Is the difference between what is morally “right” and “wrong” distinguishable? Different views of philosophers yield different answers; however, one common denominator that all answers are based on is the sheer complexity of life, and that there are too many factors involved in the question to answer it. A nihilistic view would be that since nothing matters in life, “right” and “wrong” actions have no consequences, therefore there is no difference. An existentialist view would leave it up to the individual, what the person thinks as their purpose in life and how they view their actions is how the systems should be. To conceptualize this, think of the example (not one based on morals, just to visualize): I think pineapple on pizza is correct and milk before cereal is wrong, and that would be it. However, does this still not equate to there being no difference between morality, since everyone has a different conception of it? To complicate things further, here are three examples that represent the same moral dilemma but from a different view. These examples ultimately show the fault in our moral intuitions.
The typical train problem that comes up often when moral dilemmas are mentioned is the classic thought experiment first developed in 1967 by the philosopher Philippa Foot. Imagine you are standing by a set of train tracks. You spot a train approaching from the distance down the track where five people, who cannot hear or see the train, are standing. There is no way for them to move out of the way in time. Suddenly, you see a lever, which you realize if you pulled, the train will be diverted to another set of tracks away from the five people. There’s a catch, however, because this train track has one oblivious person on it. What will you do? Is the death of one over five more morally correct to you? Did the thought of not being responsible for the death of five, since you had nothing to do with it, more morally correct than purposefully pulling the lever, where you will kill one person? Is being a bystander as morally evil as letting someone die? This moral dilemma allows us to think through the consequences of our actions, and determine moral values from the outcome.
Now, consider this variation of the train problem. Imagine the same scenario as above, except that you are on a bridge above one train track with five people on it, again oblivious to the approaching train. This time, there is a large person standing next to you on the bridge, and you realize that pushing them down from the bridge on the train tracks would successfully stop the train. So, would you sacrifice one person for five others? Is the outcome here not identical to the problem above, where it’s either one or five deaths? An interesting fact I have noticed when I ask people these questions is that, while an outstanding majority would pull the lever, almost none would push the person off the bridge. A possible conclusion as to why this is so would be that pushing the man off the bridge seems more direct than pulling a lever. This speaks volumes about psychology, where many like to stay in the sidelines and not want to be put under direct attention or blame.
If you heard these two incidents on the news, where one person pulled the lever and the other pushed the person, which one would you consider as morally correct? Often, this is more easier to determine than evaluating what one would do in the situation, because again, observing from the sidelines is rather than putting yourself in a situation seems as a more comfortable choice, where you aren’t in risk of being judged.
This variation to the original train problem is the most visual. If it is thought about, the first two problems do not create a gruesome image in our minds, since we are focussing on morality in our minds, where we are lost in our thoughts and not in the present for a moment. However, this variation makes that impossible. Imagine you are a doctor with five patients all in need of transplants in order to survive. Two need a lung, two require kidneys, and one a heart, all of which one person has. In the next room, you have one patient that is successfully recovering from a broken arm. They are perfectly healthy. Is killing this patient and harvesting their organs for the five others the way to go? This situation has the same factors and consequences as the other two, yet killing a healthy patient seems absurd to the same people who would pull the lever or push the person, which is essentially the exact same thing as the first two problems.
If all these moral dilemmas deem the same results, yet the majority of people are willing to only pull the lever but not push the person or kill the healthy patient, are our moral intuitions inconsistent and unreliable? Are they even logical? I mentioned this is the first problem, where killing someone or letting them die are perceived as two different things to the human mind. The former is active and intentional, while the latter is passive and “I did not do it, so I am a good person!” The intentional act of killing is worse than being a bystander to the act. This is seen everywhere and is known as the principle of double effect. Indirectly causing harm for the greater good is permissible, but directly causing harm in pursuit for the greater good is not.
Research done by neuroscientists have shown that pulling the lever activates the logical and rational area of our brain, indicating that the person thought it was logical to save five people over one.
However, pushing the person off the bridge activates the emotional reasoning area of the brain as well, indicating that emotions are involved, and the action of killing one to save five is felt differently.
Should emotions be considered when the line is drawn between what is morally correct and what is not?
In the real world, larger factors are to be considered. Moral dilemmas include war, politics, and even economics, and have appeared in popular culture such as the film Eye In The Sky.
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