It seems to me the issue for ethics isn’t freedom vs determinism, but what kind of freedom and what kind of determinism. — Joshs

Well, Hanover has already brought up the issue we are now discussing:

Why am I morally responsible for X if I couldn't have done otherwise? — Hanover

Does Sapolski have anything to say to this issue?

Let’s take , for instance , the neurobiologist Robert Sapolski’s determinatist account. His target is traditional views of free will , and his claim is that they justify a harsh, retributive justice because the free-willing individual is radically arbitrary with respect to an ordered system of natural forces. — Joshs

That seems mistaken to me, and would certainly require a great deal more argument. Unless Sapolski's target is Kantian freedom, in which case I tend to agree.

But the exchange might look something like this:

• Hanover: If I could have done otherwise, then I am morally responsible, and retributive justice is applicable.
• Sapolski: Retributive justice is bad, and if it is applicable then there is a problem. Therefore I could not have done otherwise.

If this is right then a curious shift is occurring, but I think Sapolski's value judgments take a back seat to Hanover's logical query. It is now quite common for people to oppose retributive justice per se and this would lead the logically consistent individual to deny moral responsibility and free will, but this seems to me grossly mistaken. In any case, Sapolski seems to agree with Hanover that <I am morally responsible iff I could have done otherwise>; it's just that whereas someone like Aquinas would use moral responsibility to affirm libertarian free will,* Sapolski would apparently deny libertarian free will in order that he might deny moral responsibility (because moral responsibility and the justification of retributive punishment go hand in hand).

*

Man has free-will: otherwise counsels, exhortations, commands, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be in vain. — Aquinas, ST I.83.1

I'd push back here a bit. Self-interest is definitely a Hobbessian point, and to some extent Locke, but Rousseau -- by my understanding -- is more a romantic. "Man is born free, and yet everywhere is in chains" — Moliere

That's fair. I concede your point. I was thinking more about Hobbes' social contract than Rosseau's. My mistake.

With that said, I do think Kant in his pessimism is closer to Hobbes than Rosseau. In Religion within the bounds of Reason Alone Kant speaks about man as evil or corrupt by nature, and I am told that in his Perpetual Peace a very Hobbesian political approach emerges.

Also since he believes that self-interest is something which makes an action not-moral -- an act can follow the moral law and so be legal, but it's the motivation towards the moral law which qualifies a particular as as moral or not moral -- I'd say that Kant inherits some of this Romanticism with respect to human beings: We are valuable ends unto ourselves. — Moliere

I think Simpson argues convincingly that at the heart of Kant is the universalization of a kind of communal self-interest, but his argument is doing to draw on the universalization formulation of the Categorical Imperative, along with Kant's conceptions of inclination and respect. If we consider the formulation of the Categorical Imperative which has to do with means and ends—which you may here allude to—then an argument against universalized communal self-interest is certainly available.

In a way what becomes sacred is less the metaphysics of morals and more the individual making choices — Moliere

I think the moral principles are sacred in that they are largely opaque to reason, and for Kant any explanation or justification for them will necessarily be limited and incomplete. I think Kant sees it as mistaken to ask for clear rational reasons why we ought to heed his moral principles. In a very weird but true way, for Kant if there are sufficient rational reasons for some act then that act is not necessarily a moral act, and therefore moral philosophy and complete rational explanations are like oil and water.

And what caused the agent to perform the act?

You have two choices here: (1) nothing or (2) something.

Assuming you won't choose #1, then that something had to be caused by (1) nothing or (2) something.

Until you choose #1, you don't have a self-caused event. Once you do choose #1, you have to explain why you're holding someone responsible for something that just spontaneously occurred from nothingness. — Hanover

Well you are begging the question. You are saying, "The agent's act had to be caused by something else, either deterministic or random. It couldn't have been caused by the agent himself." Ergo:

I don't see it as rational to simply define agent causation out of existence. "Everything is either random or determined, therefore agent causation (and free will) do not exist." But why accept that everything is either random or determined? That premise seems clearly false. A basic datum of our experience is free agents who are the cause of their own acts (i.e. self-movers). An agent's free act is not uncaused; it is caused precisely by the agent. — Leontiskos

Now to be fair, for the Scholastics the act of a rational agent cannot be understood apart from rationality and rational motives. Still, rational decisions are also bound up with agency, and they cannot be deterministic if they are truly rational, and also because of the evidence that the rational agent is able to reflect on their own reasons in an infinitely recursive manner.

So the case is really best exemplified by David Benatar's asymmetry argument that is now more widely known than when I used to discuss it. — schopenhauer1

I think Benatar's argument avoids the question of whether life or existence is good.

Preventing happiness is less a moral obligation than preventing suffering. All things being equal, in the case of non-consent, and ignorance (like this Veil of Ignorance argument is saying), it is always best to prevent suffering, even on the behest of preventing happiness. — schopenhauer1

There persists the conflation between the ontological and the "moral" (in the modern sense). It is the difference between preventing something and preventing the potential/potency for that something. To prevent the potential for X will also prevent X, but it is not the same thing as simply preventing X. One could prevent their child from getting smallpox by having no children or by vaccinating the children they do have, but these two options are not parallel. The obligations with respect to each are somewhat different.

Is Thanos from The Avengers a good example of an antinatalist? Specifically, a Thanos who snaps his fingers and everyone disappears without pain, not just half of them? No suffering + no potential for suffering = perfection. The theological gnosticism crops up its head again here, for the gist is that it would have been better for nothing at all to exist. I don't think the theological or metaphysical shift is avoidable given that your argument pertains to ontological realities and sheer potencies, rather than only to mere "moral" realities. To weigh suffering against life or existence will go beyond the "moral" insofar as evaluations of life and existence do not fall within the "moral" (in the modern sense).

But the Christian and Platonist traditions have been saying that being and goodness are convertible for thousands of years, and given that the argument does not recognize this seems to imply that it is weighed down by a specifically modern context. Yet to make an argument against life per se or existence per se is to move beyond that modern context.

Placing responsibility on the mindbody seems an arbitrary assignment of blame or credit. Why do you hold the pool player responsible for the great shot and not the pool stick? They are all just causes. — Hanover

Yes, quite right.

Any cause that did not arise solely from the actor cannot be held as the basis for responsibility. That holds true whether that cause arose as the result of other causes or whether it arose randomly. The only true free will would be an uncaused cause, which either implicates a godlike ability or it just results in further incoherence. — Hanover

I don't see it as rational to simply define agent causation out of existence. "Everything is either random or determined, therefore agent causation (and free will) do not exist." But why accept that everything is either random or determined? That premise seems clearly false. A basic datum of our experience is free agents who are the cause of their own acts (i.e. self-movers). An agent's free act is not uncaused; it is caused precisely by the agent.

Or more precisely, I would take exception with your word "solely." Not all acts are solely caused by the agent, and therefore we hold agents responsible to the extent that their act was self-caused. For example, in the film A Few Good Men the two marines receive a mitigated sentence. If it were "all or nothing" (solely responsible actor or entirely unresponsible actor) then the only two options would have been complete guilt or complete innocence.

Doing nothing is still a decision in the scenario.
Besides, it's easy enough to come up with a scenario where doing nothing would result in more deaths than, say, two other options.
Say, pulling lever left results in x deaths, pulling lever right results in y deaths, doing nothing results in x+y deaths. — jorndoe

Right, a la:

Suppose you are driving your car. Four people appear on the road, two on each side. If you keep going in the same direction you will hit all four. If you swerve left you will only hit the two on the left. If you swerve right you will only hit the two on the right. You don't have time to stop. What do you do? — Leontiskos

---

Leontiskos
Curious if you agree with the thrust here but for different reasons — Fire Ologist

Good thoughts. I agree with some angles and disagree with others, but I see no need to intervene. I think your post will help stimulate fruitful discussion. :up:

Yes, but this does not permit them to sacrifice innocent people to fulfill such duty. — Bob Ross

But their duty as pilot allows them to stop flying the plane, even though they know that by doing so innocent people will die?

This is a really good example, that tripped me up a bit (: — Bob Ross

:wink:

Firstly, I would like to disclaim that this is different than the airplane example because you are stipulating that the people being sacrificed are actually already victims — Bob Ross

Did I? Not that I know of...?

Secondly, I would say that one must continue to go straight, assuming they cannot try to veer away to avoid all 4 altogether (and have to choose between intending to kill the two to save the other two and letting all 4 die), because, otherwise, they would be intending to kill two people as a means toward the good end of saving two people.

A person that says otherwise, would be acting like a consequentialist full-stop: they would be allowing a person to intend to kill an innocent person for the sole sake of the greater good. I don’t see how the principle of Double Effect gets one out of this without it becoming inherently consequentialist.

Now, in practical life, since such stipulations are not in place, I would veer away intending to miss all 4 and would not ever intend to kill two to save the other two. If I happen to kill two instead of four because I didn’t manage to swerve far enough away; than that is a bad outcome but I had good intentions and thusly didn’t do anything immoral (unless, of course, there is reason to blame me for reckless driving or something). — Bob Ross

It seems to me that you have given two different scenarios, one to which you have given a theoretical answer and a different one to which you have given a practical answer. In the scenario I gave, the driver knows that if he swerves left to try to avoid the pedestrians he will hit the two on the left, and that if he swerves right to try to avoid the pedestrians he will hit the two on the right. In your "practical life" scenario he has gained a new option: swerve without knowing that he will hit anyone. But it is not permissible to change the constraints of the problem in this way, and this makes sense because we intuitively know that one problem cannot simultaneously have two different solutions. There are two solutions because there are two different problems. We must go back to the single problem, the single scenario.

According to the standard Catholic version of double effect, one can swerve with the intention of avoiding pedestrians even though they know with certainty that they will hit pedestrians on the left or the right. They are permitted to do this only on two conditions: 1) that the evil effect is not a means to the good effect, and 2) that there is a sufficient proportion between good and bad outcomes to justify acting thusly (note that this is a consequentialist condition, necessary but not sufficient). Cf. <One interpretation>.

In the case of the car I would say that the second condition is clearly fulfilled: hitting two people instead of four is a significant improvement. I also think the first condition is fulfilled, but this has been one of the points of controversy within the thread. It is therefore needful to think further about what it means for one effect to be subordinated to another as a means.

The pilot is not, in your example, in a situation where they are morally responsible for the deaths of innocent lives. — Bob Ross

I agree, and I talk about this in my analysis.

If they keep flying because there are no ways to crash land without intentionally killing innocent people and the plane eventually just crash lands itself (by slowing falling to the ground) and it kills innocent people, then the pilot would be without moral fault. — Bob Ross

In my analysis I claimed that the pilot has two duties, not just one:

The pilot has a duty not to kill, but he also has a separate but related duty to cause as few deaths as possible in the event where he cannot avoid causing deaths (whether or not we decide to call this "causing of death" killing). So the good pilot will land in the area with fewest people to minimize injury and death. — Leontiskos

... if the pilot takes your recommendation then he would apparently be without moral fault according to his first duty, but not according to his second duty.

You don’t think that that pilot, by intentionally veering into an area of innocent people to crash land to avoid crashing into more innocent people in a different area, is intentionally killing innocent people? I don’t see the reasoning there. It isn’t merely an evil effect: the pilot has an evil intention (to sacrifice innocent people for the greater good). — Bob Ross

The proximate question at hand is whether the evil effect that the pilot foresees is a means to the good effect that the pilot desires. In the first place I would want to stress that the two effects are intended in wholly different ways.

I think so; but only proportionally to whatever they are doing to forfeit it. For example, the axeman should be lied to (even though one should normally tell people the truth) because one knows the axeman is using that information to actively hunt and kill an innocent person—this causes the axeman to forfeit their right to be told the truth (in this instance). — Bob Ross

Okay, interesting response. For now, I am going to leave this issue of self-defense to the side for the sake of time.

But none of these account for the way, the how, and the why of his own analyses. — tim wood

Why not?

Fideism is the separation between faith and reason, and the separation is found in different ways in different forms of Protestantism. Folks like Kant and later Schleiermacher emphasize rationalism and protect religion/faith by giving it a purely internal and separate character, and this internalizing is also in line with Pietism. — Leontiskos

Understanding Kant's Protestant fideism is very helpful in situating his thought, and this recognition is commonplace among many scholars. This kind of fideism is something of a novelty, at least in the form it took in Kant. For example:

The key text representing the revolutionary move from his pre-critical, rationalistic Christian orthodoxy to his critical position (that could later lead to those suggestions of heterodox religious belief) is his seminal Critique of Pure Reason. In the preface to its second edition, in one of the most famous sentences he ever wrote, he sets the theme for this radical transition by writing, “I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith” (Critique, B). Though never a skeptic (for example, he was always committed to scientific knowledge), Kant came to limit knowledge to objects of possible experience and to regard ideas of metaphysics (including theology) as matters of rational faith. — Kant's Philosophy of Religion | IEP

Here is Nietzsche:

Kant: inferior in his psychology and knowledge of human nature; way off when it comes to great historical values (French Revolution); a moral fanatic a la Rousseau; a subterranean Christianity in his values; a dogmatist through and through, but ponderously sick of this inclination, to such an extent that he wished to tyrannize it, but also weary right away of skepticism; not yet touched by the slightest breath of cosmopolitan taste and the beauty of antiquity— a delayer and mediator, nothing original (just as Leibniz mediated and built a bridge between mechanism and spiritualism, as Goethe did between the taste of the eighteenth century and that of the “historical sense”. . . — Nietzsche, The Will to Power, #101

This is a theme that George Grant takes up, namely Kant's "great delay." Kant sets up the religious stopgap that morality cannot be had without God, and Nietzsche finally replies: Then we cannot have morality.

Kant's fideism whereby morality gets sequestered off on its own seems intricately bound up with the very sort of religion that Pietism represents, and not a few have noticed this. I'd say this is fairly crucial if one is to understand Kant in his historical context. Kant's fideistic move to protect morality (but also faith) is taken right out of the playbook of Pietism, which did the exact same thing to shelter interior religion from the quasi-rationalistic Lutheran orthodoxy of that time.

You did not hear any such thing from me. Actually, I don’t know what you heard, but I know I never said any such thing. — Mww

You in the sense that you affirmed <this claim>, and @tim wood in the sense that he is creating an artificially high burden of proof for the thesis that Kant's work might have religious influences.

The point I made earlier is that Kant's thinking is reason based and religion is not. — tim wood

This is the sort of modern Enlightenment canard that now stands in disrepute, but you are of course welcome to continue holding it and/or arguing for it. It is possible that the postmodern consensus is mistaken.

That said, I find Kant's morality irrational or at the very least hopelessly opaque. I agree with Simpson:

Kant only secures the nobility and freedom associated with morality at the cost of shifting both into a sphere that lies completely beyond human grasp. The free acts of the will that constitute moral goodness and moral choice are beyond human explanation and comprehension.[27 - footnote to ch. 3 of the Groundwork] — Peter L. P. Simpson, Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble

But the greater the claim, the more to be resisted, if for no other reason - aside from being wrong - that it tends to vitiate and trivialize Kant's thinking and its effects and value — tim wood

There would be the danger of something like a genetic fallacy in a thread on Kant's arguments, but this thread is literally about Kant's religious influences. The constant refrain that I am hearing from you and @Mww is the dogmatic claim that Kant's philosophy simply did not have religious influences. Now for those of us who who think that two things can be held simultaneously, namely that influences can be acknowledged without the thought being invalidated, this is not a problem. It seems that for those who think that to admit influences is to invalidate the thought, it must be denied that their favored thinkers had any influences at all!

This is one of the hallmark errors of Enlightenment thought: "If we receive from the past or from others then our thought is not legitimate" (and the truth of the matter is almost exactly opposite to this). The current errors of philosophy are a variation on this theme. Now it is said that if some proposition exists in language, then it cannot express a truth that transcends the immanent frame of that language (given the linguistic reduction). Or—closer to Kantianism—if some proposition is derived from "phenomena" then it cannot express a truth that transcends the immanent frame of the subject (or their transcendental conditions - given the subjectivistic reduction). More sensible non-Enlightenment approaches do not take such a reductionistic avenue, and are therefore not as wary of admitting influences on thinkers.

This is a difference, no doubt; but not a relevant difference (to me). — Bob Ross

Does a pilot have a duty to fly his plane?

If one amends the trolley example such that the person who decides whether to pull the lever is actually, instead, the train operator and can choose to divert the train to the track with the 1 or stay on the track with the 5; then I would say it is immoral for the operator to divert the track. They cannot intentionally sacrifice one person to save five: they are still using that sacrificed person as a means towards an end.

Same with the airplane.

By “doing nothing” I mean that they let the train run over the five: it is stipulated that them stopping steering will do nothing to help save the five, but nevertheless they should stop steering. In normal circumstances, where this stipulation would not exist, one would be obligated to try to do everything they can besides sacrificing someone else to get the train to stop before it runs the five over. — Bob Ross

Suppose you are driving your car. Four people appear on the road, two on each side. If you keep going in the same direction you will hit all four. If you swerve left you will only hit the two on the left. If you swerve right you will only hit the two on the right. You don't have time to stop. What do you do?

(See also 's thread)

Isn’t one certain, in your airplane example, that they are going to kill innocent people to save more innocent people? — Bob Ross

I would highlight two things that I said earlier:

given that the pilot literally has no choice but to cause the death of innocents, the consequent death of innocents cannot be imputed to his free actions. — Leontiskos

Some might reasonably argue that this falls short of an authentic case of double effect insofar as the act with the double effect (or side effect) is involuntary (i.e. the act of landing the plane, which is not strictly speaking a choice at all). — Leontiskos

Beyond that, the further question lies here:

This intersects with the trolley scenario via the difficult question of whether the evil effect is a means to the good effect. — Leontiskos

In the airplane or car scenario it is not at all clear that the evil effect is a means to the good effect. The good effect would be chosen with or without the evil effect. Of course the trolley introduces an obvious counterargument...

-

With respect to self-defense, I would say that the aggressor has forfeited their rights proportionately to their assault; and this principle of forfeiture is doing the leg-work here, and not a principle of double effect. — Bob Ross

Okay, interesting. I suppose the question is whether someone can forfeit their right to life vis-a-vis a private party. A criminal forfeits their rights and then the community or state punishes them accordingly, but it's not clear that this sort of forfeiture and punishment is applicable to private citizens.

That is, Kant as either a Pietist apologist, or as the sui generis thinker he's usually regarded as being. — tim wood

Or else it's not as black and white as you purport. This should not be hard to see given that both options you give seem to me to be caricatures.

Regarding burdens of proof and the like, the fact that some here take Kant to be a sacred cow doesn't count as a good reason to exempt him from the sort of analyses that are applied to all humans and thinkers. Lots of us don't take Kant to be a sacred cow, and therefore we will assess him the same way we we assess other cows. The birth narratives and childhood stories of sacred figures are jealously guarded, and Kant seems to be no exception. Apparently some secular followers of Kant are threatened by Kant's religious upbringing, and therefore that upbringing must be expunged or laundered lest Kant fail to be "claimable" by secularism. I don't see this approach, this reaction against Kant's background, as especially measured or unbiased.

Do you accept that a claim of ancient wisdom is largely dependent upon a description of what those old people were saying? — Paine

Another way to put the same sort of point is as follows. There is a relationship between claims about the forest and claims about the trees, and claims about the forest depend on knowledge of the trees in the forest. Because of this, disputes about one or more trees can and do have an effect on theses about the forest in which those trees reside. Forest-theses are not immune to tree-theses. ...at the same time, theses about the forest often involve much more than mere tree data (i.e. overarching theses can pull together philosophy, history, economics, religion, etc.).

-

- Sounds good.

To me, this is no different than the trolley problem, and you are here affirming, analogously, to sacrifice the one to save the many. You are saying that the pilot’s lack of action will result in innocent deaths (just like not pulling the lever) and their actions to avoid it would result in innocent deaths (just like pulling the lever); so I am having a hard time seeing how you agree with me on the trolley problem, but don’t agree that the pilot should, in your case you have here, do nothing. — Bob Ross

Well the pilot is flying the plane, but the person in the trolley problem is not driving the trolley. Therefore to "do nothing" would seem to be quite different in the two cases. In the case of the pilot he would not be doing nothing, but would instead (or also) need to stop flying the plane.

To me, the principle of Double Effect rests on a vague and (typically) biased distinction between intending to do something and intending to do something which also has bad side-effects. — Bob Ross

A locus classicus for double effect is Aquinas' ST II-II.64.7:

I answer that, Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as explained above (II-II:43:3; I-II:12:1). Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one's life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in "being," as far as possible. And yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful, if it be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if a man, in self-defense, uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful: whereas if he repel force with moderation his defense will be lawful, because according to the jurists [...], "it is lawful to repel force by force, provided one does not exceed the limits of a blameless defense." Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit the act of moderate self-defense in order to avoid killing the other man, since one is bound to take more care of one's own life than of another's. But as it is unlawful to take a man's life, except for the public authority acting for the common good, as stated above. . . — Aquinas, ST II-II.64.7: Whether it is lawful to kill a man in self-defense?

I accept a relatively uncontroversial form of double effect whereby the unintended effect must only be possible and not certain.

Regarding a more controversial form, we could think about Aquinas' example. Self-defense must by nature be at least proportionate to the aggressor's level of force, if it is to be adequate. So if a child attacks me I could restrain them easily without risking harming them. But as the aggressor's level of force increases, the level of force required to repel the aggressor in self-defense also increases. So if the aggressor has a knife then I will need to at least disarm or incapacitate them to successfully defend myself. If the aggressor has a gun then I will very likely need to shoot them with a gun to defend myself (if I cannot escape). As the level of necessary force rises, the risk of killing the aggressor also rises, but this rising risk does not necessarily imply that I am no longer justified in using adequate self-defense. The doctrine of double effect at this point seems to be a foregone conclusion, namely at the point where lethal force is necessary to repel an aggressor. At that point you say, "They might die, but I am nevertheless going to defend myself."

For my money, <Aquinas> accepts the principle that one intends any effect which is known to be "always or frequently joined to" an act, and therefore in order to not-intend to kill one must perform an act that does not necessarily result in death. But this opinion is controversial.

I accept libertarian free will as a necessary component for any understanding, analogous to Kantian space and time intuitions, which is simply to say it's necessary for any understanding of the world, even if it makes no sense under deep analysis. — Hanover

But does anything make sense under "deep analysis"? It seems to me that when any totalizing paradigm is pushed too far one falls into nonsense. So when one falls into Scientism they tend to deny (libertarian) free will, and when ancient peoples favored an anthropocentric agent causation they tended to attribute this sort of causation to everything. Maybe we can have both, where neither needs to dominate the other. Maybe there is a middle ground between materialism and idealism.

What is the difference between Fate and Determinism? Is there one at all? — Frog

Taking a cue from , I would say that determinism means that, "all actions and events are necessary effects of impersonal causes," and fate means that, "all* personal events are mysteriously necessary and foreordained."

* All, or perhaps only some.

The issue of the receptivity of matter raises the question of how there can be "natural" beings in a world where necessary events occur in conjunction with accidental ones. The view leads to an argument about the nature of actuality and potentiality (as I refer to upthread). What I have seen in Gerson overlooks the importance of the 'material' in Aristotle's pursuit of the natural. — Paine

Okay thanks, I think I sort of see where you are coming from. It is something like the idea that Gerson fails to recognize Aristotle's naturalism insofar as he overlooks the importance of the 'material' in Aristotle's thought. For Aristotle the specific matter in question must be receptive to the form it holds, and an undue emphasis on form will tend to neglect this thesis. Is it something like that?

I don't quite understand how the quote from Plotinus fits in. Presumably it highlights a Platonic critique of Aristotle, in which the formal principle(s) is clearly seen to overpower the material principle(s)? That for the pure Platonist Aristotle's matter will not be sufficiently determinate or explanatory?

If Kant never mentioned the influence his religious upbringing may have had on the formulation of his moral philosophy, [then] I have no warrant for understanding such philosophy as if it were conditioned by it. — Mww

Do you think this a sound argument?

Then with the human race gone, morality has gone with it - what was the point of upholding that moral decision then! — Apustimelogist

I think there are two different conceptions of morality which are butting heads: one which is based on justice and individual rights, and another which is based on social well-being or lubrication. At the end of the day the (innocent) individual's right to not be killed is not necessarily in sync with with a morality that privileges the whole over the individual.

But at this point the contrived nature of the trolley problem may become problematic, for the claim that one might be forced to kill innocents in order to save the race or community may be nothing more than a contrivance. Further, cases where this sort of thing is required usually create volunteers (e.g. those who volunteer to be soldiers, or those who volunteer to be guinea pigs for a novel vaccine, etc.). When there is legitimate communal need the members of the community are given to satisfying that need, thus adverting a transgression against individual human rights.

I found a five-minute lecture - is that what you were referring to? If a longer, can you provide a reference? — tim wood

I think this is probably the one I was thinking of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuvshyo0knI, especially the section on Kant's background.

Sure, why not. But can you in a sentence or three sum up just what his religious "orientation" was? — tim wood

So from a Catholic perspective Kant is extremely individualistic, subjectivistic, and fideistic. Individualism and subjectivism are common to both Protestantism and the Enlightenment (and probably not coincidentally). Fideism is the separation between faith and reason, and the separation is found in different ways in different forms of Protestantism. Folks like Kant and later Schleiermacher emphasize rationalism and protect religion/faith by giving it a purely internal and separate character, and this internalizing is also in line with Pietism.

My read is that he found in Pietism certain claims that were founded in Pietist faith that he Kant found grounded in reason, reason for Kant being the more compelling, and dare we say, the more reasonable. — tim wood

Sometimes thinkers embrace and defend their nascent traditions, and sometimes they react against them, but in either case the nascent traditions are exercising their influence. For Kant I would say it is both, but I would say that Kant never really deviated from the fundamental manner in which Pietism sees the world fideistically. Religion for Kant is always somewhat separate and other, and his morality also participates to some extent in this same kind of opacity and sanctity. Obviously fideism dovetails with Enlightenment thinking, and I would argue that Enlightenment autonomy is in no small part inheriting from the Reformation itself, but in any case, there are various interrelating influences.

Or if I may be permitted a metaphor, religion is like a stool with two legs: it does not stand on its own. Kant attached a third leg, and now at least some of its ideas can stand on any surface. Do you find any fault in this? — tim wood

It might represent a rough portrait of Kant's approach, sure. The exchanges between Kant and Hamann are rather interesting in this regard.

What's curious to me is that Kant tries to justify a Christian morality with "pure reason," and if this were possible or if Kant had been successful then I think the questions about his religious background might not loom so large. But if—as is generally accepted—"pure reason" is insufficient to justify such strong, categorical moral claims, then the effect is that Kant ends up sneaking in religious or transcendent principles through the back door. My sense is that Kant's arguments for high-octane (religious) morality are creative and interesting, but also faulty. I don't think the project is impossible, but I don't think Kant succeeded. Most people, for example, do not think that Kant's absolute prohibition on lying holds good. The Kantian successors are basically trying to find ways to rationally justify a high morality or a high view of reason, and some of them (such as Nagel) are haunted by this question of whether their system really holds up without robust religious or metaphysical-anthropological presuppositions.

I feel the same way, but perhaps from a different point of view. I don’t think we have the authority to suggest for Kant anything he didn’t admit for himself.

I’m not saying he never mentioned the influence his religious upbringing may have had on the formulation of his moral philosophy, only that I’ve yet to find out about it. And from that it follows necessarily at least I have no warrant for understanding such philosophy as if it were conditioned by it. — Mww

All philosophers are conditioned by factors they fail to recognize or admit, and these factors are identified by scholars.

Oh yeah? Where?

It's always nice to find agreement. — Moliere

So now that I look again he is appealing more to the Machiavellian-Hobbesian context than Rousseau in particular, but it is similar:

Morality becomes a kind of universalizing of self-interest. [...] , one will find that it is little more than an elaboration of Hobbesian peace. — Peter L. P. Simpson, Autonomous Morality and the Idea of the Noble

The broad idea is that Kant universalizes self-interest, which results in a communal ethic.

Not quite, in my estimation. I'd prefer to say that he argues that there is more than one legitimate use or power of reason other than theoretical (scientific) knowledge. — Moliere

Okay, interesting.

Yeh. Which, especially considering it's Kant, I'd say isn't warranted at all. Even in his philosophical work he's pro-religion, while obviously arguing for rationality too. — Moliere

Yes, and many would agree that Kant is unconsciously influenced by his religious upbringing in various ways.

What do you make of the syllogism above? Where Kant is a Lutheran (due to Pietism), and all Lutherns are Protestants, therefore....? — Moliere

...Therefore Kant is a Protestant? Sure, but I think what is desired is a more direct link between Kant's thought and Protestant thought.

↪tim wood has a good point in that he's not really "claimable" by religion -- in the culture wars sense — Moliere

Right.

There's a problem with (1). People found guilty of crimes have a lot of suffering inflicted on them without their consent, so sometimes it's OK to cause suffering absent consent. — RogueAI

The question is then whether these exceptions to (1) apply to the case of procreation. For example, we can cause suffering absent consent when punishment is due, but is punishment due in the case of procreation?

Also, this particular argument is a bit different than just consent. Rather, it is saying that since we are IGNORANT as to how any person's life truly will play out in the course of their lifetime, AND we cannot get consent otherwise, we should do the option that is with the intention of the LEAST harm, which is of course, not even procreating that person who will be harmed to X degree. — schopenhauer1

Okay.

I kind of like this notion, though I don't hold "Consent" to be independent of humans, simply entailed in humanity. If there is no humanity, consent disappears as well. — schopenhauer1

Sure.

But this also relies on what "the good" is, and defines it in "negative" terms (what not to do). Suffering is weighted more heavily in this conception such that, causing negative/suffering unnecessarily on someone else's behalf is weighted as a bigger moral consideration than any of the positives that result from causing the suffering. Not causing great distress to someone is a bigger ethical consideration than say, buying them cake. — schopenhauer1

Okay, so maybe something like this?

1. Do not cause suffering, absent consent
2. Procreation causes suffering, and does not admit of consent
3. Therefore, do not procreate

Thus consent functions as an exception to the prohibition on suffering, but does not apply in the case of procreation.

I would appeal to a similar "inversion" argument to the one I already gave, but focusing on suffering rather than consent. Just as consent does not constitute an absolute principle, neither does suffering-avoidance. "I'd say life is bigger than suffering or consent."

The key here is that birth/existence is qualitatively different from, and ontologically prior to, consent and/or suffering. More directly: life is more than the avoidance of suffering, and therefore the desire to avoid suffering is not a sufficient reason to nix life.

Regarding the moral maxim of (1), I think it would apply to procreation in a very dire apocalyptic scenario, but I don't think it applies more generally throughout history. I don't know... There are a lot of different ways one could go with this.

Isn’t there an argument that by pulling the lever you are landing the trolley in the area with the fewest people? — Fire Ologist

Sure, as I said in the same post:

As a parallel to the airplane scenario, folks who pull the lever tend to see themselves as being in a state of necessity, similar to the pilot. — Leontiskos

Now, there is an interesting discussion, from Anscombe, about the difference between intentionally killing someone and doing something which has a statistically likelihood or certainty of killing an innocent person. I am still chewing over that part, so I can’t comment too much; but I am guessing Leontiskos can probably inform us better on that. — Bob Ross

The debates over double effect get pretty tricky. I touched on some of that in <this post> from another thread.

Suppose a pilot runs out of fuel over a large music festival and his airplane will crash somewhere in the festival no matter what he does. The pilot has a duty not to kill, but he also has a separate but related duty to cause as few deaths as possible in the event where he cannot avoid causing deaths (whether or not we decide to call this "causing of death" killing). So the good pilot will land in the area with fewest people to minimize injury and death.

The question arises: did the pilot intentionally kill (or injure) the people in that area? I think not. This is what I would call a legitimate case of double effect, where the pilot's decision is morally sound even though he knows it will result in the death of innocents. It is an easier case on account of the necessity involved: given that the pilot literally has no choice but to cause the death of innocents, the consequent death of innocents cannot be imputed to his free actions. Nevertheless, he does have a choice over how many innocents die, and this choice is morally imputable to him. Some might reasonably argue that this falls short of an authentic case of double effect insofar as the act with the double effect (or side effect) is involuntary (i.e. the act of landing the plane, which is not strictly speaking a choice at all).

(This is all reminiscent of the Tom Hanks film, based on a true story, "Sully.")

Folks argue over double effect, but a common moral principle which double effect presupposes is the principle that one cannot do evil that good may come. This intersects with the trolley scenario via the difficult question of whether the evil effect is a means to the good effect. The lever-pullers often involve themselves in what I (and Anscombe) might call "intention games" where they profess to have intended one outcome but not the other, despite the fact that both outcomes are certain.

As a parallel to the airplane scenario, folks who pull the lever tend to see themselves as being in a state of necessity, similar to the pilot. Those who do not pull the lever do not tend to see themselves as being in a state of necessity. The key is that they view omissions differently. The former think that to omit pulling the lever is the same as intentionally killing the five (or is at least as intentional as the parallel commission), whereas the latter think that the omission is not intentionally killing the five, and is certainly not as intentional as the commission.

I read the paper. Liked it. Agree with it. Think I am speaking in line with much of it. — Fire Ologist

:up:

I'm using "wrong" to mean: violates one's moral code, not a final conclusion after considering all possible points of view (including but not limited to morality). — LuckyR

Then you're using it dishonestly or equivocally, for not only is that not what the word means, it is also not what the word means to your interlocutor. Ergo: you are involved in a very low-level begging of the question of moral relativism.

I wonder: are there any good ways to meet an intellectually substantive partner (viz., perhaps a philosopher)? — Bob Ross

Principle A) Your candidate partners, matches and dates will almost certainly not care about philosophy. At least as much as you. People are good to talk to regardless. You're picking one of your most extremely exemplified traits and filtering on it, just raw statistics filters out most of the people you could get on well with. It's the same principle as the fact that someone who's 190cm tall looking for someone taller will not find many. — fdrake

I tend to disagree with fdrake. There are philosophers and there are philosophers. By "intellectually substantive partner" I suspect that Bob is thinking of someone who is philosophical in a sense that is not exclusively academic. It is worth noting that intellect is not merely one of Bob's traits, but specifically one of his values, and I believe it is worth taking the effort to try to find someone who shares that central value. Intellectual mismatch is not a minor problem in relationships.

Of course, it is likely that his conception of "intellectually substantive" is overly narrow, and in that way I agree with your point. If so, the criterion should be broadened but not abandoned.

- The <paper> I cited earlier represents my position. I am actually going to move on from this thread. I think you will have a more fruitful conversation with some of the other posters in this thread. Take care.

(To answer your last question: I would make the same decision whether or not the situation was "rigged.")

Honest conversation over here. — Fire Ologist

Looks like caricature to me.

What’s wrong with the doctrine of double effect? But I don’t really know what that is. — Fire Ologist

It's the intellectual part of the trolley problem. Clearly not meant for this thread.

It's like an inward-facing version of Rousseau's social contract: the necessary conditions for forming a moral society from the perspective of a rational agent choosing. — Moliere

Peter Simpson makes this point almost exactly.

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- Excellent - I need to read more Maritain. I have been reading John Deely, a well-known semioticist, and he references Maritain often.

The religious background of which we have just spoken is the source of what characterizes Kantian ethics from the outset, namely, its absolutism, the privilege it assigns to morality as revealer of the absolute to man, the seal of the absolute which it impresses upon morality... — Jacques Maritain, Christianity and Philosophy - The Ethics of Kant

I am told that in Kant's later work he makes exceptions to the unknowableness of the noumenal on account of morality.

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My own five-cent analysis is that Kant, whom we're told was brought up Pietist, at some point found it no-longer nourishing; yet finding some of it compelling, tried to reason out why it should be compelling. It being helpful to remember that he is among humanity's strongest thinkers, as well as a professional grade mathematician and world class in physics. — tim wood

There is a Lutheran priest named Jordan Cooper who has at least one lecture on Kant which digs into his Pietism a bit. Kant's religious orientation seems to me obvious, as well as colors of Protestant fideism.

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Does being among humanity's strongest thinkers, professional grade mathematician, and a world class physicist indicate that Pietism is no-longer nourishing or rational? — Moliere

Right: that is the crucial (anti-religious) assumption at play.

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The part I'm questioning at the moment is whether or not it's correct to call it protestant, after all. — Moliere

I didn't quite follow that conclusion, either. But it is Protestant at least insofar as it is individualistic, subjectivistic, and arguably fideistic.

You are claiming that by refusing to pull the lever Bob has killed five people, and this is a controversial claim on your part. — Leontiskos

No I’m not! — Fire Ologist

You literally say it in this very post:

Sitting still is both killing five people and saving one. — Fire Ologist

-

If you had the poise to think you could make this ongoing accident better and intended to make it better by pulling the lever, you are not intentionally killing one person. — Fire Ologist

Why not? (enter the doctrine of double effect)

I take the hypo to be an attempt to force you to participate. — Fire Ologist

Then I would say you are misunderstanding the trolley problem. But the deeper problem is that you are unaccountably assuming that the trolley problem was set up by an evil genius. It wasn't. It's just supposed to be a dilemma. The question is simply, "What would you do if you found yourself in this situation?" It's not, "Would you like to participate in the machination of an evil genius?"

It assumes you have to make a choice - choose five or one deaths. And under these circumstances, they are all innocent deaths. — Fire Ologist

It assumes you have to make a choice between pulling the lever or not pulling the lever. Everyone who finds themselves in that situation would be forced to make that choice. But there is a difference between choices about levers, choices about deaths, and choices about killing. You are claiming that by refusing to pull the lever Bob has killed five people, and this is a controversial claim on your part.

That, to me, is the right moral response - to stay out of the whole bloody death trap scenario. — Fire Ologist

Life happens whether we consent or not, and at times it involves tough decisions. — Leontiskos

You don't think there is an absurdity in letting the whole human race die because you don't want to kill an innocent person?

I think regardless of what you think of the morality of that behaviour, it is most definitely absurd. — Apustimelogist

I think it is "most definitely absurd" to justify killing innocents as a means to an end. Hitler was already brought up, and that's why we think Hitler was bad, after all!

But my simple point is, you need a duty in place before you can perpetrate a wrong by omission. It’s omission of a duty. The act is not the point. Sitting still is an act. Sitting still doesn’t tell you anything about whether that act perpetrates a wrong by omission or a wrong by commission, or anything.

The trolley problem, to me, creates a simple switch, if you switch the switch one way, five people die and the other way one person dies. The way you physically operate that switch is by sitting down or pulling a lever.

If we all have a duty to save the most lives at every opportunity to do so, then sitting still could be wrong by omission of that duty. If you switch the people on the tracks and put 5 on the lever side and 1 on the rolling side, then failing to pull the lever would be a wrong by omission as well. — Fire Ologist

Here is the original statement I disagreed with:

The heart of the trolley problem is this:
“Without any context or explanation, if you were forced to kill either 1 person or 5 people with no other options, which would you do?” — Fire Ologist

Here is what Bob Ross said (and I agree):

I would never pull the lever, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a morally bad outcome. — Bob Ross

This is precisely the sort of answer that your construal cannot account for. You can't conceive of an omission, and therefore you assert:

What’s the difference? You are killing someone mo matter what you do. — Fire Ologist

The point at stake is omissions simpliciter. When you refuse to talk about any kinds of omissions that are not immoral omissions you are missing the point. Bob is omitting to pull the lever in order to omit killing. Is he allowed to do that? Bob thinks his omission is morally praiseworthy and someone else will think that his omission is morally blameworthy, but we first need to simply recognize that it is an omission.

As to your reasonable declaration that killing innocent people is wrong, sure it is, but folks do things that are wrong all the time (though perhaps not with such severe consequences). Thus wrongness is not a complete barrier to performing an action. — LuckyR

Sure, and people get math problems wrong all the time, too. That doesn't mean anything with respect to the question at hand. Suppose you are on a math forum and they are discussing a math problem and you say, "Ah, well it seems that you have arrived at the right answer, but people get the wrong answer all the time. Thus wrongness is not a complete barrier to arriving at an answer." This is an ignoratio elenchus at best, unless it is being proposed as an argument for mathematical (or moral) relativism.

I never understand these kind of criticisms. It reminds me of "If a tree falls in the woods.." arguments. One can say this about ANY moral claim. For example, if no humans were around, there would be no need for morality regarding murder. THUS, how can murder be wrong (whether through consent, rights, dignity of the human, or other normative ethic) if the norms behind "Murder is wrong" do not exist prior to the existence of humans?

Obviously this is fallacious thinking. Rather, we can simply say that "Once humans DO exist, then 'Murder is wrong' comes into play". The same with procreation. Once humans DO exist, then "Procreation is wrong" comes into play. I don't see it being more complicated than that. ALL moral claims presuppose "life" (people) exist(!) in the first place. — schopenhauer1

No, that's not what I am saying. Your premise is <Consent should precede birth>. Your conclusion follows, <Because consent does not precede birth, therefore we should not procreate>. This precedence is both temporal and ontological. It is that premise that I am targeting. Consent doesn't precede birth. Birth precedes consent. That's how reality works. What you are doing is asking for or wishing for a different reality. The ontological principle of reality is that we receive before we give. Your alternative principle would have us give (consent) before receiving (existence).

Antinatalism reminds me of Gnosticism, where nature and the material world were created by an evil god and one is thus supposed to escape this entire order of being. Or in modern terms, something like The Matrix. The true god is represented by Consent, and in the alternative, non-evil universe, Consent reigns. Given our gnostic situation, the best we can do is escape the material order by ceasing all procreation. Historically gnostics really did tend to eschew procreation.

(Edit: I now see you have authored a thread, "If there is a god, is he more evil than not?" :razz:)

I think this is throwing out a lot of important values we hold in other arenas. For example, if as a consenting adult I force you into a game you don't want to play because I think the game is bigger than any one individual's refusal, that seems mighty suspicious. And I am talking personal ethics here, which procreation (should) fall under. — schopenhauer1

I think consent has a place, but not the highest place. It does not trump everything else.

I also think it is a bit of a red herring to compare it to parental care of children under a certain age (often 18 yo). — schopenhauer1

But I never made that comparison...?

No it’s not almost certainly, because it’s not the premise at all. I’m saying sitting still doesn’t reveal an intention, you have to seek more facts (such as ask the person) what their intention is by sitting still.

A lifeguard sees a person drowning and does nothing and watches the person drown. That is intentional conduct. It is a wrong done by omission of a duty. — Fire Ologist

Here is what you said:

It’s not an omission if you intend to kill five people. It’s how you carry out your intention. It’s a physical act to stay seated in order to kill five. — Fire Ologist

Here is how I characterized it:

1. Nothing which is intended can come about by omission.
2. Suppose the death of the five is intended.
3. Therefore, in that case the not-pulling of the lever which results in the death of the five is not an omission. — Leontiskos

I notice that in the paper the situation is portrayed as "killing one or killing five",but that would be an inaccurate representation of cause and effect. The omission of pulling the lever does not kill anyone. — Tzeentch

I don't claim that the paper exactly parallels the trolley case, but later in the paper that portrayal is specifically disputed, so it does not depart in this manner.

Negligence, culpability, these are legal terms, and I think under most legal systems you would be charged with second-degree murder if you pushed some innocent bystander on the tracks, regardless of your intentions.

If you are talking about these terms in a moral sense, I think they need to be explained in more detail. When is one morally culpable? Negligence implies a failure to do a duty - what duty are we talking about here, and when can one be said to be morally negligent? — Tzeentch

This is a fair point, although I do not think that negligence and culpability are primarily legal in the sense of being non-moral. My guess is that the etymology and cultures within which they arose did not think of the legal sphere as a non-moral sphere. Our age which tries to talk about non-moral legal realities strikes me as odd indeed. So I think they are legal and moral.