JV PhiloBlog

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056217/

Here is a famous moral problem used in many philosophy classes.

You are an experienced train engineer. You are rolling along when to your horror you see a small group of kids playing on the track. You know from experience that there is no time to stop the train. But there is a switch off in front of you too. You can take that, but there is a workman on the track. If you turn off, you will kill him.

What is the moral thing to do and why?

In general, we seem to use a Utilitarian approach to moral decisions. Faced with a choice between staying on track and killing a group of youngsters or veering off track and killing an innocent workman, most choose the latter course. The argument boils down to "Five young lives vs. one older life." The medieval philosophers had developed the doctrine of the least evil. When confronted with a choice between two evils, choose the lesser evil.

Some students say they will simply refuse to get involved. To veer off is to make an active decision to sacrifice the worker. They refuse to make that choice, knowing of course that they are thereby insuring the death of the youngsters. For such students, the key seems to be that at least they did not get involved in the messy business. This is the position taken by pacifists in time of war. They refuse to serve in any capacity because of moral objections to war itself. What happens on the ground does not matter.

My brother recently told me about a news story he was following from Sweden. Apparently, the Swedes have ended up giving asylum to jihadist who is wanted for murder elsewhere. (I do not know what country he's from or how he ended up in Sweden.) An American newsman is asking how comes it that the Swedes are harboring a man who openly says he wants to kill Americans and kill Swedes and is known to have been close to bin Laden. Apparently, the answer is that Swedish Law requires them to give asylum to anyone who faces the death penalty at home because Sweden regards the imposition of the death penalty as a violation of human rights. Under no circumstances will Sweden violate human rights, so he stays. (My brother may have garbled some details and I haven't time to research the story, so I do not vouch for the accuracy here.)

But this case is similar to one I do know the facts about. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, American and European forensic experts worked on a project to reunite the remains of Saddam's victims (in the hundreds of thousands), with their families. Since many of Saddam's enemies simply "disappeared," the families were left with nothing to grieve over. And grieving is important in the Middle East. So the American and European experts went to Iraq to assist the Iraqis in finding their dead. And they succeeded to a high degree, because modern technology really can do wonders. This was work everyone could be proud for doing.

Then one day the Europeans announced that they were withdrawing their participation in the worthy effort. Why? As they found more material and tied it via DNA with individuals, they were also as a side effect building a case of mass murder against Saddam--and he had just been captured. That meant that he could be tried and, since Iraq has always practiced capital punishment for certain crimes, he could be executed. The Europeans faced a moral dilemma. If they withdrew, they would harm (by withholding aid) the Iraqi families who wanted the bodies and justice. If they kept working, they would violate the basic human rights of one man. They chose to withdraw.

My question is whether this behavior comports with the Utilitarian ethics we used in the train problem.

A secondary problem, I think, for the Europeans is whether they should impose their laws upon the Iraqis. Since the Iraqis have no objection to the ancient punishment, should the Europeans treat their own moral opinion as Absolute Law, on the Kantian model? It seems arrogant. Yet we do not require pacifists to shoot at enemies or, until now, Catholic doctors to perform abortions. Some values are such that a person might say, "Do what you like to me, I will not do THAT." The British in India ended the suttee, and most of us would say, "And a good thing too."

The case seems to hinge on the question of whether capital punishment is indeed such an evil that to participate in it is simply impossible. And could a person who believes that there ARE no moral absolutes be justified in abandoning Utilitarian ethics for more Kantian ones in just this one case? That is, can one claim that both "there are no moral absolutes" and "capital punishment is absolutely wrong" are true?

Similarly with torture. In the famous ticking bomb hypothetical where you know there is a bomb set to kill thousands or even millions, and you know a person in you custody knows how to prevent it, are there any limits on what you might do to get that information? Or does our wish to do what will bring about "the greatest good for the greatest number" mean that, really, there can be no limits equal to the suffering that could ensue from observing them.

Some say, "Torture is that limit." (The argument about whether torture works or not is not at issue here. That's an empirical question. Experience seems to show that there are generally better methods and that torture does indeed work in some cases.)

To me, the troubling thing is when an abstract idea gets someone to ignore the facts on the ground. Judge Sotomayor's wise Latina comment comes to mind. She was invoking some feeling that the law itself cannot be all we go by. Real suffering is at stake here.

Still, Kant's practical imperative--the demand that all humans, even murderous dictators, must be treated as ends and never as means--can not be silenced. It is a noble idea, on the order of "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...." This is either always true or never true, I think.

So I am left with a contradiction: that moral absolutism is dangerous yet some principles are absolute--if they are true at all.

One of my favorite movies deals with this theme: check out The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.