In response, defenders of the problem inevitably say, "You're missing the point which is not to focus on what can be done but what ought to be done." This, as I have said before, is the classic Enlightenment move to rule out all considerations except those concerning what we ought to do.
As is typical of Enlightenment argument, the point is to be rational by narrowing the problem down to something we can be absolutely rational about. It is true that 12 x12 = 144. It doesn't matter for the purposes of calculation whether we are talking about twelve bags of twelve apples or twelve bundles of twelve rods of radioactive material. So, we say, forget "can", and just focus on "ought"; "can" is another problem we can deal with after we have established what we ought to do.
But was Philipa Foot really making such distinctions? I'm sure she thought she was but consider the following paragraph from her essay:
A man may murder his child or his aged relatives by allowing them to die of starvation as by giving poison; he may also be convicted of murder on either account. In another case we would, however, make a distinction. Most of us allow people to die of starvation in India and Africa, and there is surely something wrong with us that we do; it would be nonsense, however, to pretend that it is only in law that we make the distinction between allowing people in the under developed countries to die of starvation and sending them poisoned food.Really? I wake up in the morning and allow people to die of starvation in Africa? How exactly do I do this?
Imagine an example where I really do allow someone to die. I am standing on the sidewalk and I see a trolley coming and the operator is arguing with a customer and does not see someone on the tracks. I could easily yell a warning to this person or push them out of the way and I don't. I just watch them die. Think of how different that is from the case of starvation in Africa.
Of course lots of very smart people believe what Phillipa Foot seems to have believed here or, at least, they tell themselves that they believe it. My guess is that they think they know that there is more than enough food to feed everyone on earth and also the means to transport that food to everyone who needs it. They don't actually "know" this in the sense that they have no means of doing the calculation nor of checking to see if it is true. But we have heard or read it somewhere so we believe it.
But, still, how do I allow people to starve in Africa. What could I actually do to prevent it? Write a big cheque? People would still starve. Campaign to have a government elected that would give more to foreign aid? People would still starve. Start a campaign to end world hunger by 2015? People would still starve.
In fact, people have been working to end hunger in Africa for a long time now. Very smart people have been working on the problem with significant resources.
What can she mean? Does she mean that we don't care enough? It seems like the distinction between ought and can—a distinction that is the only thing that keeps the Trolley Problem from being a foolish exercise is intellectual wheel-spinning— has simply vanished here. She doesn't seem aware of it.
"'In response, defenders of the problem inevitably say, "You're missing the point which is not to focus on what can be done but what ought to be done.'"
ReplyDeleteI think you misinterpreted what I said. In fact, I think I said just the opposite. My point was that moral imperatives--the ought--do not apply where one is incapable of fulfilling them--the can. Ought is contingent upon can. Every mother should take care of her children. But no one would hold a mother who is hospitalized for acute paranoid schizophrenia to that standard, at least not as long as she is hospitalized and out of her mind. Based on my study of the Lifeboat and other such conundrums, that's how I read the Trolley problem. Given the facts as they are presented what could any of the people involved have realistically done, not a whole helluva lot, and given the facts as they are presented I don't think there was necessarily a moral imperative for them to do anything, but others might disagree, and that's the point. There's no clear cut answer.
I'll be honest with you, I don't remember reading anything of Phillipa Foot in graduate school, or the Trolley story, which doesn't mean that I didn't, its been more than 25 years. But as I read it I compared it to the Lifeboat story, which as I said is a starting point for sorting out moral priorities. I think that both of these stories are probably more relevant for a discussion of Public Policy issues than how you and I as individuals can live a moral life. Nonetheless, I think that some of the principles can apply when individuals face tough moral decisions in their own lives.
In the Trolley story, its precisely because the particpants have a very limited ability to affect the ultimate outcome that there is a moral question. If anyone had the ability or the means to avert a complete catastrophe there would be no question about what would be the moral thing to do. The only choices they have are a) catastrophe or b) less of a catastrophe. But what if the lesser catastrophe was your mother, or your wife, or your child, and should that--from a moral or ethical perspective--enter into the equation?
ReplyDeleteI didn't have you in mind with the response about what ought to be done as opposed to what can. I'm sorry if it seemed that way because I obviously didn't express myself clearly if it does.
ReplyDeleteThat response is actually the classic response given in first year ethics classes when people raise the sorts of objections I do. Do what I did and your professor will say, "No, no no, your objections are irrelevant." I know this because I kept raising these sorts of objections all the way through my undergraduate and graduate career.
You're right that participants in the trolley story (or the lifeboat story) would have limited ability to affect the outcome but that is because both stories are not just fictions but utterly implausible fictions. It is this second part that bothers me. I have problem with approaching ethical questions by formulating scenarios. I have a huge problem with approaching them by formulating utterly implausible scenarios.
I'm sorry you had that experience in graduate school, none of the professors I had would ever have called your objections irrelevant. I remember others in my class did raise similar objections (I was so intimidated by just being in the class that I didn't open my mouth!), but the professor used those objections to explain the point of the exercise and why it was legitimate (see below).
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that these are implausible scenarios, and I would agree with your conclusion if ethical analyses or approaches to ethical questions ended there. As I said before, they are a rudimentary starting point. In the first Medical Ethics course I took, the Lifeboat story led to a more detailed analysis of the various ethical principles in isolation using Beauchamp & Childress, and then to actual cases from the files of the Ethical Review Board of the University Hospital, the Case Method. But even B&C often used scenarios to describe the ethical principles they were trying to explain because while a student might understand a principle in the abstract, the concrete application of it isn't always so apparent, especially if there is more than one ethical principle competing for priority.