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0:33This is a course about Justice and we begin with a story
0:37suppose you're the driver of a trolley car,
0:40and your trolley car is hurdling down the track at sixty miles an hour
0:44and at the end of the track you notice five workers working on the track
0:49you tried to stop but you can't
0:51your brakes don't work
0:53you feel desperate because you know
0:56that if you crash into these five workers
0:59they will all die
1:01let's assume you know that for sure
1:05and so you feel helpless
1:07until you notice that there is
1:09off to the right
1:11a side track
1:13at the end of that track
1:15there's one worker
1:17working on track
1:19you're steering wheel works
1:21so you can
1:23turn the trolley car if you want to
1:26onto this side track
1:28killing the one
1:30but sparing the five.
1:33Here's our first question
1:36what's the right thing to do?
1:38What would you do?
1:40Let's take a poll,
1:42how many
1:45would turn the trolley car onto the side track?
1:52How many wouldn't?
1:53How many would go straight ahead
1:58keep your hands up, those of you who'd go straight ahead.
2:04A handful of people would, the vast majority would turn
2:08let's hear first
2:09now we need to begin to investigate the reasons why you think
2:14it's the right thing to do. Let's begin with those in the majority, who would turn
2:19to go onto side track?
2:22Why would you do it,
2:23what would be your reason?
2:25Who's willing to volunteer a reason?
2:30Go ahead, stand up.
2:32Because it can't be right to kill five people when you can only kill one person instead.
2:39it wouldn't be right to kill five
2:42if you could kill one person instead
2:47that's a good reason
2:48that's a good reason
2:52who else?
2:53does everybody agree with that
2:56reason? go ahead.
3:01Well I was thinking it was the same reason it was on
3:039/11 we regard the people who flew the plane
3:05who flew the plane into the
3:08Pennsylvania field as heroes
3:09because they chose to kill the people on the plane
3:11and not kill more people
3:14in big buildings.
3:16So the principle there was the same on 9/11
3:19it's tragic circumstance,
3:21but better to kill one so that five can live
3:25is that the reason most of you have, those of you who would turn, yes?
3:30Let's hear now
3:32from
3:33those in the minority
3:35those who wouldn't turn.
3:40Well I think that same type of mentality that justifies genocide and totalitarianism
3:45in order to save one type of race you wipe out the other.
3:50so what would you do in this case? You would
3:53to avoid
3:55the horrors of genocide
3:57you would crash into the five and kill them?
4:03Presumably yes.
4:07okay who else?
4:09That's a brave answer, thank you.
4:14Let's consider another
4:16trolley car case
4:20and see
4:21whether
4:24those of you in the majority
4:27want to adhere to the principle,
4:30better that one should die so that five should live.
4:33This time you're not the driver of the trolley car, you're an onlooker
4:38standing on a bridge overlooking a trolley car track
4:42and down the track comes a trolley car
4:45at the end of the track are five workers
4:49the brakes don't work
4:51the trolley car is about to careen into the five and kill them
4:55and now
4:57you're not the driver
4:58you really feel helpless
5:01until you notice
5:03standing next to you
5:06leaning over
5:08the bridge
5:09is it very fat man.
5:17And you could
5:20give him a shove
5:22he would fall over the bridge
5:24onto the track
5:27right in the way of
5:29the trolley car
5:32he would die
5:33but he would spare the five.
5:38Now, how many would push
5:41the fat man over the bridge? Raise your hand.
5:48How many wouldn't?
5:51Most people wouldn't.
5:54Here's the obvious question,
5:55what became
5:56of the principle
6:00better to save five lives even if it means sacrificing one, what became of the principal
6:05that almost everyone endorsed
6:07in the first case
6:09I need to hear from someone who was in the majority in both
6:12cases is
6:13how do you explain the difference between the two?
6:17The second one I guess involves an active choice of
6:21pushing a person
6:22and down which
6:24I guess that
6:25that person himself would otherwise not have been involved in the situation at all
6:29and so
6:31to choose on his behalf I guess
6:33to
6:36involve him in something that he otherwise would have this escaped is
6:39I guess more than
6:41what you have in the first case where
6:43the three parties, the driver and
6:45the two sets of workers are
6:47already I guess in this situation.
6:50but the guy working, the one on the track off to the side
6:55he didn't choose to sacrifice his life any more than the fat guy did, did he?
7:02That's true, but he was on the tracks.
7:05this guy was on the bridge.
7:10Go ahead, you can come back if you want.
7:13Alright, it's a hard question
7:15but you did well you did very well it's a hard question.
7:19who else
7:21can
7:22find a way of reconciling
7:26the reaction of the majority in these two cases? Yes?
7:30Well I guess
7:31in the first case where
7:32you have the one worker and the five
7:35it's a choice between those two, and you have to
7:37make a certain choice and people are going to die because of the trolley car
7:41not necessarily because of your direct actions. The trolley car is a runway,
7:45thing and you need to make in a split second choice
7:48whereas pushing the fat man over is an actual act of murder on your part
7:52you have control over that
7:54whereas you may not have control over the trolley car.
7:57So I think that it's a slightly different situation.
8:00Alright who has a reply? Is that, who has a reply to that? no that was good, who has a way
8:04who wants to reply?
8:06Is that a way out of this?
8:09I don't think that's a very good reason because you choose
8:12either way you have to choose who dies because you either choose to turn and kill a person
8:16which is an act of conscious
8:18thought to turn,
8:19or you choose to push the fat man
8:21over which is also an active
8:23conscious action so either way you're making a choice.
8:27Do you want to reply?
8:29Well I'm not really sure that that's the case, it just still seems kind of different, the act of actually
8:34pushing someone over onto the tracks and killing them,
8:38you are actually killing him yourself, you're pushing him with your own hands you're pushing and
8:42that's different
8:43than steering something that is going to cause death
8:47into another...you know
8:48it doesn't really sound right saying it now when I'm up here.
8:52No that's good, what's your name?
8:54Andrew.
8:55Andrew and let me ask you this question Andrew,
8:59suppose
9:02standing on the bridge
9:03next to the fat man
9:04I didn't have to push him, suppose he was standing
9:07over a trap door that I could open by turning a steering wheel like that
9:17would you turn it?
9:18For some reason that still just seems more
9:20more wrong.
9:24I mean maybe if you just accidentally like leaned into this steering wheel or something like that
9:30or but,
9:31or say that the car is
9:33hurdling towards a switch that will drop the trap
9:37then I could agree with that.
9:39Fair enough, it still seems
9:42wrong in a way that it doesn't seem wrong in the first case to turn, you say
9:45An in another way, I mean in the first situation you're involved directly with the situation
9:50in the second one you're an onlooker as well.
9:52So you have the choice of becoming involved or not by pushing the fat man.
9:56Let's forget for the moment about this case,
9:59that's good,
10:01but let's imagine a different case. This time your doctor in an emergency room
10:06and six patients come to you
10:11they've been in a terrible trolley car wreck
10:18five of them sustained moderate injuries one is severely injured you could spend all day
10:23caring for the one severely injured victim,
10:27but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health, but
10:32during that time the one severely injured
10:35person would die.
10:36How many would save
10:37the five
10:39now as the doctor?
10:40How many would save the one?
10:44Very few people,
10:46just a handful of people.
10:49Same reason I assume,
10:51one life versus five.
10:55Now consider
10:57another doctor case
10:59this time you're a transplant surgeon
11:02and you have five patients each in desperate need
11:06of an organ transplant in order to survive
11:09on needs a heart one a lung,
11:12one a kidney,
11:13one a liver
11:15and the fifth
11:16a pancreas.
11:20And you have no organ donors
11:22you are about to
11:24see you them die
11:27and then
11:28it occurs to you
11:30that in the next room
11:32there's a healthy guy who came in for a checkup.
11:39and he is
11:43you like that
11:47and he's taking a nap
11:53you could go in very quietly
11:56yank out the five organs, that person would die
12:00but you can save the five.
12:03How many would do it? Anyone?
12:10How many? Put your hands up if you would do it.
12:18Anyone in the balcony?
12:21You would? Be careful don't lean over too much
12:26How many wouldn't?
12:29All right.
12:30What do you say, speak up in the balcony, you who would
12:33yank out the organs, why?
12:35I'd actually like to explore slightly alternate
12:38possibility of just taking the one
12:40of the five he needs an organ who dies first
12:44and using their four healthy organs to save the other four
12:50That's a pretty good idea.
12:54That's a great idea
12:57except for the fact
13:00that you just wrecked the philosophical point.
13:06Let's step back
13:07from these stories and these arguments
13:10to notice a couple of things
13:12about the way the arguments have began to unfold.
13:17Certain
13:18moral principles
13:20have already begun to emerge
13:23from the discussions we've had
13:25and let's consider
13:27what those moral principles
13:29look like
13:31the first moral principle that emerged from the discussion said
13:35that the right thing to do the moral thing to do
13:39depends on the consequences that will result
13:43from your action
13:45at the end of the day
13:47better that five should live
13:49even if one must die.
13:52That's an example
13:53of consequentialist
13:56moral reasoning.
13:59consequentialist moral reasoning locates morality in the consequences of an act. In the state of the
14:04world that will result
14:06from the thing you do
14:09but then we went a little further, we considered those other cases
14:12and people weren't so sure
14:15about
14:17consequentialist moral reasoning
14:20when people hesitated
14:22to push the fat man
14:24over the bridge
14:25or to yank out the organs of the innocent
14:28patient
14:29people gestured towards
14:32reasons
14:34having to do
14:35with the intrinsic
14:37quality of the act
14:39itself.
14:40Consequences be what they may.
14:42People were reluctant
14:45people thought it was just wrong
14:47categorically wrong
14:49to kill
14:50a person
14:51an innocent person
14:53even for the sake
14:54of saving
14:55five lives, at least these people thought that
14:58in the second
15:00version of each story we reconsidered
15:05so this points
15:06a second
15:09categorical
15:10way
15:12of thinking about
15:14moral reasoning
15:16categorical moral reasoning locates morality in certain absolute moral requirements in
15:22certain categorical duties and rights
15:24regardless of the consequences.
15:27We're going to explore
15:29in the days and weeks to come the contrast between
15:33consequentialist and categorical moral principles.
15:36The most influential
15:38example of
15:40consequential moral reasoning is utilitarianism, a doctrine invented by
15:45Jeremy Bentham, the eighteenth century English political philosopher.
15:51The most important
15:54philosopher of categorical moral reasoning
15:56is the
15:58eighteenth century German philosopher Emmanuel Kant.
16:02So we will look
16:03at those two different modes of moral reasoning
16:07assess them
16:08and also consider others.
16:10If you look at the syllabus, you'll notice that we read a number of great and famous books.
16:16Books by Aristotle
16:18John Locke
16:19Emanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill,
16:22and others.
16:24You'll notice too from the syllabus that we don't only read these books,
16:28we also all
16:30take up
16:32contemporary political and legal controversies that raise philosophical questions.
16:37We will debate equality and inequality,
16:40affirmative action,
16:41free speech versus hate speech,
16:43same sex marriage, military conscription,
16:47a range of practical questions, why
16:50not just to enliven these abstract and distant books
16:55but to make clear to bring out what's at stake in our everyday lives including our political
17:01lives,
17:03for philosophy.
17:05So we will read these books
17:07and we will debate these
17:09issues and we'll see how each informs and illuminates the other.
17:15This may sound appealing enough
17:17but here
17:19I have to issue a warning,
17:22and the warning is this
17:25to read these books
17:28in this way,
17:31as an exercise in self-knowledge,
17:34to read them in this way carry certain risks
17:38risks that are both personal and political,
17:42risks that every student of political philosophy have known.
17:47These risks spring from that fact
17:50that philosophy
17:52teaches us
17:54and unsettles us
17:56by confronting us with what we already know.
18:01There's an irony
18:03the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know.
18:09It works by taking
18:12what we know from familiar unquestioned settings,
18:16and making it strange.
18:20That's how those examples worked
18:22worked
18:23the hypotheticals with which we began with their mix of playfulness and sobriety.
18:29it's also how these philosophical books work. Philosophy
18:33estranges us
18:35from the familiar
18:37not by supplying new information
18:40but by inviting
18:41and provoking
18:43a new way of seeing
18:47but, and here's the risk,
18:49once
18:50the familiar turns strange,
18:54it's never quite the same again.
18:58Self-knowledge
19:00is like lost innocence,
19:03however unsettling
19:04you find it,
19:06it can never
19:07be unthought
19:09or unknown
19:13what makes this enterprise difficult
19:17but also riveting,
19:19is that
19:20moral and political philosophy is a story
19:25and you don't know where this story will lead but what you do know
19:29is that the story
19:31is about you.
19:34Those are the personal risks,
19:37now what of the political risks.
19:40one way of introducing of course like this
19:43would be to promise you
19:44that by reading these books
19:46and debating these issues
19:48you will become a better more responsible citizen.
19:51You will examine the presuppositions of public policy, you will hone your political
19:56judgment
19:57you'll become a more effective participant in public affairs
20:02but this would be a partial and misleading promise
20:06political philosophy for the most part hasn't worked that way.
20:11You have to allow for the possibility
20:14that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen
20:19rather than a better one
20:21or at least a worse citizen
20:23before it makes you
20:25a better one
20:27and that's because philosophy
20:30is a distancing
20:32even debilitating
20:34activity
20:36And you see this
20:37going back to Socrates
20:39there's a dialogue, the Gorgias
20:42in which one of Socrates’ friends
20:44Calicles
20:45tries to talk him out
20:47of philosophizing.
20:49calicles tells Socrates philosophy is a pretty toy
20:54if one indulges in it with moderation at the right time of life
20:57but if one pursues it further than one should it is absolute ruin.
21:03Take my advice calicles says,
21:06abandon argument
21:08learn the accomplishments of active life, take
21:11for your models not those people who spend their time on these petty quibbles,
21:16but those who have a good livelihood and reputation
21:20and many other blessings.
21:22So Calicles is really saying to Socrates
21:26quit philosophizing,
21:28get real
21:30go to business school
21:35and calicles did have a point
21:38he had a point
21:39because philosophy distances us
21:42from conventions from established assumptions
21:45and from settled beliefs.
21:46those are the risks,
21:48personal and political
21:49and in the face of these risks there is a characteristic evasion,
21:54the name of the evasion is skepticism. It's the idea
21:57well it goes something like this
21:58we didn't resolve, once and for all,
22:03either the cases or the principles we were arguing when we began
22:09and if Aristotle
22:11and Locke and Kant and Mill haven't solved these questions after all of these years
22:17who are we to think
22:19that we here in Sanders Theatre over the course a semester
22:23can resolve them
22:26and so maybe it's just a matter of
22:29each person having his or her own principles and there's nothing more to be said about
22:33it
22:34no way of reasoning
22:36that's the
22:37evasion. The evasion of skepticism
22:39to which I would offer the following
22:41reply:
22:42it's true
22:43these questions have been debated for a very long time
22:47but the very fact
22:49that they have reoccurred and persisted
22:52may suggest
22:54that though they're impossible in one sense
22:57their unavoidable in another
22:59and the reason they're unavoidable
23:02the reason they're inescapable is that we live some answer
23:06to these questions every day.
23:10So skepticism, just throwing up their hands and giving up on moral reflection,
23:16is no solution
23:18Emanuel Kant
23:19described very well the problem with skepticism when he wrote
23:23skepticism is a resting place for human reason
23:26where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings
23:29but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement.
23:33Simply to acquiesce in skepticism, Kant wrote,
23:35can never suffice to overcome the restless of reason.
23:42I've tried to suggest through theses stories and these arguments
23:47some sense of the risks and temptations
23:49of the perils and the possibilities I would simply conclude by saying
23:55that the aim of this course
23:58is to awaken
23:59the restlessness of reason
24:02and to see where it might lead
24:04thank you very much.
24:15Like, in a situation that desperate,
24:16you have to do what you have to do to survive. You have to do what you have to do you? You've gotta do
24:21What you
24:22gotta do. pretty much,
24:23If you've been going nineteen days without any food
24:25someone has to take the sacrifice, someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive. Alright that's good, what's your name? Marcus.
24:33Marcus, what do you say to Marcus?
24:40Last time
24:44we started out last time
24:46with some stores
24:48with some moral dilemmas
24:51about trolley cars
24:53and about doctors
24:54and healthy patients
24:56vulnerable
24:57to being victims of organ transplantation
25:00we noticed two things
25:04about the arguments we had
25:06one had to do with the way we were arguing
25:10it began with our judgments in particular cases
25:13we tried to articulate the reasons or the principles
25:18lying behind our judgments
25:22and then confronted with a new case
25:25we found ourselves re-examining those principles
25:30revising each in the light of the other
25:34and we noticed the built-in pressure to try to bring into alignment
25:38our judgments about particular cases
25:41and the principles we would endorse
25:43on reflection
25:46we also noticed something about the substance of the arguments
25:50that emerged from the discussion.
25:55We noticed that sometimes we were tempted to locate the morality of an act in the consequences
26:00in the results, in the state of the world that it brought about.
26:06We called is consequentialist
26:09moral reason.
26:11But we also noticed that
26:13in some cases
26:16we weren't swayed only
26:18by the results
26:22sometimes,
26:23many of us felt,
26:25that not just consequences but also the intrinsic quality or character of the act
26:31matters morally.
26:35Some people argued that there are certain things that are just categorically wrong
26:40even if they bring about
26:42a good result
26:44even
26:45if they save five people
26:47at the cost of one life.
26:49So we contrasted consequentialist
26:52moral principles
26:54with categorical ones.
26:58Today
26:59and in the next few days
27:00we will begin to examine one of the most influential
27:06versions of consequentialist
27:08moral theory
27:10and that's the philosophy of utilitarianism.
27:16Jeremy Bentham,
27:17the eighteenth century
27:19English political philosopher
27:21gave first
27:22the first clear systematic expression
27:26to the utilitarian
27:28moral theory.
27:32And Bentham's idea,
27:36his essential idea
27:38is a very simple one
27:42with a lot of
27:44morally
27:46intuitive appeal.
27:48Bentham's idea is
27:50the following
27:51the right thing to do
27:54the just thing to do
27:57it's to
27:58maximize
28:01utility.
28:02What did he mean by utility?
28:06He meant by utility the balance
28:11of pleasure over pain,
28:14happiness over suffering.
28:16Here's how we arrived
28:18at the principle
28:19of maximizing utility.
28:22He started out by observing
28:24that all of us
28:26all human beings
28:27are governed by two sovereign masters,
28:31pain and pleasure.
28:34We human beings
28:37like pleasure and dislike pain
28:42and so we should base morality
28:45whether we are thinking of what to do in our own lives
28:49or whether
28:50as legislators or citizens
28:52we are thinking about what the law should be,
28:57the right thing to do individually or collectively
29:02is to maximize, act in a way that maximizes
29:05the overall level
29:07of happiness.
29:11Bentham's utilitarianism is sometimes summed up with the slogan
29:15the greatest good for the greatest number.
29:18With this
29:20basic principle of utility on hand,
29:22let's begin to test it and to examine it
29:26by turning to another case
29:28another story but this time
29:30not a hypothetical story,
29:32a real-life story
29:34the case of
29:35the Queen versus Dudley and Stephens.
29:38This was a nineteenth-century British law case
29:41that's famous
29:44and much debated in law schools.
29:47Here's what happened in the case
29:50I'll summarize the story
29:51and then I want to hear
29:54how you would rule
29:57imagining that you are the jury.
30:04A newspaper account of the time
30:06described the background:
30:09A sadder story of disaster at sea
30:11was never told
30:12than that of the survivors of the yacht
30:15Mignonette.
30:16The ship foundered in the south Atlantic
30:19thirteen hundred miles from the cape
30:21there were four in the crew,
30:24Dudley was the captain
30:26Stephens was the first mate
30:28Brooks was a sailor,
30:30all men of
30:31excellent character,
30:32or so the newspaper account
30:34tells us.
30:35The fourth crew member was the cabin boy,
30:38Richard Parker
30:40seventeen years old.
30:42He was an orphan
30:44he had no family
30:46and he was on his first long voyage at sea.
30:51He went, the news account tells us,
30:53rather against the advice of his friends.
30:56He went in the hopefulness of youthful ambition
31:00thinking the journey would make a man of him.
31:03Sadly it was not to be,
31:05the facts of the case were not in dispute,
31:07a wave hit the ship
31:08and the Mignonette went down.
31:12The four crew members escaped to a lifeboat
31:14the only
31:16food they had
31:18were two
31:19cans of preserved
31:20turnips
31:21no fresh water
31:23for the first three days they ate nothing
31:26on the fourth day that opened one of the cans of turnips
31:30and ate it.
31:31The next day they caught a turtle
31:34together with the other can of turnips
31:36the turtle
31:38enabled them to subsist
31:40for the next few days and then for eight days
31:43they had nothing
31:44no food no water.
31:47Imagine yourself in a situation like that
31:50what would you do?
31:52Here's what they did
31:55by now the cabin boy Parker is lying at the bottom of the lifeboat in a corner
32:00because he had drunk sea water
32:03against the advice of the others
32:05and he had become ill
32:07and he appeared to be dying
32:10so on the nineteenth day Dudley, the captain, suggested
32:14that they should all
32:17have a lottery. That they should
32:18all draw lots to see
32:19who would die
32:20to save the rest.
32:24Brooks
32:25refused
32:26he didn't like the lottery idea
32:29we don't know whether this
32:30was because he didn't want to take that chance or because he believed in categorical moral
32:35principles
32:36but in any case
32:38no lots were drawn.
32:42The next day
32:43there was still no ship in sight
32:45so a Dudley told Brooks to avert his gaze
32:48and he motioned to Stephens
32:50that the boy Parker had better be killed.
32:53Dudley offered a prayer
32:55he told a the boy his time had come
32:58and he killed him with a pen knife
33:00stabbing him in the jugular vein.
33:03Brooks emerged from his conscientious objection to share in the gruesome bounty.
33:09For four days
33:11the three of them fed on the body and blood of the cabin boy.
33:15True story.
33:17And then they were rescued.
33:19Dudley describes their rescue
33:22in his diary
33:24with staggering euphemism, quote:
33:27"on the twenty fourth day
33:29as we were having our breakfast
33:34a ship appeared at last."
33:38The three survivors were picked up by a German ship. They were taken back to Falmouth in England
33:44where they were arrested and tried
33:47Brooks
33:47turned state's witness
33:49Dudley and Stephens went to trial. They didn't dispute the facts
33:54they claimed
33:55they had acted out of necessity
33:58that was their defense
33:59they argued in effect
34:01better that one should die
34:03so that three could survive
34:06the prosecutor
34:08wasn't swayed by that argument
34:10he said murder is murder
34:12and so the case went to trial. Now imagine you are the jury
34:16and just to simplify the discussion
34:19put aside the question of law,
34:21and let's assume that
34:23you as the jury
34:25are charged with deciding
34:28whether what they did was morally
34:31permissible or not.
34:34How many
34:36would vote
34:39not guilty, that what they did was morally permissible?
34:49And how many would vote guilty
34:51what they did was morally wrong?
34:54A pretty sizable majority.
34:57Now let's see what people's reasons are, and let me begin with those who are in the minority.
35:03Let's hear first from the defense
35:07of Dudley and Stephens.
35:10Why would you morally exonerate them?
35:14What are your reasons?
35:17I think it's I think it is morally reprehensible
35:20but I think that there's a distinction between what's morally reprehensible
35:24what makes someone legally accountable
35:26in other words the night as the judge said what's always moral isn't necessarily
35:30against the law and while I don't think that necessity
35:34justifies
35:36theft or murder any illegal act,
35:38at some point your degree of necessity does in fact
35:43exonerate you form any guilt. ok.
35:45other defenders, other voices for the defense?
35:50Moral justifications for
35:53what they did?
35:56yes, thank you
35:58I just feel like
35:59in a situation that desperate you have to do what you have to do to survive.
36:03You have to do what you have to do
36:04ya, you gotta do what you gotta do, pretty much.
36:06If you've been
36:07going nineteen days without any food
36:09you know someone just has to take the sacrifice has to make sacrifices and people can survive
36:14and furthermore from that
36:16let's say they survived and then they become productive members of society who go home and then start like
36:21a million charity organizations and this and that and this and that, I mean they benefit everybody in the end so
36:26I mean I don't know what they did afterwards, I mean they might have
36:28gone on and killed more people
36:30but whatever.
36:32what? what if they were going home and turned out to be assassins?
36:35What if they were going home and turned out to be assassins?
36:38You would want to know who they assassinated.
36:42That's true too, that's fair
36:45I would wanna know who they assassinated.
36:49alright that's good, what's your name? Marcus.
36:50We've heard a defense
36:52a couple voices for the defense
36:54now we need to hear
36:55from the prosecution
36:57most people think
36:59what they did was wrong, why?
37:05One of the first things that I was thinking was, oh well if they haven't been eating for a really long time,
37:09maybe
37:11then
37:12they're mentally affected
37:15that could be used for the defense,
37:16a possible argument that oh,
37:20that they weren't in a proper state of mind, they were making
37:24decisions that they otherwise wouldn't be making, and if that's an appealing argument
37:28that you have to be in an altered mindset to do something like that it suggests that
37:33people who find that argument convincing
37:36do you think that they're acting immorally. But I want to know what you think you're defending
37:40you k 0:37:41.249,0:37:45.549 you voted to convict right? yeah I don't think that they acted in morally
37:45appropriate way. And why not? What do you say, Here's Marcus
37:49he just defended them,
37:51he said,
37:52you heard what he said,
37:53yes I did
37:55yes
37:56that you've got to do what you've got to do in a case like that.
38:00What do you say to Marcus?
38:04They didn't,
38:06that there is no situation that would allow human beings to take
38:13the idea of fate or the other people's lives into their own hands that we don't have
38:17that kind of power.
38:19Good, okay
38:21thanks you, and what's your name?
38:24Britt? okay.
38:24who else?
38:26What do you say? Stand up
38:28I'm wondering if Dudley and Stephens had asked for Richard Parker's consent in, you know, dying,
38:35if that would
38:37would that exonerate them
38:41from an act of murder, and if so is that still morally justifiable?
38:45That's interesting, alright consent, now hang on, what's your name? Kathleen.
38:51Kathleen says suppose so what would that scenario look like?
38:56so in the story
38:56Dudley is there, pen knife in hand,
39:00but instead of the prayer
39:02or before the prayer,
39:04he says, Parker,
39:07would you mind
39:11we're desperately hungry,
39:14as Marcus empathizes with
39:17we're desperately hungry
39:19you're not going to last long anyhow,
39:22you can be a martyr,
39:23would you be a martyr
39:25how about it Parker?
39:29Then, then
39:33then what do you think, would be morally justified then? Suppose
39:37Parker
39:38in his semi-stupor
39:40says okay
39:42I don't think it'll be morally justifiable but I'm wondering. Even then, even then it wouldn't be? No
39:47You don't think that even with consent
39:50it would be morally justified.
39:52Are there people who think
39:54who want to take up Kathleen's
39:56consent idea
39:57and who think that that would make it morally justified? Raise your hand if it would
40:01if you think it would.
40:05That's very interesting
40:07Why would consent
40:09make a moral difference? Why would it?
40:15Well I just think that if he was making his own original idea
40:18and it was his idea to start with
40:20then that would be the only situation in which I would
40:23see it being appropriate in anyway 0:40:25.940,0:40:28.359 because that way you couldn't make the argument that
40:28he was pressured you know it’s three
40:30to one or whatever the ratio was,
40:32and I think that
40:34if he was making a decision to give his life then he took on the agency
40:38to sacrifice himself which some people might see as admirable and other people
40:42might disagree with that decision.
40:45So if he came up with the idea
40:49that's the only kind of consent we could have confidence in
40:52morally, then it would be okay
40:55otherwise
40:57it would be kind of coerced consent
40:59under the circumstances
41:01you think.
41:05Is there anyone who thinks
41:07that the even the consent of Parker
41:10would not justify
41:13their killing him?
41:15Who thinks that?
41:18Yes, tell us why, stand up
41:19I think that Parker
41:21would be killed
41:22with the hope that the other crew members would be rescued so
41:26there's no definite reason that he should be killed
41:29because you don't know
41:31when they're going to get rescued so if you kill him you're killing him in vain
41:35do you keep killing a crew member until you're rescued and then you're left with no one?
41:38because someone's going to die eventually?
41:40Well the moral logic of the situation seems to be that.
41:44That they would
41:45keep on picking off the weakest maybe, one by one,
41:50until they were
41:51rescued and in this case luckily when three at least were still alive.
41:57Now if
41:58if Parker did give his consent
42:01would it be all right do you think or not?
42:04No, it still wouldn't be right.
42:06Tell us why wouldn't be all right.
42:08First of all, cannibalism, I believe
42:10is morally incorrect
42:13so you shouldn’t be eating a human anyway.
42:14So
42:17cannibalism is morally objectionable outside
42:19so then even in the scenario
42:22of waiting until someone died
42:24still it would be objectionable.
42:27Yes, to me personally
42:27I feel like of
42:29it all depends on
42:31one's personal morals, like we can't just, like this is just my opinion
42:35of course other people are going to disagree.
42:39Well let's see, let's hear what their disagreements are
42:41and then we'll see
42:42if they have reasons
42:44that can persuade you or not.
42:46Let's try that
42:48Let's
42:50now is there someone
42:53who can explain, those of you who are tempted by consent
42:57can you explain
42:59why consent makes
43:02such a moral difference,
43:03what about the lottery idea
43:05does that count as consent. Remember at the beginning
43:08Dudley proposed a lottery
43:11suppose that they had agreed
43:13to a lottery
43:16then
43:17how many would then say
43:20it was all right. Say there was a lottery,
43:23cabin boy lost,
43:25and the rest of the story unfolded. How many people would say it's morally permissible?
43:33So the numbers are rising if we add a lottery, let's hear from one of you
43:37for whom the lottery would make a moral difference
43:41why would it?
43:43I think the essential
43:44element,
43:45in my mind that makes it a crime is
43:47the idea that they decided at some point that their lives were more important than his, and that
43:53I mean that's kind of the basis for really any crime
43:56right? It's like
43:57my needs, my desire is a more important than yours and mine take precedent
44:01and if they had done a lottery were everyone consented
44:04that someone should die
44:06and it's sort of like they're all sacrificing themselves,
44:09to save the rest,
44:11Then it would be all right?
44:12A little grotesque but,
44:15But morally permissible? Yes.
44:18what's your name? Matt.
44:22so, Matt for you
44:25what bothers you is not
44:27the cannibalism, but the lack of due process.
44:31I guess you could say that
44:34And can someone who agrees with Matt
44:38say a little bit more
44:40about why
44:41a lottery
44:43would make it, in your view,
44:47morally permissible.
44:50The way I understood it originally was that that was the whole issue is that the cabin boy was never
44:55consulted
44:56about whether or not it something was going to happen to him even though with the original
45:00lottery
45:01whether or not he would be a part of that it was just decided
45:04that he was the one that was going to die. Yes that's what happened in the actual case
45:08but if there were a lottery and they all agreed to the procedure
45:11you think that would be okay?
45:13Right, because everyone knows that there's gonna be a death
45:16whereas
45:17you know the cabin boy didn't know that
45:18this discussion was even happening
45:21there was no
45:21you know forewarning
45:23for him to know that hey, I may be the one that's dying. Okay, now suppose the everyone agrees
45:28to the lottery they have the lottery the cabin boy loses any changes his mind.
45:35You've already decided, it's like a verbal contract, you can't go back on that. You've decided the decision was made
45:40you know if you know you're dying for the reason for at others to live,
45:45you would, you know
45:45if the someone else had died
45:47you know that you would consume them, so
45:51But then he could say I know, but I lost.
45:57I just think that that's the whole moral issue is that there was no consulting of the cabin boy and that that's
46:01what makes it the most horrible
46:04is that he had no idea what was even going on, that if he had known what was going on
46:08it would
46:10be a bit more understandable.
46:13Alright, good, now I want to hear
46:14so there's some who think
46:17it's morally permissible
46:18but only about twenty percent,
46:24led by Marcus,
46:26then there are some who say
46:28the real problem here
46:30is the lack of consent
46:32whether the lack of consent to a lottery to a fair procedure
46:37or
46:38Kathleen's idea,
46:39lack of consent
46:40at the moment
46:42of death
46:45and if we add consent
46:48then
46:49more people are willing to consider
46:51the sacrifice morally justified.
46:54I want to hear now finally
46:56from those of you who think
46:58even with consent
47:00even with a lottery
47:01even with
47:02a final
47:04murmur of consent from Parker
47:06at the
47:08very last moment
47:09it would still
47:10be wrong
47:12and why would it be wrong
47:14that's what I want to hear.
47:16well the whole time
47:18I've been leaning towards the categorical moral reasoning
47:22and I think that
47:25there's a possibility I'd be okay with the idea of the lottery and then loser
47:29taking into their own hands to
47:31kill themselves
47:33so there wouldn't be an act of murder but I still think that
47:37even that way it's coerced and also I don't think that there's any remorse like in
47:42Dudley's diary
47:43we're getting our breakfast
47:44it seems as though he's just sort of like, oh,
47:47you know that whole idea of not valuing someone else's life
47:51so that makes me
47:53feel like I have to take the categorical stance. You want to throw the book at him.
47:57when he lacks remorse or a sense of having done anything wrong. Right.
48:02Alright, good so are there any other
48:06defenders who
48:08who say it's just categorically wrong, with or without consent, yes stand up. Why?
48:13I think undoubtedly the way our society is shaped, murder is murder
48:17murder is murder and every way our society looks down at it in the same light
48:21and I don't think it's any different in any case. Good now let me ask you a question,
48:24there were three lives at stake
48:27versus one,
48:30the one, that the cabin boy, he had no family
48:33he had no dependents,
48:34these other three had families back home in England they had dependents
48:38they had wives and children
48:41think back to Bentham,
48:43Bentham says we have to consider
48:44the welfare, the utility, the happiness
48:48of everybody. We have to add it all up
48:51so it's not just numbers three against one
48:54it's also all of those people at home
48:58in fact the London newspaper at the time
49:00and popular opinion sympathized with them
49:04Dudley in Stephens
49:05and the paper said if they weren't
49:07motivated
49:08by affection
49:09and concern for their loved ones at home and dependents, surely they wouldn't have
49:13done this. Yeah, and how is that any different from people
49:15on the corner
49:17trying to having the same desire to feed their family, I don't think it's any different. I think in any case
49:21if I'm murdering you to advance my status, that's murder and I think that we should look at all
49:25of that in the same light. Instead of criminalizing certain
49:28activities
49:30and making certain things seem more violent and savage
49:33when in that same case it's all the same act and mentality
49:36that goes into the murder, a necessity to feed their families.
49:40Suppose there weren't three, supposed there were thirty,
49:43three hundred,
49:44one life to save three hundred
49:47or in more time,
49:48three thousand
49:49or suppose the stakes were even bigger.
49:51Suppose the stakes were even bigger
49:52I think it's still the same deal.
49:54Do you think Bentham was wrong to say the right thing to do
49:58is to add
49:58up the collected happiness, you think he's wrong about that?
50:02I don't think he is wrong, but I think murder is murder in any case. Well then Bentham has to be wrong
50:06if you're right he's wrong. okay then he's wrong.
50:09Alright thank you, well done.
50:12Alright, let's step back
50:14from this discussion
50:16and notice
50:19how many objections have we heard to what they did.
50:23we heard some defenses of what they did
50:26the defense has had to do with
50:28necessity
50:28the dire circumstance and,
50:32implicitly at least,
50:33the idea that numbers matter
50:36and not only numbers matter
50:37but the wider effects matter
50:40their families back home, their dependents
50:43Parker was an orphan,
50:44no one would miss him.
50:47so if you
50:49add up
50:50if you tried to calculate
50:52the balance
50:53of happiness and suffering
50:56you might have a case for
50:58saying what they did was the right thing
51:02then we heard at least three different types of objections,
51:09we heard an objection that's said
51:11what they did was categorically wrong,
51:14right here at the end
51:15categorically wrong.
51:17Murder is murder it's always wrong
51:19even if
51:20it increases the overall happiness
51:23of society
51:25the categorical objection.
51:28But we still need to investigate
51:30why murder
51:32is categorically wrong.
51:35Is it because
51:38even cabin boys have certain fundamental rights?
51:42And if that's the reason
51:44where do those rights come from if not from some idea
51:47of the larger welfare or utility or happiness? Question number one.
51:53Others said
51:56a lottery would make a difference
51:58a fair procedure,
52:00Matt said.
52:05And some people were swayed by that.
52:08That's not a categorical objection exactly
52:12it's saying
52:13everybody has to be counted as an equal
52:16even though, at the end of the day
52:18one can be sacrificed
52:20for the general welfare.
52:23That leaves us with another question to investigate,
52:26Why does agreement to certain procedure,
52:29even a fair procedure,
52:31justify whatever result flows
52:34from the operation of that procedure?
52:38Question number two.
52:39and question number three
52:42the basic idea of consent.
52:45Kathleen got us on to this.
52:48If the cabin boy had agreed himself
52:52and not under duress
52:54as was added
52:57then it would be all right to take his life to save the rest.
53:01Even more people signed on to that idea
53:04but that raises
53:06a third philosophical question
53:08what is the moral work
53:11that consent
53:12does?
53:14Why does an act of consent
53:16make such a moral difference
53:19that an act that would be wrong, taking a life, without consent
53:23is morally
53:25permissible
53:26with consent?
53:29To investigate those three questions
53:31we're going to have to read some philosophers
53:34and starting next time
53:35we're going to read
53:36Bentham,
53:37and John Stuart Mill, utilitarian philosophers.
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