Questions of Ethics

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by tapu

Interesting distinction, but I don't see how that bears on a utilitarian argument for 5 > 1.

And, aside, but it just popped into my head: How would all that reflect on Dexter? Isn't he killing one to save many? Would certain moral principles sanction that, and do they hold water?

Actually--and I didn't make this clear at the outset--I am saying that there are limits on the utilitarian position. If, in the course of saving five people, I take an action that results in the death of one person but that action does not use that person as an instrument to achieve my goal of saving people, then the action is morally defensible. If, on the other hand, the only way to save the five people is to use a sixth person, against his will, as an instrument then it is not morally defensible.

I base this off an old Ursula K. Le Guin story where there is a utopia but with a catch--in order for this utopia to exist one child must be spend his entire life locked in a basement with no human contact. In this case, the child is an *instrument* to some other end. *Because* the child suffers, we have a utopia. The child then is merely an instrument for the happiness of the greatest number. That is a trade-off that I would have a hard time finding morally defensible. On the other hand, in modern capitalist nations we have societies that are less equal than it is imaginable for them to be because there is a balance between freedom and equality. This is a trade-off that it is at least possible to defend morally, certainly in principle.

Does that make sense? For me the crux comes down to whether we are using others as instruments to some end, which I do not think is defensible or if they are casualties of circumstance.

Cheers
Aj