Philippa Foot | The Trolley Problem's Creator
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- Опубликовано: 10 мар 2024
- The Trolley Problem is arguably the most famous thought experiment in all of philosophy. Despite its widespread recognition, not many people know its context nor its creator.
The Trolley Problem was created by the philosopher Philippa Foot in her essay The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect. Here, Foot looks at the doctrine of the double effect which wants to distinguish between intended effects and foreseeable but unintended effects. In regards to the Trolley Problem, it's not the driver's intent to kill anyone, but it's foreseeable that one will die for the intent of saving 5 others. Foot draws a further distinction between positive and negative rights and shows how the trolley driver is simply trying to reduce the amount of negative right violations. #philosophy #ethics #moral
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A video on Ascombe would be nice to see
I had an exam on Philippa Foot's "natural Goodness" not even 5 days ago
How'd you think it went? Did you manage to dissect the concept of natural goodness to the professor's satisfaction?🤓
Went well, but the examiner was actually in favor of virtue ethics. I didn't get her book in all aspects, but fortunately I could still point out the flaws I see, like that her analysis doesn't catch the commitments of our moral discourse, like it's overridingness.
@@lorenzreiher1407 That's interesting! I'd be interested in exploring this tension between virtues and principles further.
Get dem good grades!
@@PhilosophyToons I will. Good Video, btw, it's very well structured and the fitting quotes help make the topic easily understandable imo
Great video you should do one on Han Ryner!
Another great video Individuals are confronted with ethical conflicts challenges when their values, ethics, and morality clashes with the experience. WHY IT IS NOT DESIGNED TO HAVE A SOLUTION???
Asking questions and critique is easy, solutions are the hard part
Amazing video,go on,keep going
When OG speaks you listen
The thing is, if the mob in the Judge Analogy is as vicious as suggested, the innocent man would probably die anyway, at their hands. I initially missed the point about execution, and, as a citizen of a country without capital punishment, imagined the outcome to be imprisonment instead, and in that scenario, I actually think passing the sentence would be the better option, because the innocent man is better shielded, and more work can be done in proving his innocence and satisfying the mob.
Regarding the trolley problem, that death occurs either way shows for me an equal culpability in both action and inaction, and for that reason, I'm not convinced I see as stark a difference between positive and negative rights. Maybe I'm an oddball on this, but they seem quite an arbitrarily defined, and in some cases egoistic distinction. There is materially very little difference between the right to life, and the right to be provided life-saving essentials when you can't yourself.
Where that relates to abortion is interesting, because it would suggest that the right to one's body would only stretch as far as where the lives of others become entangled, but pregnancy isn't really comparable to anything else, and as no other person has the right to unilaterally use anyone else's body as life support, this would keep abortion as a fundamental part of bodily autonomy even if foetal personhood was granted. On the other hand, I'd argue that in the serial killer analogy, the person told to kill or else further murders will happen has no real autonomy at all, and are therefore not responsible for either what they do or don't do here, or at least not as much as they would be under duress. But regardless of their own autonomy, I still think their inaction would count as an action.
Utilitarianism is often strawmanned as a kind of nightmarish ends-justify-the-means atrocity permitter, but I genuinely think that applies much more to the Doctrine of Double Effect. It's a 'motive-justifies-the-means' and if you can egoistically justify your motive, then you can almost completely ignore the consequences. For utilitarianism, the motive cannot be egoistic or individualistic, because it's about maximising overall wellbeing and minimising overall suffering. True, what counts as overall (average vs total) is a matter of dispute, but this doesn't strike me as nearly as brittle as DDE. Neither motive nor consequences are unimportant when considering ethical choices, but I can't be dissuaded from the notion that consequences are more important. Though a lot of people remember Bentham's 'greatest good for the greatest number', everyone seems to forget the felicific calculus, which acts as a decent safeguard to at least the most ridiculous strawmen of utilitarianism. Deliberately killing someone to increase others' wellbeing (?) is hardly going to work, given it violates the felicific variables of duration, certainty, fecundity, and purity (to put it in simple terms, you're going to generate a lot of confused upset by killing someone). Most objections to consequentialism are justified by consequentialism.
I think an abortion debate video would be cool, so long as both sides were represented equally. I don't want you to tell me how I should vote.
That'd be my intent, one argument each by two different respected philosophers.
I think abortion arguments would work great on this Channel because of the visual style and presentation. They tend to be thought experiments mostly which I feel fits Philosophy Toons cartoony style. For an influential anti-abortion Philosopher check out Don marquis. Personally hes not convincing me but it is fascinating to think about. The Pro one I would recommend is Michael Tooley simply because he accepts some really unpalatable conclusions but is not as well known as, e.g., Judith Thompson.
@@PhilosophyToonsI don’t think the viewpoints on the issue only amount to two, i.e. pro and con. It is much more complex than that as this video has already begun to show.