On Emotional Logic

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ezmogee's Blog

April 11 2010

On Emotional Logic

A deep blog post is coming on Wednesday. This will have to suffice for now.

CASE 1

A train is barreling down a track towards FIVE unsuspecting people who are unaware of the situation. You see a lever which, if pulled, will switch the train towards another track and kill a single unsuspecting individual, who is lying on the second track (let's say he's sunbathing, who knows).

Your options are: Do nothing OR Pull the level.
Death options are: 5 people OR 1 person

The people in this case will die with 100% certainty or live with 100% certainty. For example, no amount of yelling at them will get them to move.

The value of all lives is 100% equivalent. They are all equally wealthy, eloquent, loving, have same amount of children, etc.

You are the only person who can make this decision.

There are no other options - only these two.

All other variables are 100% and absolute, no loopholes.

CASE 2

You are visiting a hospital and enter a room with five ill people who need immediate transplants. They all need different organs, one needs a heart, another a liver, etc, etc. If they receive organs in the immediate term they will survive with 100% certainty. A man enters the hospital to visit his mother, walks by your door, and your x-ray vision shows that he is a perfect match for all five transplants in the room. You notice a butcher knife on a side table which if jabbed into this man's throat would kill him with 100% certainty, allowing for immediate harvesting of his organs, and the saving of five lives.

Your options are: Do nothing OR Use the knife.
Death options are: 5 people OR 1 person

The people in this case will die with 100% certainty or live with 100% certainty. Meaning that if you choose to murder this unsuspecting individual his organs will save five lives with 100% certainty. He was also be unable to be saved by the hospital with 100% certainty. If you do nothing he will go about his life with 100% certainty. The five people in your room would then die with 100% certainty.

You know with 100% certainty that no other people will be walking down the corridor. You know with 100% certainty than your own body is not a perfect match for any of the organs.

The value of all lives is 100% equivalent. They are all equally wealthy, eloquent, loving, have same amount of children, etc.

You are the only person who can make this decision.

There are no other options - only these two.

All other variables are 100% and absolute, no loopholes.

-----------------

These cases are perfectly parallel. Being passive leads to five deaths. Becoming active kills one in order to save five. A net gain of 4. All people are 100% equivalent in this model. This means a true net gain of 4.

So, why is it that 95% of people would pull the level in the first case, but be unable to use the butcher knife in the second case.

Thoughts?

Ezra

Entry Tags:

42068 Views | Comments(23)

April 11,2010

anyone that has ever been on fear factor will be able to use the knife

aenema

April 11,2010

where did u hear that 95% of ppl pull the lever? and in any case the obvious answer would be, its a lot more difficult emotionally and physically to slit someone's throat than pull a leaver from a distance

jcl

April 11,2010

Jcl-

True. but do you agree that the cases in terms of action and result are wholly parallel? If so, you should overcome your emotional difficulty and save lives. No?

ezmogee

April 11,2010

ez, i think this is wholly parallel to why modern warfare is less mentally straining on our soldiers than say Vietnam or Korea. The difference in the type of action being taken to obtain the same result is the key component.

In guerilla warfare the methods of killing are absolutely brutal, whereas dropping a bomb is very distant from the deaths. If we inflate your examples it becomes a bit clearer...if you had to wipe out a village of 10,000 people, and you had the option of a) pressing a button to drop a bomb on them, or b) taking a pen knife and stabbing each in the throat with absolute certainty of death while they slept...the result is the same, but the methods are vastly different...as is the case in your example.

FishingMonk

April 11,2010

did you get this off academic earth?

Zaitsev

April 11,2010

These aren't perfectly parallel. There's a vast difference between physically killing someone with a knife and pulling a lever and letting the train kill someone. More, but still not completely, parallel would be if you were driving the train.

Spudt24

April 11,2010

Also, how is it parallel to compare a moron on a train track and an innocent guy walking in a hospital? I see the point that is being made, but these aren't completely equivalent situations.

Spudt24

April 11,2010

i wouldnt save the lives in either scenario. im not utiltarian and even if i was it would probably be outweighed by the certainty of being put in jail for taking action. and i still dont think the two are parallel. you cant contrive two different factual scenarios and then say they are essentially the same if you divorce yourself from the facts and the emotions they are designed to elicit and conclude that you should choose the same result either way

jcl

April 11,2010

these cases are not 100% equal.

however i choose to pull the Lever in case 1 and to let things be in case 2.

i would also add that I would like these specific types of questions to be asked to anyone running for president.

BigBadDevil

April 11,2010

Spudt is right, this isn't even close to being perfectly parallel.

NugaNuga

April 11,2010

ur a psycho kid

meow89

April 11,2010

Spudt24- When you talk about the 2 examples not being the same because the man in the hospital was innocent, and the other guy was a moron for laying on the train tacks, you're miss the whole point that ezmogee is making.

For the purposes of ezmogees example u can just assume that the first guy was also innocent and lets say he was kidnapped and tied to the tracks through no fault of his own.

What Ezmogee wants to know is why would so many people sacrifice 1 life in order to save 5 in the first example, but so few people would take action to sacrifice 1 life in order to save 5 in the second example?

Remember, for the purposes of answering ezmogees question, he wants you to assume that all parties are innocent, and their lives have equal value.

gofast44

April 11,2010

Will respond in more detail, but I do know the cases are not perfectly parallel. I wrote that initially in order to force a discussion of the difference rather than give it all away.

You guys are pretty much on the right track, though I don't think anyone has said it explicity though. You may disagree anyways with what I consider the "explicit" difference.

Thanks for taking the time to read and analyze.

Ezra

ezmogee

April 11,2010

Agreed w everyone, first of all, anyone laying on the tracks has to be aware, of ummm dunno, a train coming? Where as the other guy was simply going into a hospital

bazuko

April 12,2010

Interesting blog. I think spudt is halfway there when he states the situations are different on the psyche. It is emotionally easier to justify causing death when there is a middle man ie. the lever vs a direct knife strike from your own hand.

However.. I feel the real reason for the huge discrepancy between the two scenarios is much more strongly connected to the immediate consequences after the action.. not before.

When making an instantaneous decision it is in our nature to look for an instantaneous gratification. Scenario 2 causes a time gap between action and result. Sure we can stab the man, but then what? 5 surgeries.. 5 recoveries.. etc. But Scenario 1? Pull a lever and 5 people are saved. Snap decision, snap result, no time gap, no need for inner debate of consequences

str0ngisland

April 12,2010

1 reason for more people taking action in the first example would be self-interest. You could go to jail for life in the second example, but would not expect to be punished if caught in the 1st example.

Another difference is the brutal, disgusting, nature of what you'd have to do in the second example, that wouldn't be present in the first.

Perhaps the most notable difference is that in the second example the 5 people are about to die of natural causes.

Most people live under the assumption that all people have an equal right to live(except in extreme cases of violent criminals etc.) In the second case it's not our place to murder a healthy, innocent man who has a right to live, in order to save people that are about to die of natural causes, and have lived as long as nature/God/(whatever you believe in) has intended them to live.

gofast44

April 12,2010

i would leave the trigger in the first but butcher the bloke to death in the second

gilford1

April 19,2010

Grimhogun3,

Its nothing to do with the problems with utilitarian valuations of life. They could all be different by any measure you choose, but maybe at the moment of the question you know none of their histories so their EV is still equal.

I'd be considering the biggest issue to be the types of actions that set precedents for what others consider to be 'right'. I'm sure that humans only have morality as an heuristic because we suck at making complex decisions like these, and agreeing the 2nd is more wrong in our society helps prevent others from making terrible errors that are detrimental to ourselves.

Alexdb

May 02,2010

I'd be indifferent in both situations.

TheFairMan

May 17,2010

These situations are not parallel. In the first case, each of the six people is healthy and will live if not hit by a train. Therefore, pulling the lever so that one healthy person dies instead of five healthy people seems to be the right choice. In the second example, 5 people are sick and will die with no intervention. One person is healthy and will live with no intervention. Sacrificing one healthy person to 'save' 5 dieing people is a very different scenario. And, unless he volunteers his organs, he should be left to go on his way.

Houserocker

June 27,2010

snap kill the train guy.

Probability

February 27,2011

I would let the 5 people die in case 1.

The survivor would have a bigger change in perspective but the 5 people wouldn't care about the 1 person who died.

Tenacity

June 30,2011

The difference is that in 1st case you choose who will live and in 2nd you choose if you kill or not kill the guy. Actually it's pretty easy, you either see the differnce right away or you're a sociopath.

Bigdonkey8998

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