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00:33This is a course about justice and we begin with a story.
00:37Suppose you're the driver of a trolley car,
00:39and your trolley car is hurtling down the track at 60 miles an hour,
00:44and at the end of the track you notice five workers working on the track.
00:49You try to stop, but you can't. Your brakes don't work.
00:53You feel desperate because you know that if you crash into these five workers,
00:58they will all die. Let's assume you know that for sure.
01:04And so you feel helpless until you notice that there is, off to the right,
01:10a side track. And at the end of that track,
01:15there's one worker working on the track.
01:18Your steering wheel works, so you can turn the trolley car,
01:24if you want to, onto the side track,
01:28killing the one, but sparing the five.
01:32Here's our first question.
01:35What's the right thing to do?
01:38What would you do?
01:39Let's take a poll.
01:42How many would turn the trolley car onto the side track?
01:47Raise your hands.
01:51How many wouldn't?
01:53How many would go straight ahead?
01:57Keep your hands up, those of you who would go straight ahead.
02:03A handful of people would.
02:05The vast majority would turn.
02:08Let's hear first.
02:09Now we need to begin to investigate the reasons why you think it's the right thing to do.
02:15Let's begin with those in the majority.
02:17Who would turn to go onto the side track?
02:21Why would you do it?
02:23What would be your reason?
02:25Who's willing to volunteer a reason?
02:29Go ahead, stand up.
02:31Because it can't be right to kill five people when you can only kill one person instead.
02:39It wouldn't be right to kill five if you could kill one person instead.
02:46That's a good reason.
02:48That's a good reason.
02:52Who else?
02:53Does everybody agree with that reason?
02:59Go ahead.
03:01Well, I was thinking it was the same reason on 9-11.
03:04We regard the people who flew the plane into the Pennsylvania field as heroes
03:08because they chose to kill the people in the plane and not kill more people in big buildings.
03:15So the principle there was the same on 9-11.
03:18It's a tragic circumstance.
03:20But better to kill one so that five can live?
03:24Is that the reason most of you had those of you who would turn?
03:28Yes?
03:30Let's hear now from those in the minority, those who wouldn't turn.
03:39Yes?
03:39Well, I think that's the same type of mentality that justifies genocide and totalitarianism.
03:45In order to save one type of race, you wipe out the other.
03:50So what would you do in this case?
03:52You would, to avoid the horrors of genocide, you would crash into the five and kill them?
04:03Presumably, yes.
04:05Yeah.
04:07Okay, who else?
04:09That's a brave answer.
04:12Let's consider another trolley car case and see whether those of you in the majority want
04:27to adhere to the principle, better that one should die so that five should live.
04:33This time you're not the driver of the trolley car, you're an onlooker.
04:37You're standing on a bridge overlooking a trolley car track.
04:42And down the track comes a trolley car.
04:45At the end of the track are five workers.
04:49The brakes don't work.
04:51The trolley car is about to careen into the five and kill them.
04:55And now, you're not the driver.
04:58You really feel helpless.
05:00Until you notice, standing next to you, leaning over the bridge, is a very fat man.
05:15And you could give him a shove.
05:22He would fall over the bridge, onto the track, right in the way of the trolley car.
05:30He would die, but he would spare the five.
05:37Now, how many would push the fat man over the bridge?
05:42Raise your hand.
05:47How many wouldn't?
05:50Most people wouldn't.
05:53Here's the obvious question.
05:55What became of the principle better to save five lives even if it means sacrificing one?
06:03What became of the principle that almost everyone endorsed in the first case?
06:08I need to hear from someone who was in the majority in both cases.
06:13How do you explain the difference between the two?
06:16Yes.
06:17The second one, I guess, involves an active choice of pushing the person down,
06:22which I guess that person himself would otherwise not have been involved in this situation at all.
06:29And so to choose on his behalf, I guess, to involve him in something that he otherwise would have escaped
06:38is, I guess, more than what you have in the first case,
06:42where the three parties, the driver and the two sets of workers, are already, I guess, in the situation.
06:50But the guy working, the one on the track, off to the side,
06:54he didn't choose to sacrifice his life any more than the fat man did, did he?
07:01That's true, but he was on the tracks.
07:04And you...
07:05This guy was on the bridge.
07:10Go ahead, you can come back if you want.
07:13All right, it's a hard question.
07:15All right, you did well.
07:16You did very well.
07:16It's a hard question.
07:19Who else can find a way of reconciling the reaction of the majority in these two cases?
07:28Yes.
07:29Well, I guess, in the first case, where you have the one worker and the five,
07:35it's choice between those two, and you have to make a certain choice,
07:38and people are going to die because of the trolley car,
07:40not necessarily because of your direct actions.
07:43The trolley car is a runway thing, and you're making a split-second choice,
07:47whereas pushing the fat man over is an actual act of murder on your part.
07:51You have control over that, whereas you may not have control over the trolley car.
07:57So I think it's a slightly different situation.
07:59All right, who has a reply?
08:01Is that as...
08:01No, that's good.
08:03Who has a way...
08:04Who wants to reply?
08:06Is that a way out of this?
08:09I don't think that's a very good reason, because you choose to...
08:12It's either way you have to choose who dies,
08:14because you either choose to turn and kill the person,
08:16which is an active, conscious thought to turn,
08:19or you choose to push the fat man over, which is also an active, conscious action.
08:24So, either way, you're making a choice.
08:27Do you want to reply?
08:29Well, I'm not really sure that that's the case.
08:31It just still seems kind of different,
08:32the act of actually pushing someone over onto the tracks and killing him.
08:37You are actually killing him yourself.
08:39You're pushing him with your own hands.
08:41You're pushing him, and that's different than steering something
08:44that is going to cause death into another...
08:48You know, it doesn't really sound right saying it now.
08:50No, no, it's good.
08:51But I'm up here.
08:53That's good.
08:53What's your name?
08:54Andrew.
08:55Andrew.
08:55Let me ask you this question, Andrew.
08:57Yes.
09:01Suppose, standing on the bridge, next to the fat man,
09:04I didn't have to push him.
09:06Suppose he were standing over a trap door that I could open
09:09by turning a steering wheel like that.
09:16Would you turn?
09:17For some reason, that still just seems more wrong.
09:22Right?
09:23I mean, maybe if you accidentally like leaned into the steering wheel or something like that.
09:29But, or say that the car is hurtling towards a switch that will drop the trap.
09:37Then I could agree with that.
09:39Fair enough.
09:39It still seems wrong in a way that it doesn't seem wrong in the first case to turn, you say.
09:46And in another way, I mean, in the first situation, you're involved directly with the situation.
09:50In the second one, you're an onlooker as well.
09:52All right.
09:52So you have the choice of becoming involved or not by pushing the fat man.
09:55All right.
09:55Let's forget for the moment about this case.
09:59That's good.
10:00Let's imagine a different case.
10:02This time you're a doctor in an emergency room.
10:05And six patients come to you.
10:11They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck.
10:17Five of them sustained moderate injuries.
10:20One is severely injured.
10:21You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim.
10:27But in that time, the five would die.
10:29Or you could look after the five, restore them to health.
10:32But during that time, the one severely injured person would die.
10:36How many would save the five?
10:39Now is the doctor.
10:40How many would save the one?
10:44Very few people.
10:45Just a handful of people.
10:48Same reason, I assume.
10:50One life versus five.
10:55Now consider another doctor case.
10:58This time you're a transplant surgeon.
11:01And you have five patients, each in desperate need
11:05of an organ transplant in order to survive.
11:09One needs a heart, one a lung, one a kidney, one a liver,
11:14and the fifth, a pancreas.
11:18And you have no organ donors.
11:22You are about to see them die.
11:27And then it occurs to you that in the next room,
11:31there's a healthy guy who came in for a checkup.
11:38And he's, you like that?
11:45And he's, he's taking a nap.
11:52You could go in very quietly, yank out the five organs, that person would die.
12:00But you could save the five.
12:03How many would do it?
12:07Anyone?
12:10How many?
12:10Put your hands up if you would do it.
12:17Anyone in the balcony?
12:18I would.
12:20You would?
12:21Be careful.
12:22Don't lean over too much.
12:24What?
12:26How many wouldn't?
12:29All right.
12:30What do you say?
12:31Speak up in the balcony, you who would, yank out the organs.
12:34Why?
12:35I'd actually like to explore a slightly alternate possibility of just taking the one of the five who needs an
12:41organ who dies first,
12:42using their four healthy organs to save the other four.
12:49That's a pretty good idea.
12:54That's a great idea.
12:57Except for the fact that you just wrecked the philosophical point.
13:04Well, let's, let's step back from these stories and these arguments to notice a couple of things about the way
13:13the arguments have begun to unfold.
13:17Certain moral principles have already begun to emerge from the discussions we've had.
13:25And let's consider what those moral principles look like.
13:30The first moral principle that emerged in the discussion said the right thing to do, the moral thing to do,
13:38depends on the consequences that will result from your action.
13:45At the end of the day, better that five should live, even if one must die.
13:51That's an example of consequentialist moral reasoning.
13:59Consequentialist moral reasoning locates morality in the consequences of an act, in the state of the world that will result
14:05from the thing you do.
14:08But then we went a little further, we considered those other cases, and people weren't so sure about consequentialist moral
14:17reasoning.
14:20When people hesitated to push the fat man over the bridge, or to yank out the organs of the innocent
14:27patient,
14:28people gestured toward reasons having to do with the intrinsic quality of the act itself.
14:39Consequences be what they may.
14:42People were reluctant.
14:44People thought it was just wrong, categorically wrong, to kill a person, an innocent person, even for the sake of
14:54saving five lives.
14:56At least people thought that in the second version of each story we considered.
15:03So, this points to a second categorical way of thinking about moral reasoning.
15:15Categorical moral reasoning locates morality in certain absolute moral requirements, certain categorical duties and rights, regardless of the consequences.
15:26We're going to explore, in the days and weeks to come, the contrast between consequentialist and categorical moral principles.
15:35The most influential example of consequential moral reasoning is utilitarianism, a doctrine invented by Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century English
15:47political philosopher.
15:50The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning is the 18th century German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
16:01So, we will look at those two different modes of moral reasoning, assess them, and also consider others.
16:10If you look at the syllabus, you'll notice that we read a number of great and famous books.
16:15Books by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and others.
16:23You'll notice, too, from the syllabus that we don't only read these books.
16:27We also take up contemporary political and legal controversies that raise philosophical questions.
16:36We will debate equality and inequality, affirmative action, free speech versus hate speech, same-sex marriage, military conscription, a range
16:47of practical questions.
16:48Why?
16:50Why?
16:51Not just to enliven these abstract and distant books, but to make clear, to bring out what's at stake in
16:58our everyday lives, including our political lives, for philosophy.
17:05And so, we will read these books, and we will debate these issues, and we'll see how each informs and
17:12illuminates the other.
17:15This may sound appealing enough, but here, I have to issue a warning.
17:21And the warning is this, to read these books in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, to read
17:34them in this way carries certain risks.
17:37Risks that are both personal and political.
17:41Risks that every student of political philosophy has known.
17:46These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already
17:58know.
18:00There's an irony.
18:03The difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know.
18:08It works by taking what we know from familiar, unquestioned settings and making it strange.
18:19That's how those examples worked.
18:22The hypotheticals with which we began, with their mix of playfulness and sobriety.
18:28It's also how these philosophical books work.
18:31Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of
18:44seeing.
18:47But, and here's the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again.
18:55Self-knowledge is like lost innocence.
19:02However unsettling you find it, it can never be unthought or unknown.
19:12What makes this enterprise difficult, but also riveting,
19:19is that moral and political philosophy is a story.
19:24And you don't know where the story will lead, but what you do know,
19:29is that the story is about you.
19:34Those are the personal risks.
19:36Now what of the political risks?
19:39One way of introducing a course like this would be to promise you
19:44that by reading these books and debating these issues,
19:47you will become a better, more responsible citizen.
19:51You will examine the presuppositions of public policy.
19:54You will hone your political judgment.
19:56You will 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.
20:10You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen
20:18rather than a better one,
20:21or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one.
20:27And that's because philosophy is a distancing, even debilitating activity.
20:36And you see this going back to Socrates.
20:39There's a dialogue, the Gorgias,
20:41in which one of Socrates' friends, Callicles,
20:45tries to talk him out of philosophizing.
20:49Callicles tells Socrates,
20:51Philosophy is a pretty toy
20:53if one indulges in it with moderation at the right time of life.
20:57But if one pursues it further than one should,
21:00it is absolute ruin.
21:03Take my advice, Callicles says.
21:06Abandon argument.
21:07Learn the accomplishments of active life.
21:11Take for your models not those people who spend their time on these petty quibbles,
21:16but those who have a good livelihood and reputation and many other blessings.
21:21So Callicles is really saying to Socrates,
21:26Quit philosophizing.
21:28Get real.
21:29Go to business school.
21:34And Callicles did have a point.
21:37He had a point because philosophy distances us from conventions,
21:43from established assumptions, and 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.
21:53The name of the evasion is skepticism.
21:56It's the idea, well 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 and Locke and Kant and Mill haven't solved these questions after all of these years,
22:16who are we to think that we here in Sanders Theatre over the course of a semester can resolve them?
22:26And so maybe it's just a matter of each person having his or her own principles and there's nothing more
22:32to be said about it.
22:33No way of reasoning.
22:36That's the evasion.
22:37The evasion of skepticism.
22:39To which I would offer the following reply.
22:42It's true, these questions have been debated for a very long time.
22:46But the very fact that they have recurred and persisted may suggest that though they're impossible in one sense,
22:56they're unavoidable in another.
22:59And the reason they're unavoidable, the reason they're inescapable,
23:03is that we live some answer to these questions every day.
23:09So skepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection,
23:15is no solution.
23:17Immanuel Kant described very well the problem with skepticism when he wrote,
23:22Skepticism is a resting place for human reason,
23:26where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings,
23:28but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement.
23:32Simply to acquiesce in skepticism, Kant wrote,
23:35can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.
23:42I've tried to suggest, through these stories and these arguments,
23:46some sense of the risks and temptations, of the perils and the possibilities.
23:51I would simply conclude by saying that the aim of this course
23:57is to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where it might lead.
24:03Thank you very much.
24:14Like, in a situation that desperate, you have to do what you have to do to survive.
24:18You have to do what you have to do.
24:20You have to do what you have to do.
24:21You gotta do what you gotta do, pretty much.
24:22If you've been going 19 days without any food,
24:25you know, someone just has to take the sacrifice,
24:27someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive.
24:30Alright, that's good. What's your name?
24:32Marcus.
24:33What do you say to Marcus?
24:39Marcus.
24:40Last time, we started out last time with some stories,
24:48with some moral dilemmas about trolley cars and about doctors
24:54and healthy patients vulnerable to being victims of organ transplantation.
24:59We noticed two things about the arguments we had.
25:06One had to do with the way we were arguing.
25:09We began with our judgments in particular cases.
25:13We tried to articulate the reasons or the principles lying behind our judgments.
25:21And then, confronted with a new case, we found ourselves re-examining those principles,
25:30revising each in the light of the other.
25:33And we noticed the built-in pressure to try to bring into alignment
25:38our judgments about particular cases and the principles we would endorse on reflection.
25:45We also noticed something about the substance of the arguments that emerged from the discussion.
25:54We noticed that sometimes we were tempted to locate the morality of an act
25:59and the consequences, in the results, in the state of the world that it brought about.
26:05And we called this consequentialist moral reasoning.
26:10But we also noticed that in some cases, we weren't swayed only by the result.
26:21Sometimes, many of us felt, that not just consequences but also the intrinsic quality or character of the act matters
26:31morally.
26:34Some people argued that there are certain things that are just categorically wrong, even if they bring about a good
26:42result.
26:44Even if they save five people at the cost of one life.
26:49So we contrasted consequentialist moral principles with categorical ones.
26:58Today, and in the next few days, we will begin to examine one of the most influential versions of consequentialist
27:08moral theory.
27:10And that's the philosophy of utilitarianism.
27:15Jeremy Bentham, the 18th century English political philosopher, gave first, the first clear systematic expression to the utilitarian moral theory.
27:31And Bentham's idea, his essential idea, is a very simple one.
27:42With a lot of morally intuitive appeal.
27:48Bentham's idea is the following, the right thing to do, the just thing to do, is to maximize utility.
28:01What did he mean by utility?
28:05He meant by utility the balance of pleasure over pain, happiness over suffering.
28:16Here's how he arrived at the principle of maximizing utility.
28:21He started out by observing that all of us, all human beings, are governed by two sovereign masters.
28:30Pain and pleasures, pain and pleasure.
28:34We human beings like pleasure and dislike pain.
28:41And so we should base morality, whether we're thinking about what to do in our own lives,
28:48or whether, as legislators or citizens, we're thinking about what the laws should be.
28:56The right thing to do, individually or collectively, is to maximize, act in a way that maximizes the 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 basic principle of utility on hand, let's begin to test it and to examine it by turning to
29:27another case.
29:27Another story, but this time, not a hypothetical story, a real-life story, the case of the Queen versus Dudley
29:36and Stevens.
29:37This was a 19th century British law case that's famous and much debated in law schools.
29:47Here's what happened in the case.
29:49I'll summarize the story, then I want to hear how you would rule, imagining that you are the jury.
30:03A newspaper account of the time described the background.
30:08A sadder story of disaster at sea was never told than that of the survivors of the yacht Minionet.
30:15The ship foundered in the South Atlantic, 1,300 miles from the Cape.
30:21There were four in the crew.
30:23Dudley was the captain.
30:25Stevens was the first mate.
30:28Brooks was a sailor.
30:29All men of excellent character, or so the newspaper account tells us.
30:35The fourth crew member was the cabin boy, Richard Parker, 17 years old.
30:42He was an orphan.
30:44He had no family.
30:46And he was on his first long voyage at sea.
30:50He went, the news account tells us, rather against the advice of his friends.
30:56He went in the hopefulness of youthful ambition, thinking the journey would make a man of him.
31:02Sadly, it was not to be.
31:04The facts of the case were not in dispute.
31:07A wave hit the ship, and the Minionet went down.
31:11The four crew members escaped to a lifeboat.
31:14The only food they had were two cans of preserved turnips.
31:21No fresh water.
31:23For the first three days, they ate nothing.
31:26On the fourth day, they opened one of the cans of turnips and ate it.
31:31The next day, they caught a turtle.
31:33Together with the other can of turnips, the turtle enabled them to subsist for the next few days.
31:41And then for eight days, they had nothing.
31:43No food, no water.
31:46Imagine yourself in a situation like that.
31:49What would you do?
31:52Here's what they did.
31:54By now, the cabin boy, Parker, is lying at the bottom of the lifeboat, in the corner,
32:00because he had drunk seawater, against the advice of the others.
32:05And he had become ill, and he appeared to be dying.
32:10So on the 19th day, Dudley, the captain, suggested that they should all have a lottery.
32:17That they should draw lots to see who would die to save the rest.
32:23Brooks refused.
32:26He didn't like the lottery idea.
32:28We don't know whether this was because he didn't want to take the chance,
32:33or because he believed in categorical moral principles.
32:36But in any case, no lots were drawn.
32:41The next day, there was still no ship in sight,
32:44so Dudley told Brooks to avert his gaze,
32:48and he motioned to Stevens that the boy, Parker, had better be killed.
32:53Dudley offered a prayer.
32:54He told the boy his time had come,
32:57and he killed him with a penknife,
33:00stabbing him in the jugular vein.
33:03Brooks emerged from his conscientious objection to share in the gruesome bounty.
33:09For four days, the three of them fed on the body and blood of the cabin boy.
33:14True story.
33:16And then they were rescued.
33:19Dudley describes their rescue
33:22in his diary, with staggering euphemism,
33:26quote,
33:27on the 24th day, as we were having our breakfast,
33:34a ship appeared at last.
33:38The three survivors were picked up by a German ship.
33:41They were taken back to Falmouth in England,
33:43where they were arrested and tried.
33:46Brooks turned state's witness.
33:49Dudley and Stevens went to trial.
33:52They didn't dispute the facts.
33:54They claimed they had acted out of necessity.
33:57That was their defense.
33:59They argued, in effect, better that one should die,
34:02so that three could survive.
34:05The prosecutor wasn't swayed by that argument.
34:10He said murder is murder, and so the case went to trial.
34:13Now, imagine you are the jury.
34:15And just to simplify the discussion,
34:19put aside the question of law,
34:21let's assume that you, as the jury,
34:25are charged with deciding whether what they did was morally permissible or not.
34:33How many would vote not guilty, that what they did was morally permissible?
34:49And how many would vote guilty, what they did was morally wrong?
34:54A pretty sizable majority.
34:57Now, let's see what people's reasons are,
35:00and let me begin with those who are in the minority.
35:03Let's hear first from the defense of Dudley and Stevens.
35:09Why would you morally exonerate them?
35:13What are your reasons?
35:16Yes.
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
35:23and what makes someone legally accountable.
35:26In other words, you know, as the judge said,
35:28what's always moral isn't necessarily against the law,
35:31and while I don't think that necessity justifies theft or murder or any illegal act,
35:38at some point, your degree of necessity does, in fact, exonerate you from any guilt.
35:44Okay, good.
35:45Other defenders, other voices for the defense.
35:50Moral justifications for what they did.
35:54Yes.
35:56All right, thank you.
35:58I just feel like, in a situation that desperate,
36:00you have to do what you have to do to survive.
36:03You have to do what you have to do.
36:04You got to do what you got to do, pretty much.
36:06If you've been going 19 days without any food,
36:10you know, someone just has to take the sacrifice,
36:12someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive.
36:14And furthermore, from that, let's say they survive,
36:17and then they become productive members of society
36:19who go home and start, like, a million charity organizations
36:22and this and that and this and that.
36:23I mean, they benefit everybody in the end.
36:25Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know what they did afterwards.
36:26They might have gone and, like, I don't know, killed more people.
36:29Whatever, but...
36:30What?
36:31What if they were assassins?
36:32What if they went home and they turned out to be assassins?
36:35What if they went home and turned out to be assassins?
36:38Well, uh...
36:39You'd want to know who they assassinated.
36:41That's true, too. That's fair.
36:44That's fair.
36:44Okay?
36:45I want to know who they assassinated.
36:46All right. That's good. What's your name?
36:47Marcus.
36:48Marcus. All right.
36:50We've heard a defense.
36:51A couple of voices for the defense.
36:53Now we need to hear from the prosecution.
36:56Most people think what they did was wrong.
37:01Why?
37:03Yes?
37:04One of the first things that I was thinking was,
37:06oh, if they haven't been eating for a really long time,
37:09maybe they...
37:12that they're mentally, like, affected.
37:14And so then that could be used as a defense, a possible argument,
37:18that, oh, they weren't in the proper state of mind.
37:22They weren't making decisions they might otherwise be making.
37:25And if that's an appealing argument,
37:27that you have to be in an altered mindset to do something like that,
37:31it suggests that people who find that argument convincing
37:35do think that they were acting immorally.
37:37But what do you... I want to know what you think.
37:39You defend them.
37:40Yeah. No, no, I do.
37:40I'm sorry. You vote to convict, right?
37:42Yeah. I don't think that they acted in a morally appropriate way.
37:46And why not? What do you say...
37:48Here's Marcus. He just defended them.
37:50He said...
37:52You heard what he said.
37:53Yes.
37:55That you've got to do what you've got to do in a case like that.
37:59Yeah.
38:00What do you say to Marcus?
38:04That in...
38:06That there's no situation that would allow human beings to take...
38:13the idea of fate or the other people's lives in their own hands,
38:17that we don't have that kind of power.
38:19Good. Okay. Thank you.
38:21And what's your name?
38:22Britt.
38:23Yes.
38:24Okay. Who else?
38:25What do you say?
38:27Stand up.
38:28I'm wondering if Dudley and Steven had asked for Richard Parker's consent in,
38:33you know, dying.
38:35If that would...
38:37Would that exonerate them from an act of murder?
38:42And if so, is that still morally justifiable?
38:45That's interesting. All right. Consent.
38:47What's... Wait, wait. Hang on.
38:48What's your name?
38:49Kathleen.
38:50Kathleen.
38:50Kathleen.
38:51Kathleen.
38:51Says, suppose they had asked...
38:53What would that scenario look like?
38:54So, in the story, Dudley is there, pen knife in hand.
38:59But instead of the prayer, or before the prayer, he says,
39:05Parker, would you mind?
39:10We're desperately hungry.
39:13We're desperately hungry.
39:14As Marcus empathizes with, we're desperately hungry.
39:19You're not going to last long anyhow.
39:21Yeah.
39:21You can be a martyr.
39:23Would you be a martyr?
39:24Parker?
39:24Yeah.
39:25How about it, Parker?
39:30Then...
39:32Then would it...
39:33What do you think?
39:34Would it be morally justified then?
39:36I don't think we...
39:36Suppose Parker, in his semi-stupor, says, okay.
39:42I don't think it would be morally justifiable, but I'm wondering...
39:45Even then?
39:46Even then it wouldn't be?
39:47No.
39:47You don't think that even with consent, it would be morally justified.
39:52Are there people who think...
39:54Who want to take up Kathleen's consent idea,
39:57and who think that that would make it morally justified?
40:00Raise your hand if it would.
40:01If you think it would.
40:05That's very interesting.
40:07Why would consent make a moral difference?
40:13Why would it?
40:14Yes.
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 see it being appropriate in any way.
40:25Because that way you couldn't make the argument that he was pressured,
40:29you know, it's three to one or whatever the ratio was.
40:32Right.
40:32And I think that if he was making a decision to give his life,
40:36then he took on the agency to sacrifice himself,
40:39which some people might see as admirable,
40:41and other people might disagree with that decision.
40:44Okay.
40:45So, if he came up with the idea,
40:48that's the only kind of consent we could have confidence in morally,
40:53then it would be okay.
40:56Otherwise, it would be kind of coerced consent under the circumstances.
41:01You think.
41:04Is there anyone who thinks that even the consent of Parker would not justify their killing him?
41:14Who thinks that?
41:16Yes.
41:17Tell us why.
41:18Stand up.
41:19I think that Parker would be killed with the hope that the other crew members would be rescued.
41:25So, there's no definite reason that he should be killed,
41:28because you don't know when they're going to get rescued.
41:32So, if you kill him, it's killing him in vain.
41:34Do you keep killing a crew member until you're rescued and then you're left with no one?
41:37Because someone's going to die eventually.
41:39Well, the moral logic of the situation seems to be that.
41:44That they would keep on picking off the weakest, maybe, one by one, until they were rescued.
41:52And in this case, luckily, they were rescued when three, at least, were still alive.
41:57Now, if Parker did give his consent, would it be alright, do you think, or not?
42:03No.
42:03No.
42:04It still wouldn't be right.
42:05And tell us why it wouldn't be alright.
42:07First of all, cannibalism, I believe, is morally incorrect.
42:11So, it shouldn't be eating a human anyway.
42:16So, cannibalism is morally objectionable, as such.
42:19So, then, even on the scenario of waiting until someone died, still it would be objectionable.
42:25Yes.
42:26To me, personally.
42:27I feel like it all depends on one's personal morals.
42:33And, like, we can't sit here and just, like, this is just my opinion.
42:36And, of course, other people are going to disagree.
42:38Well, we'll see.
42:39Let's see what their disagreements are, and then we'll see if they have reasons that can persuade you or not.
42:45Let's try that.
42:47Alright.
42:47Let's, um...
42:50Now, is there someone who can explain?
42:54Those of you who are tempted by consent.
42:57Can you explain why consent makes such a moral difference?
43:03What about the lottery idea?
43:05Does that count as consent?
43:07Remember, at the beginning, Dudley proposed a lottery.
43:10Suppose that they had agreed to a lottery.
43:16Then, how many would then say it was alright?
43:21Suppose there were a lottery, cabin boy lost, and the rest of the story unfolded.
43:26Then how many people would say it was morally permissible?
43:32So, the numbers are rising if we had a lottery.
43:35Let's hear from one of you, for whom the lottery would make a moral difference.
43:41Why would it?
43:43I think the essential element, in my mind, that makes it a crime is the idea that they decided at
43:49some point that their lives were more important than his, and that, I mean, that's kind of the basis for
43:55really any crime.
43:56Right? It's like, my needs, my desires are more important than yours, and mine take precedent.
44:01And if they had done a lottery where everyone consented that someone should die, and it's sort of like they're
44:07all sacrificing themselves to save the rest.
44:10Then it would be alright.
44:12A little grotesque, but...
44:15But morally permissible?
44:17Yes.
44:18And what's your name?
44:19Matt.
44:20So, Matt, for you, what bothers you is not the cannibalism, but the lack of due process.
44:30I guess you could say that.
44:33Right?
44:34And can someone who agrees with Matt say a little bit more about why a lottery would make it, in
44:44your view, morally permissible?
44:49Go ahead.
44:50The way I understood it originally was that that was the whole issue, is that the cabin boy was never
44:54consulted about whether or not something was going to happen to him, even with the original lottery, whether or not
45:01he would be a part of that.
45:02It was just decided that he was the one that was going to die.
45:05Right. That's what happened in the actual case.
45:07Right.
45:08But if there were a lottery, and they had all agreed to the procedure, you think that would be okay?
45:12Right. Because then everyone knows that there's going to be a death. Whereas, you know, the cabin boy didn't know
45:18that this discussion was even happening.
45:20There was no, you know, forewarning for him to know that, hey, I may be the one that's dying.
45:26Alright. Now, suppose everyone agrees to the lottery, they have the lottery, the cabin boy loses, and he changes his
45:32mind.
45:34You'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 that you're dying for the, you know, the reason for others to live, you would,
45:45if someone else had died, you know that you would consume them, so.
45:51Right. But then he could say, I know, but I lost.
45:56I just think that that's the whole moral issue, is that there was no consulting of the cabin boy, and
46:01that that's what makes it the most horrible, is that he had no idea what was even going on.
46:07That had he known what was going on, it would be a bit more understandable.
46:11All right. Good. Now I want to hear, so there are some who think it's morally permissible, but only about
46:1920%, led by Marcus.
46:26Then there are some who say, the real problem here is the lack of consent, whether the lack of consent
46:33to a lottery, to a fair procedure,
46:37or, Kathleen's idea, lack of consent at the moment of death.
46:44And if we add consent, then more people are willing to consider the sacrifice morally justified.
46:54I want to hear now, finally, from those of you who think, even with consent, even with a lottery,
47:00even with a final murmur of consent by Parker, at the very last moment, it would still be wrong.
47:12And why would it be wrong? That's what I want to hear. Yes.
47:16Well, the whole time I've been leaning all towards the categorical moral reasoning.
47:22And I think that there's a possibility I'd be okay with the idea of a lottery and then the loser
47:28taking into their own hands to kill themselves,
47:33so that there wouldn't be, you know, an act of murder.
47:35But I still think that, even that way, it's coerced.
47:39And also, I don't think that there's any remorse.
47:41Like in Dudley's diary, we were eating our breakfast.
47:44It seems as though he's just sort of like, oh, you know, the whole idea of not valuing someone else's
47:50life.
47:51So that makes me feel like I have to take the categorical skin.
47:55You want to throw the book at him.
47:57When he lacks remorse or a sense of having done anything wrong.
48:00Right.
48:02So, all right, good. Other, any other defenders of a, who say it's just categorically wrong, with or without consent?
48:11Yes, stand up. Why?
48:13I think, undoubtedly, the way our society is shaped, murder is murder.
48:16Murder is murder in every way.
48:18And our society looks at murder down on it in the same light.
48:21And I don't think it's any different in any case.
48:23Good. Let me ask you a question.
48:24There were three lives at stake versus one.
48:27Okay.
48:30The one, the cabin boy, he had no family.
48:33He had no dependents.
48:34These other three had families back home in England.
48:37They had dependents.
48:38They had wives and children.
48:41Think back to Bentham.
48:42Bentham says we have to consider the welfare, the utility, the happiness of everybody.
48:49We have to add it all up.
48:50So 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, in popular opinion, sympathized with them, Dudley and Stevens.
49:05And the paper said if they weren't motivated by affection and concern for their loved ones at home and their
49:12dependents, surely they wouldn't have done this.
49:13Yeah, and how is that any different from people on the corner trying to have the same desire to feed
49:18their family?
49:19I don't think it's any different.
49:20I think in any case, if I'm murdering you to advance my status, that's murder.
49:24And I think that we should look at that all in the same light instead of criminalizing certain activities and
49:30making certain things seem more violent and savage.
49:33When in the same case, it's all the same, it's all the same act and mentality that goes into murder,
49:38a necessity to feed your family.
49:39Suppose it weren't three, suppose it were 30.
49:43300.
49:44One life to save 300.
49:47Or in wartime, 3,000.
49:49Suppose the stakes are even bigger.
49:51Suppose the stakes are even bigger.
49:52I think it's still the same deal.
49:53Do you think Bentham is wrong to say the right thing to do is to add up the collective happiness?
50:00Do you think he's wrong about that?
50:02I don't think he's wrong, but I think murder is murder in any case.
50:05Well, then Bentham has to be wrong.
50:06If you're right, he's wrong.
50:08Okay, then he's wrong.
50:09All right.
50:10Well done.
50:12All right, let's step back from this discussion and notice how many objections have we heard to what they did?
50:22We heard some defenses of what they did.
50:25The defenses had to do with necessity, their dire circumstance, and, implicitly at least, the idea that numbers matter.
50:35And not only numbers matter, but 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 add up, if you try to calculate the balance of happiness and suffering, you might have a
50:57case for saying what they did was the right thing.
51:02Then we heard at least three different types of objections.
51:08We heard an objection that said what they did was categorically wrong, Mike here at the end.
51:15Categorically wrong.
51:16Murder is murder.
51:18It's always wrong, even if it increases the overall happiness of society.
51:25A categorical objection.
51:27But we still need to investigate why murder is categorically wrong.
51:34Is it because even cabin boys have certain fundamental rights?
51:41And if that's the reason, where do those rights come from if not from some idea of the larger welfare
51:49or utility or happiness?
51:50Question number one.
51:52Others said, a lottery would make a difference.
51:58A fair procedure, Matt said.
52:04But, and some people were swayed by that.
52:08That's not a categorical objection, exactly.
52:11It's saying, everybody has to be counted as an equal,
52:15even though at the end of the day, one can be sacrificed for the general welfare.
52:22That leaves us with another question to investigate.
52:25Why does agreement to a certain procedure, even a fair procedure,
52:31justify whatever result flows from the operation of that procedure?
52:37Question number two.
52:39And question number three, the basic idea of consent.
52:44Kathleen got us on to this.
52:48If the cabin boy had agreed himself, and not under duress, as was added,
52:56then it would be alright to take his life to save the rest.
53:00And even more people signed on to that idea.
53:04But that raises a third philosophical question.
53:08What is the moral work that consent does?
53:13Why does an act of consent make such a moral difference,
53:18that an act that would be wrong, taking a life without consent,
53:23is morally permissible with consent?
53:29To investigate those three questions, we're going to have to read some philosophers.
53:33And starting next time, we're going to read Bentham and John Stuart Mill, Utilitarian Philosophers.
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54:09In the next episode of Justice have been shown.
54:11it's time to get traveled i was just playing with Mar الØركönμη.
54:12Because he has four places, here, for example.
54:13Where do some people imagine discussinghis belongs to youraki illness?
54:16He knows who was.
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