses are mutually exclusive. So for example, Heidegger could acknowledge that Gerson has made a real distinction with his Ur-Platonism. Whether he can go on to "share that same view of the world," depends on what it means to take a view of the world. I think Heidegger would say that Gerson's distinction, even if true, is not very important or relevant. Presumably Gerson thinks his lens is better than Heidegger's, and Heidegger would think his lens is better than Gerson's.

So then I think the question is: How do you call into question the aptness of a lens, short of denying it altogether? This is where I wonder if you are barking up the wrong tree, because the comprehensiveness of Gerson's lens makes it hard for those who agree with him to see a contrasting picture. So long as you are "short of denying it altogether," I don't think this is Gerson's fault. It might be the fault of the person who understands Gerson but does not really understand Heidegger. For that person Gerson wins by default, but also because he has managed to capture the person's interest and motivations in a way that Heidegger has not. Thus you have a legitimately difficult task in disrupting Gerson's thesis, but the way you are going about it with Plotinus and Aristotle seems reasonable to me.

So, I am not convinced we are entitled to say that kind does not exist in nature, I think the evidence points rather to the conclusion that kind does exist in nature, on every level of being. — Janus

I'd say this abductive shift is key in these sorts of arguments. "Which is more rational or plausible? To say that kinds do exist, or to say that they do not exist?"

There is an interesting article over at the libertarian outlet, Reason, entitled, "New York Prosecution's Story About Trump Featured Several Logically Impossible Claims."

It begins:

Last January, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg summed up his case against Donald Trump this way: "We allege falsi cation of business records to the end of keeping information away from the electorate. It's an election interference case."

That gloss made no sense, because the records at the center of the case—11 invoices, 11 checks, and 12 ledger entries that allegedly were aimed at disguising a hush-money reimbursement as payment for legal services—were produced after the 2016 presidential election. At that point, Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, had already paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep her from talking about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Trump, and Trump had already been elected. The prosecution's case against Trump, which a jury found persuasive enough to convict him on all 34 counts yesterday, was peppered with temporal puzzles like this one. — New York Prosecution's Story About Trump Featured Several Logically Impossible Claims

Do the logicians here think that these sorts of claims are logically possible? :chin:

I suppose the other question is, "Is it logically possible to talk about Trump logically?" :grin:

Picking this sentence up from a dead (12 month-old) thread:

It is also not to say we can discriminate on the basis of gender or sex identifcation for malevolent reasons, such as to ostracize, bully, ridicule or harrass. — Hanover

Is this to say, "We can discriminate, just not for malevolent reasons," or is it more true to say, "We shouldn't do things malevolently, including discriminating (malevolently)"?

The difficulty is that introducing the word "malevolence" is often a move into vacuity given that the word usually has no substantial definition. In other words: what is the moral status of discrimination?

(Good OP, by the way)

I think antinatalism is inherently bound up with Gnosticism. This is because it opposes the natural order, and to oppose the natural order requires appealing to some vantage point outside of the natural order. “You shouldn't procreate because the world is evil, addled by suffering.” But how do we know that the world or nature is evil? Surely nature did not tell us such a thing, nor cognitive faculties formed by nature. So then how would we know that it is evil? As the Gnostic says, it must be knowledge received from some god who is opposed to the god of this world (and the nature of the world it created). So again, antinatalism is theological in the sense that it presupposes nature-transcending knowledge.

For example, given that Benatar’s argument opposes the natural order, it cannot have been derived from the natural order. So if Benatar really thinks his argument holds good, then he must hold that his own mind and the knowledge it has come to know is super-natural, transcending nature. If we are limited to nature then we cannot contradict nature. Where does such a mind or such knowledge come from, if not from nature? Either the Gnostics are correct and it comes from the true god, or Christians are correct and it comes from demons. Or else it is just hopelessly mistaken and a product of merely human irrationality.

No, not really. When you create a fantasy world and that changes the very terms of how existence works, I don't see that as proving anything. What if gravity didn't exist? How would that change ethics? What if time and space could be changed so that we can redo actions? Again, none of this is this world. We can argue facts, but then at least we are arguing what is the case, and not hypotheticals that change how ethics would work because circumstances of the very conditions for ethics have changed. — schopenhauer1

Er, I think antinatalism is dead in the water due to this argument:

• Procreation is permissible in an all but perfect world
• Benatar's argument excludes procreation even in an all but perfect world
• Therefore, Benatar's argument is unsound

What is your counter supposed to be? "No, because counterfactual analyses aren't allowed"? I would suggest reading about the fallacy of "proving too much." Benatar's argument cannot account for the fact that procreation is obviously permissible in an all but perfect world. Benatar would not allow procreation before removing that pinprick. That's crazy. Benatar is irrationally opposed to life, and he would be irrationally opposed to life even in the best of circumstances. Indeed, his irrational argument opposes life even in the best of circumstances!

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

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.

The reason I am wary of the trolley case is because when a modern mind asks if it is permissible to pull the lever, they are almost certainly asking whether it is permissible to do evil that good may came; they are almost certainly attempting to justify consequentialism. So in this sense I think @Fire Ologist is correct when he says that the problem unduly prescinds from questions of intention. Only if one is not intending to kill the person (and one is not willing their death as a means to the end) can one pull the lever.

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. — Bob Ross

Okay.

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. — Bob Ross

It seems like he is in that hypothetical. You are positing a significant difference between steering away from a large group of people and killing others as a side-effect, and ceasing to the fly the plane and killing others as a side-effect. When the pilot decides to cease flying the plane he knows the death of innocents will result, and therefore on your definition the advice you give is also intentional killing (i.e. the advice to cease flying the plane).

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. — Bob Ross

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:

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.

Much of this comes back to the first sentence of Aquinas' response:

I answer that, Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. . . — Aquinas, ST II-II.64.7: Whether it is lawful to kill a man in self-defense?

You are denying this principle insofar as you are saying that everything which is foreseen is intended. Or more precisely, every effect which is foreseen to be necessary is intended.

What is your analysis of intent? What does it mean to intend something?

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. — Bob Ross

Right: because in the first case the bad effect is not a means to the good effect, but in the latter case it is. Thus the transplant is not permissible on double effect.

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. — Bob Ross

This is another case where the bad effect is a means to the good effect, and is therefore not permissible on double effect. In order to give the first person water I must steal from the second person. Contrariwise, if there were one drink of water and two persons dying of thirst, I could give it to the first person even though I knew that the second person would die of thirst, because the bad effect (of their dying) is not a means to the good effect (of the other person drinking). The bad effect is not necessary in order to bring about the good effect; it is a side effect.

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. — Bob Ross

In order to give the first person water I must obtain water. In order to obtain water in your scenario it must be stolen from the second person. So what is happening is that I am stealing water in order to obtain water in order to give water to a thirsty person. The bad effect is a means to the good effect, and is therefore impermissible. Without the bad effect there would be no water for the thirsty person; just as without their deaths there would be no organs to transplant.

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. — Bob Ross

Suppose an act has two effects: I press the accelerator and two things happen: my speed accelerates and my fuel is consumed. Do you think Aquinas is right, and it is possible to intend one effect without the other? When I press the accelerator do I intend to accelerate and do I intend to diminish my fuel? And even if so, do I intend them in the same way? Is the word "intend" being used in the same way for both of these effects?

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. At the very least your analysis doesn't sync with our law system. It follows from this that the police officer would not write that I intended to kill the guy on the shoulder. Police officers and judges accept that side effects exist, and that not everything foreseen is intended.

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.

Makes it unique, but not out of kilter. — schopenhauer1

Here is a logical presentation of the greenlight/prohibition distinction, which I tried to add in an edit but apparently did not get added:

You are committing the fallacy of denying the antecedent: <If you do X, then you are acting immorally; he did not do X, therefore he is acting morally>, where X = treating another as a mere means. It does not follow that my action is moral or permissible just because it does not treat another as a mere means.