board77

laureanna wrote:

None of us have the power of foresight. If we did, we'd play the stock market and be stinking rich.

How many millions have died in Africa in the past 50 years thanks to wars and politically induced famines? Someone once asked me if I would kill Idi Amin if given the chance, and I said "no". Idi Amin is now dead, and the death toll continues to rise without his help. Would killing off any or all of the current "bad" leaders help?

But by this argument (the "we don't have foresight" argument), then we shouldn't ever do anything because we don't know whether it will be harmful or not. Some are saying, "Do nothing, don't kill Hitler, it may lead to even worse atrocities". But by the same exact token, I can say, "Do something, kill Hitler, it may say millions of lives". Who's to say who's wrong or right in this sort of case? You can't just say, "We don't know what will happen so let's do nothing". Unless you plan to not live your life, you have to take all the factors into consideration and make your best call. In this case, I seriously doubt that killing Hitler could actually lead to worse results so hell yes I'm killing the bastard.

The catch Yov is committing a heinous crime to in the name of justice.
For me that is the crux of the dilemma.
Does the end justify the mean?

Holbytla wrote:

The catch Yov is committing a heinous crime to in the name of justice.

But you're talking about allowing a far more horrible crime to be committed in the name of...what exactly?

You are assuming that you can see all of the consequences of your actions.
Maybe Hitler had a rival that he was jealous of and killed him.
Maybe that rival wouldn't have gone nuts and maybe the Nazis would have conquered the world.
Yes it is a stretch, but this is a hypothetical situation. Were we in present day 1939 and had no knowledge of future events, the question would be significantly different.

It's easy in a hypothetical to say "yeah, I'd kill the bastard" because we are armed with something he isn't...we know the future. This makes the question simple for some. I don't think there is any room for doubt in it, though. To say "someone worse could come along, but I doubt it" is to make a mistake with this "advantage" we have over Hitler. We simply assume that Hitler is the worst possible outcome. I'm not advocating no action here, though. I think if given the chance, I might do something like that, but I make no mistakes about my lack of knowledge of the new outcome.

Actually this example seems to be a pretty good one considering my initial question about benefiticial v right. Killing Hitler is beneficial to some because they assume the outcome has to be better than what we had, while killing hitler is not right to some because they assume that ends do not justify the means. Depending on your view of morality, this can be very different.

I'm not sure this extreme hypothetical makes anyting more clear, considering holby's reasonable objection to the idea that killing the one is okay if it is to save the many. Is anyone familiar with the train/trolley car philosophical query?

There have been some real life incidents that demonstrate quite clearly how much trouble these little moral conundrums cause.

The Pope who has just died managed to exert enough influence on several African nations that they stopped the programs that handed out condoms. The programs were begun in attempts to try to slow down the AIDS epidemic. But the Pope felt, certain of HIS moral ground, that the greater sin was that SOME of those condoms might be used for birth control, and that passing them out free might encourage sexual activity, so better none got used at all.

He was sure of his moral ground. He understood, he could not have failed to understand, what his efforts would mean. But in his view, the end did justify the means: fewer people could commit that particular sin and presumably their souls would be surer of heaven.

I could go on for days about this, actually. The African Catholic bishops and cardinals are far more conservative than those from Europe or America. No, I better stop before I say something that will be bound to offend someone somewhere.

Suffice it to say that I think what the Pope did was wicked beyond description. His view of morality was much different than mine. He did what he thought was right. I thought it was horribly wrong.

These are hard questions to answer.

I think some of this comes down to the ABMM theory, which I think about a lot.

ABMM was a concept introduced in my Medical Ethics class in grad school. (If you EVER want a class to play with your mind, take that one!) It wasn't called ABMM at the time... that was something that my study group and I made up, and has been, I'm proud to announce, adopted by the class professor for future classes.

It means "All But My Momma". We were discussing the phenomenom of people burning the most health care dollars they'll ever use in the last few months of their life. The numbers then were staggering.. something like 50% of all dollars spent on someone's health care were spent in the last year of their life.

Coldly, then, quite rationally, it is easy to conclude that these people, who are basically dying no matter how much money is spent, should be made to be comfortable... good pain killers, that sort of thing... and left to die without expensive end-stage medical intervention. Those dollars could then be "invested" in prenatal care, or diabetes monitering, or other things that give you more "bang" for your healthcare "buck".

ABMM.

Except if it's MY momma. For MY momma, if she needs extraordinary care in her last year, she's gonna GET extraordinary care, dammit, and screw prenatal care for people I don't know. Right? Right.

So here's the problem with me sitting here trying to judge whether I would kill a man to save others... it's all hypothetical. Hypothetically speaking, I would have to say it would be difficult for me to shoot another human being to death. I don't own a gun, and I don't much like them.

But to protect my momma? My daughter? My son? My family? I think my moral viewpoint would change. I'm pretty sure it would.

So is it all situational, this question of beneficial v right?

Quote:

So is it all situational, this question of beneficial v right?

I'm not sure it has to be, but I have a feeling it's because humans generally have their self-interest in mind. We can all think of situations for most moral dilemmas where we would spare our moral conviction for our own purpose. This isn't bad necessarily, but I'd say it is fairly accurate of reality.

Your ABMM discussion sounds a lot like the trolley car query.

We're talking about hypothetical equivalency between different moral paradigms - an impossibility because each person's morality is built subjectively, even for those who subscribe to the same or similar moral code.

In the case outlined by Vison, for example, where one stands in relation to Catholic theology (actually, not just in relation to Catholic theology, but one's basic religious beliefs) makes a big impact on how that intervention is judged.

I don't think that this can be answered unless the parameters are set first. What is the morality on which we should judge this? Or do we each judge through our own moral lense?

[digression]

Impenitent, you just gave me an idea with this comment:

Quote:

What is the morality on which we should judge this?

Considering we're discussing ethics and morality here, it'd be interesting if we created a situation and then chose a particular philosopher for everyone to read. We then come to this thread or some other and discuss the hypothetical given how the particular philosophy we read would settle the question.

It's an idea that just popped into my head and I realize it might be implausible and just be nice as an idea. Oh well, idea is out in the open now.

[/digression]

yovargas wrote:

But by this argument (the "we don't have foresight" argument), then we shouldn't ever do anything because we don't know whether it will be harmful or not. Some are saying, "Do nothing, don't kill Hitler, it may lead to even worse atrocities". But by the same exact token, I can say, "Do something, kill Hitler, it may say millions of lives".

When I said we don't have foresight, I was speaking of not knowing in 1938 what would happen by 1945. By the time it was obvious that Hitler's war machine was killing millions, it was too late to stop the machine. If we knew then what we know now, we would have tried a little harder to contain him, and not given him Czechoslovakia on a platter. Or perhaps we wouldn't have used the draconian measures after WWI that lead to a rebellious Germany. There are so many other outcomes that could have been different than the outcome we had.
-Nazis develop A-bombs to use on Washington, London, or Moscow.
-No A-bombs developed and a prolonged land war in Japan.
-Pearl Harbor attack plans uncovered and averted, USA stays out of war.
-Germany remaining allied with Russia and changing the course of Communism (and saving millions of lives that would otherwise have been lost by Stalin's starvation-inducing agrarian policies).

I could go on, but history is one of my worst subjects, even in hindsight.

The point is, I'm a pacifist, and I can imagine other ways to deal with a problem that don't involve killing people on an individual or mass scale. For me, the ends (possibly saving lives) does not justify the means (deliberately taking lives).

Vison, your point about condoms is a difficult one. It is not a simple matter that handing out condoms will slow the spread of HIV, and stopping the program is wicked. You also have to quell the popular myth that the only safe sex is sex with a virgin girl. If the guy thinks she's a virgin, and assumes he's free of HIV, why bother with a condom? And so, more and more very young teen girls are being raped and infected. Another part of the problem is the system of labor that the whites have imposed on the blacks. The family unit, especially the extended family unit, is broken in favor of sending the men to work in camps. This does not encourage monogamy. In some areas, the promiscuity among single men is already rampant, and condoms are not necessarily going to increase or decrease sexual activity, even if they did use them 100% of the time.

Technically, all of the condoms would be used for birth control, except for the rare instances of couples unable to conceive. So in the late Pope's view, having sex with condoms (100% of the time) was encouraging two things: choosing to have the pleasure of the reproductive act without having the responsibility of the reproductive act (something discouraged in Humanae Vitae), and slowing the transmission of HIV. Not having sex does the same thing. He is bound by his religion to go with the moral superlative and say "no" to a program that has a morally acceptable alternative.

I have read Humanae Vitae, and understand the moral principals, but the medications I'm taking are teratogenic. So I'm in the same boat - I want a sexual relationship with my husband, but without being open to life. And I must say, while I can appreciate the high morality in Humanae Vitae, I'm not saintly enough to adhere to it.

But on the other hand, Lesh Lawenza (sorry about the spelling) said that John Paul II was 50% responsible for the fall of the Iron Curtain. And it was done in a relatively bloodless way. I hope we can agree that's something he did right.

yov wrote:

In this case, I seriously doubt that killing Hitler could actually lead to worse results so hell yes I'm killing the bastard.

A series of time travel novels I read once involved the concept that there are certain figures in history that are so important to the time line that they cannot be killed! No matter what you as a time traveler try to do to that person in order to kill them, it will not happen. Your gun will misfire, a car will run over you, a building will collapse on you. Something will happen to prevent you from killing that person. And, since we don't know everyone that is important to history, you can't risk killing anyone. Any time traveller who tries to kill someone who can't be killed is doomed to failure, and the attempt could cost the time traveller his life. So the standard guidance issued to all time travel tourists is DON'T try to kill ANYONE, because you never know if that person is killable or not. If you must intervene, do it in a non-lethal manner.

Just an FYI, if you ever decide to take a time travel tour!

Impenitent wrote:

What is the morality on which we should judge this?

I suggest mine.



I don't subscribe to the "morality is in the eye of the beholder" POV.

laureanna said: "And I must say, while I can appreciate the high morality in Humanae Vitae, I'm not saintly enough to adhere to it. "

It is there that you and I part company on two points.

But I don't have time to write a dissertation right now.

I will only say that I think it is beyond irony that the African Catholic church is so conservative. It's an absurdity. It flies in the face of millennia of culture and reality. It is imposing a foreign and unrealistic value system, and is doomed to cause great harm. And the fact is that there are so many unchaste priests in the African church that the problem will be solved by them all dying of AIDS. Virgins? Yes, because nuns are virgins, right?

It is not just one country, but several. True that there are cultural and sexual misconceptions (*pun*) about HIV, etc., and the governments involved must bear a huge part of the blame. Nelson Mandela performed a great service when he revealed that his son had died of AIDS.

HIV in Africa will not go away because some old guy in Rome prays over it. It is going to take huge efforts and a lot of money. It is going to take a revolution in sexual mores, one that is going to be very difficult to bring to a successful completion. To remove the one faint hope of slowing the disease at this moment is, as I said, wicked. Certainly condoms are not THE answer. But if condom use saved even 10 women from being infected, I think it would be worth it. Not only did the programs handing out condoms get stopped, so did the sex education programs that went along with them.

Vison--

I was raised in the Catholic church, went to Catholic school, and am now quite appalled by the whole institution. LIke you I don't wish to write a dissertation, but share many of your feelings.

When the church puts out things like "humanae vitae" regarding respecting life, what about ALL life? What about the fact that species are programmed to reproduce exponentially like bacteria taking over all resources dooming others? Oh, that's right....the church doesn't believe in the scientific method. Anyways, I would like to see that ALL life is respected and all forms manifested by DNA have their chance, which means that humans must control their reproductivity and their consumption of resources. However, that is totally ignored by the Church which is 100% human centric.

I agree that the Pope and the Catholic church thinks what they are doing is right, but this is a culture of deep denial. Look at all the hidden sexual abuse by the priests that a more open society revealed.