(Incidentally, after the jealous reactions to my last post, where I said that I had been at a conference in Marseilles, you may rest assured that–unless I am going to Gary, Indiana or Wolverhampton Staffordshire–I will never again tell people where I am going. The fact that my next trip will be to the Taj Mahal for a conference on the philosophy of tomb stones will be forever concealed from view.)
However, Foot is worth a bit more than a footnote, for it was she who first started us onto the moral paradox that has consumed more paper than anything since Plato in the Parmenides asked if the Forms are self-predicating. (If they are, does that mean the Form of Dirt is dirty, in which case how can this Form be pure and eternal? If they are not, then what is the relationship between the Form of Dirt and dirty things in this world? It cannot be, as it is supposed to be, a model or a template.)
The moral paradox to which I am referring is the so-called “Trolley Problem.” Suppose you are down a mine and five people are standing on the track. You see a trolley laden with coal coming down the track, you cannot warn the people, but you can flip a switch that will divert the trolley onto a side line. Unfortunately one person is standing on this line. What should you do (morally, that is).
Basically, this problem is supposed to sort out the differences between utilitarians and Kantians, the former thinking you should maximize happiness and the latter thinking you should treat people as ends and not as means. From a utilitarian viewpoint, flip the switch. Five lives for one. From a Kantian viewpoint, don’t flip the switch. You would be treating that single person as a means for the benefits of the five.
Now add a second part to the problem. Suppose, instead of a switch, you are standing next to a fat man. You could push him onto the track, and although he would be squashed, the trolley would stop and the five would be saved. Would you, should you, do so? (Your victim has to be a fatty. If a normal person would do, then morally one might well argue that the right thing to do is to jump yourself. The point has to be that your jumping would not do the trick, but pushing him would.)
What is interesting is that folk who are quite prepared to flip the switch are often much less prepared to push the man. Why should this be so? At this point, philosophers often get into convoluted arguments about how there is a difference between merely saving people (you are just flipping the switch to save the five and the unfortunate consequences for the one are not your fault) and hurting people even though there are good ends for others (you are deliberately pushing). But I am not sure that any of this is terribly convincing.
What is really exciting is how neuroscientists have studied the brain making decisions in these cases, finding that different parts are used to make different decisions. My reading (I claim no originality) is that this all tells us something about biology and our past. On the one hand, natural selection favored reasoning abilities and being able to calculate ends and decide on options. On the other hand, natural selection favored being nice to your neighbors, because then they are much more likely to be nice to you. In the theoretical case, flipping the switch makes good evolutionary sense. In the practical case, not pushing your neighbor makes good evolutionary sense. The fact that these decisions do not always sit comfortably together and thus upset moral philosophers is not exactly something over which natural selection is going to lose a lot of sleep.
One final point. I suspect that most full-time moral philosophers will disagree with what I have said. But what is interesting is that most will not fault me for trying to understand in terms of evolution. They will just think that I am wrong. This in itself is a sea change from the days when people like Philippa Foot were in full flight. Thirty or 40 years ago, to bring evolution to bear on ethics was the equivalent of making a bad smell at a vicarage tea party. Not just wrong, but socially gross. I don’t know how much people like her were responsible for the change in attitude, but I am happy to hand out credit and to say how happy I am that the work of moral philosophers in my academic lifetime has made it possible for people like me who think that nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution to join in the discussion.
(In arguing for the relevance of evolution I am quoting and extending the eminent evolutionist Theodosius Dobzhansky. He thought nothing made sense in biology except in the light of evolution. I think nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution, period.)
16 Responses to The Trolley Problem
goxewu - October 12, 2010 at 5:11 pm
There was a very good presentation a while back of Professor Greene’s investigation of the trolley/fat-man hypothetical on a very good NPR program, “Radiolab.” It might be available, archived, online, or via a podcast.
That said, Professor Ruse rather surprisingly (and with surprising tone-deafness) mischaracterizes the thread’s reaction to his previous post, “Why I Hate Conferences,” as “jealous.” Nobody was jealous of Professor Ruse’s jaunt to Marseilles. Commenters merely copped to the fact that Professor Ruse was indulging in good old bragging-by-”complaining.” And they were prompted by his post to think about the general debilities–financial, ethical, pedagogical, technological, and professional–of academic conferences. Professor Ruse should actually be proud he started such a good discussion.
When Professor Ruse is good, he’s very very good, but when he’s bad he’s awfully touchy.
mbelvadi - October 13, 2010 at 7:02 am
If you believe in the concept of “free will” you probably should be very troubled by the idea that studying the “what is” (aka science) should be a justification for deciding what “ought to be” (moral philosophy). The implication of arguing that neuroscience research results should lead us to redefine what is socially acceptable moral decision making is that there is no real “free will”, that, as the old cliche says, “biology is destiny”, and most importantly, that “nature” is vastly more important than “nurture”. This reminds me very much of the writings of the late, great, Stephen Jay Gould, on the subject of science vs religion, and what he called “non-overlapping magisteria”.
bizdean - October 13, 2010 at 9:26 am
Evolution happens. Evolution is important. However, specific evolutionary changes that happened hundreds of millennia ago or more, well, we may know that they happened, but we don’t know how or why they happened. Statements about them are speculative. Therefore, basing current-day philosophic theories on them can make less sense, not more.
As for the trolley problem, the only right answer is, “I don’t do hypotheticals.” Reality always presents emergent opportunities, additional options. Whoever answers the trolley question reveals a moral shortcoming. But whoever asks it reveals a worse one.
frankschmidt - October 13, 2010 at 9:51 am
Turkey. Some of us think Staffordshire is quite pleasant.
bioemeritus - October 13, 2010 at 10:23 am
mbelvadi writes “The implication of arguing that neuroscience research results should lead us to redefine what is socially acceptable moral decision making is that there is no real ‘free will’… “.
Not necessarily. But it certainly implies that ethicians had damn well better learn some biology, especially evolution and neuroscience, and pay attention to it. Classical concepts in philosophy like free will must be revisited and revised in light of the new realities of the universe that science is discovering. Those philosophers who fail to do so will soon find themselves to be nothing more than buggy whips. To his everlasting credit, Professor Ruse has been a leader in this area and deserves a far wider hearing.
dank48 - October 13, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I certainly wasn’t jealous about the trip to Marseilles. I was definitely envious, but I’m getting over it.
goxewu - October 13, 2010 at 2:05 pm
Re bizdean:
Gee, any planner (security, military, medical, law enforcement, admissions, truck dispatching, agriculture, etc.) does hypotheticals, i.e., what if my choices are A or B (or C or D, or…). Do they have “shortcomings” in doing so, or is it just moral philosophers who shouldn’t do hypotheticals?
Which is to say that just because a question causes bothersome thoughts isn’t cause to impugn the character of the person who asked the question. “Projection,” I think they call it.
ledzep - October 13, 2010 at 5:57 pm
“The fact that these decisions do not always sit comfortably together and thus upset moral philosophers is not exactly something over which natural selection is going to lose a lot of sleep.”
Ok, but I am not natural selection – not even you, Prof. Ruse, are natural selection. We are the beings for whom moral norms are binding. It may only be moral philosophers who get exercised about these conflicts in abstract, general cases or carefully contrived hypotheticals, but we all have to deal with the conflicts from time to time.
“I suspect that most full-time moral philosophers will disagree with what I have said.”
Perhaps, but since you articulated no position on the trolley problem, other than this curious conditional – if natural selection were a person, she wouldn’t care – I’m not sure what they would be disagreeing with…
More seriously, I’m not sure what your position really is here. I take it you are not just saying that we got our basic moral frameworks from evolution, so let’s talk about that instead, since evolution and neuroscience are more fun than stupid moral philosophy problems. The best interpretation I can give is something like this: We shouldn’t expect or demand high levels of consistency in our moral judgments, since they are not the kind of judgments that converge on some one reality, but are rather artifacts of our evolutionary history. So there simply is no “right answer” to the trolley problem – it’s just a reflection of different morality modules that natural selection has bestowed on us.
Color me unconvinced. It would perhaps be nice if every time a philosophical problem arose, we could find some way to dissolve it by turning towards our favorite area of study. “Universals? That’s no fun! Let’s listen to Wagner instead! Only someone totally devoid of love for Wagner could think that any of that stuff means anything.” Hyperbole, but in the absence of something a lot more persuasive than “well, sometimes we needed to be utilitarians as cavemen, and sometimes we needed to be Kantians, so of course we’re both now” I really don’t think the situation is so very different.
ledzep - October 13, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Somewhat less cavalierly…
The Ruse position on the trolley problem seems to be persuasive only to the degree that one is an anti-realist about morality. We could argue, by analogy, that different types of scientific explanation come from different evolved patterns of thought, but surely it would be premature if we took it as established that competing theories of those respective types are just undecidable in principle. That there is an evolutionary story behind the theories isn’t sufficient to establish the anti-realism – as I suspect Prof. Ruse would admit. (Otherwise we should be anti-realists about everything.)
Philosophers are sometimes too willing to accept that arcane disputes really matter in some fundamental sense – sometimes they don’t! – but when the alternative is the claim that it is entirely contingent on evolutionary history whether, say, executing the innocent is immoral – I have to say that engaging in arcane disputes seems like the better (and more rational) path.
t_paine - October 14, 2010 at 9:05 pm
goxewu
In my lonely (largely thankless) effort to civilize you (because a liberal education is such a terrible thing to waste), I would ask you to note in your paragraph:
“Gee, any planner (security, military, medical, law enforcement, admissions, truck dispatching, agriculture, etc.) does hypotheticals, i.e., what if my choices are A or B (or C or D, or…). Do they have “shortcomings” in doing so, or is it just moral philosophers who shouldn’t do hypotheticals?”
the “Gee” is gratuitously snarky, uncalled for, and just plain nasty in the extreme. Can we agree?
So why the attitude? Why, always, the attitude? Can’t we contribute, discuss, argue? Must we humiliate? Are we 14?
And why am I using the editorial we?
goxewu - October 15, 2010 at 9:31 am
Re t_paine:
“the ‘Gee’ is gratuitously snarky, uncalled for, and just plain nasty in the extreme.”
I’ll admit to snarky, but not gratuitious. The “Gee” is three-letter shorthand for “It should be obvious that…,” which is part of my point. That’s the reason I called upon it, so it’s not “uncalled for.” It’s certainly not “nasty,” and even more certainly “in the extreme.”
“So why the attitude. Why, always, the attitude?” Because it’s my inimitably Swiftian style, that’s why. I’m coachable-by-admonishment to a certain extent (Profess Bauerlein might be able to testify to that), but it’s hard to take “Brainstorm” ettiquette questions from someone who’s recently commented on another thread: “You seem to have lost the ability to discern where the truth ends and your opinion begins. You preach all this lame-assed redistributive stuff as if, if we were only as smart as you are, we would see it all as you do.”
And now, back to the question: Are moral philosophers the only ones for whom it’s, er, immoral to deal in hypotheticals?
t_paine - October 15, 2010 at 11:36 pm
goxewu
The answer to your question is: “Hypothetically, no. But, philosophically, perhaps.” And the “er” is superfluous.
Now; I didn’t call your “Gee” gratuitous at all, I said “gratuitously snarky” and the gratuitous modifies the snarky, not the “Gee” don’t you see? Hypothetically?
goxewu - October 16, 2010 at 8:37 am
t_paine’s answer: Cute, but more or less nonsensical. Or evasive, take your pick.
Being accused of being gratuitous only in degree of being snarky is still being accused of being gratuitious. It’s in a smaller context, but perhaps even more severe. I’d rather, for instance, be accused of being just plain “extreme” than “extremely corrupt.”
The “er” may not be all that clever (indeed, it and “uh” are probably overused, and I’m one of the guilty ones), but it’s not superfluous; rhetorically, it indicates a revelation-as-I-say-it of the irony of moral philosophers asking hypothetical questions being said to have a “moral shortcoming.”
The corner into which t_paine is painting himself with increasingly trivial quibbles about words gets smaller and smaller. (His accusation of a “moral shortcoming” on the part of moral philosophers who ask hypothetical questions has been diluted to a philosophical “perhaps,” a hypothetical non-existence, and looks to get weaker with each subsequent comment.) And his sensitivities–”Gee” and “er” seem to wound him–are delicate indeed, especially for someone who accuses another commenter of “preach[ing]” “lame-ass” stuff.
Back to the main subject: It depends on who the fat man is.
t_paine - October 16, 2010 at 4:03 pm
goxewu
I like small corners, though they’re all more or less the same (as a matter of degree) when they’re Right. Thank you for noting my sensibilities. From Ed Abbey and many others; your first paragraph reminds me of the legendary Roc Bird who flew in ever-diminishing circles at ever-increasing speeds until it disappeared up its own ass.
goxewu - October 16, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Now my comment reminds t_paine of a legendary creature that “disappeared up its own ass.” And this from somebody who complains the that use of the word “Gee” is “nasty in the extreme.”
My goodness.
And we still haven’t heard just why moral philosophers, alone among us, shouldn’t invoke hypotheticals. Apparently we never will.
t_paine - October 16, 2010 at 11:39 pm
goxewu
You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry, I’ve been cluttering up the conversation. It’s a kind of compulsion with me. I’m sorry.
Ok, will someone answer this bleeding question which concerns, as I see it, the appropriate use of hypotheticality while philosophizing morally, as opposed to the use of the same said hypotheticallity vis-à-vis other philosophical disciplines that may require a scientific approach, i.e. phrenology, origamy, and String Theory, or macramé, as it’s called.
Hurry. I think goxewu is mad at me.