2 Anchors Aweigh
Building a Ship at Sea
In the early 20th century, a philosopher by the name of Otto Neurath was grappling with advances in science and logic. At this time famous scientists such as Albert Einstein, Hermann Minkowski, and Werner Heisenberg were challenging our understanding of space and time. Additionally, mathematicians and logicians such as Gottleb Frege, Bertrand Russel, and Kurt Godel were challenging our understanding of those disciplines. Needless to say, it was quite an exciting time to be in those fields.
In midst of that Neurath was grappling with many related philosophical questions, not the least of which was how does knowledge “work”. By this I mean how do our beliefs connect and what kinds of things make certain beliefs better than others. One of Neurath’s lasting contributions to these discussions is by way of a metaphor that he adopted. For Neurath, you and I are like a ship that needs repairs. Sadly, however, our ship is already out to sea and so we must be quite make the repairs while also not sinking the ship:
We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction. (Neurath 1973/1921, pps. 158-213)
Imagine that your beliefs are various planks of a ship. After some time, certain planks will need replacing. You cannot leave the boat to do the fixing as you are already out to sea. You must fix what needs fixing in a suboptimal way. This is, for Neurath, how you and I must face the world. We each have a way of viewing the world (our boats). After some time out in the world (at sea) we often notice that certain ways that we view the world aren’t quite right. Perhaps you were raised in such a way that you’ve always thought of Political Party X as being horrible. Then, as you get older, you meet some members of that party and it turns out that their views aren’t entirely horrible. If you’re being a responsible agent, then you should adjust some of your beliefs (repair or replace some planks). When you make the repairs, however, you cannot stand on the faulty plank. You must stand where it is safe (a belief which is not in need of removal). This metaphor, for Neurath, reflected an important piece of our cognitive lives. When we are modifying certain beliefs we do so by relying on other beliefs which we do not (at that moment anyway) think are in need of repair.
I mention Neurath’s boat as a model for how we should approach each of the theories that we will examine. Certain theories may seem invincible at first glance. Part of what we will do for each theory, however, is to highlight certain potential weaknesses specific to that theory. Sometimes students will take any such problem to be a reason to immediately junk the entire theory. Such problems, however, may not be fatal and only require modifications to the theory rather than total abandonment. In other words, simply because we notice some rotten planks in a theory does not require that we view the ship as junk. It may just be in need of repair, and it will be up to you to help the class work through possible repairs.
Additionally, Neurath’s ship is a great metaphor for the kinds of mental gymnastics that this class will ask of you. Most of you likely think that there are some kinds of moral truths. Once we look at two or three theories, and note some of the difficulties for those theories, you may worry that no theory is problem free. Such a worry can sometimes lead students to a skeptical conclusion.
- Moral Skepticism: Moral knowledge is impossible.
Neurath’s ship, however, cautions us against making too many radical changes to what we believe. It would likely be very difficult for us to go from wholeheartedly believing that we can have moral knowledge to completely abandoning that possibility. Moral skepticism may be true, but it is also not without its own problems. How, then, should we proceed?
I have found that it is easiest for students to start with their intuitions first. The last chapter highlighted that the reliability of our intuitions is a matter of some debate, but as a springboard for getting into our material, I have found intuitions to be a good first step. Hence, the remainder of this chapter will serve as a kind of intuition scorecard that you will be filling out. There will be 5 cases that you will read through and then render your intuitive judgment on. Certain judgments will align better with certain moral theories, and so you will “feel the pull” of those theories more strongly. Each of the following five cases comes from authors that we will meet again later in the semester. To those we now turn.
Case 1: The Original Trolly Problem
The formulation of the trolley problem that we will focus on comes to us from a philosopher named Phillipa Foot in her 1967 paper on the morality of abortion (though it was the philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson who dubbed it the “Trolley Problem” in a 1976 paper). In Foot’s paper she introduces us to the trolley problem.
Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible, it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the case of the riots, the mob have five hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one man’s life for the lives of five. (Foot 1967, p. 8; italics added)
So, if you found yourself as the only agent able to send the train on a collision course with one person or five, which would you choose? Please use The Scorecard at the end of this chapter to keep track of your moral judgments.
Case 2: The Footbridge
The so-called Footbridge case is a variant of the original trolley problem. It comes to us from Thomson in her 1985 paper where she attempts to more deeply analyze what is going on in trolly problem cases (though she calls the case “Fat-man”).
Consider a case-which I shall call Fat Man-in which you are standing on a footbridge over the trolley track. You can see a trolley hurtling down the track, out of control. You turn around to see where the trolley is headed, and there are five workmen on the track where it exits from under the footbridge. What to do? Being an expert on trolleys, you know of one certain way to stop an out-of-control trolley: Drop a really heavy weight in its path. But where to find one? It just so happens that standing next to you on the footbridge is a fat man, a really fat man. He is leaning over the railing, watching the trolley; all you have to do is to give him a little shove, and over the railing he will go, onto the track in the path of the trolley. Would it be permissible for you to do this?
(Thomson 1985, 1409)
So, if instead of the original trolley problem, you now find yourself able to save the five workers by pushing the man in the path of the oncoming trolley? Again, please use The Scorecard at the end of this chapter to keep track of your moral judgments.
Case 3: Organ Transplant
This thought experiment comes to us – surprise – Thomson in her 1976 paper. There she offers a non-train based variant of the trolley problem that will prove important for certain ethical theories later in the course. For now, we can simply consider the case on its own.
David is a great transplant surgeon. Five of his patients need new parts – one needs a heart, the others need, respectively, liver, stomach, spleen, and spinal cord – but all are of the same, relatively rare, blood-type. By chance, David learns of a healthy specimen with that very blood-type. David can take the healthy specimen’s parts, killing him, and install them in his patients, saving them. Or he can refrain from taking the healthy specimen’s parts, letting his patients die. (Thomson 1976, 206)
So, what should Dr. David do, and why?
Case 4: Murderer
For this thought experiment we travel far back in time and space to the 1790s in Germany. There a philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant was responding to a letter he had received which was critical of his moral theory. We will look at Kant’s theory in detail later in the semester. For now I will simply quote the passage involving Kant’s somewhat confusing example.
…if you have by a lie prevented someone just now bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you have kept strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you, whatever the unforeseen consequences might be. It is still possible that, after you have honestly answered “yes” to the murderer’s question as to whether his enemy is at home, the latter has nevertheless gone out unnoticed, so that he would not meet the murderer and the deed would not be done; but if you had lied and said that he is not at home, and he has actually gone out (though you are not aware of it), so that the murderer encounters him while going away and perpetrates his deed on him, then you can by right be prosecuted as the author of his death. For if you had told the truth to the best of your knowledge, then neighbors might have come and apprehended the murderer while he was searching the house for his enemy and the deed would have been prevented. Thus one who tells a lie, however well disposed he may be, must be responsible for its consequences even before a civil court and must pay the penalty for them, however unforeseen they may have been; for truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on contract, the laws of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted.
To be truthful (honest) in all declarations is therefore a sacred command of reason prescribing unconditionally, one not to be restricted by any conveniences. (8:425)
In not so many words: if you were hiding someone in your home who was being hunted by a murderer, and the murderer asks you where that person is, and you knew that this person sought to murder the person in your home, would you lie to the murderer in an attempt to save their life?
Case 5: The Rings of Gyges
For this thought experiment we go all the way back to ancient Greece and the philosopher Plato. Plato wrote most of his work in the form of narrative where different characters represented different positions on various topics. Importantly, Plato’s main character was that of his mentor Socrates. Socrates usually poses a question to an individual / group, and then slowly and methodically shows why the proposed answer fails to answer the question. In our passage, Socrates is actually the one being asked a question by his friend Galucon. Glaucon wants to know if being good is just a matter of reputation, or if you would be good even if no one could find out about the bad things that you did.
Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.
Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.
For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
(Plato Republic, 360b–d [Jowett trans.])
So, if you had some magical trinkets which allowed you to act without being detected, would you behave radically different than you currently do? If so, why? If not, why?
The Scorecard
| # | Thought Experiment | Judgment:
Yes / No |
Confidence in Judgment (1 = low, 5 = high) |
Brief Reflection |
| (1) | Trolley Problem Pull the lever to save 5, killing 1? |
1 2 3 4 5 | Why do you think this? | |
| (2) | Footbridge Push a man to stop the trolley and save 5? |
1 2 3 4 5 | How does this differ from the first case? | |
| (3) | Organ Transplant Harvest organs from 1 to save 5? |
1 2 3 4 5 | Why do you think this? | |
| (4) | Murderer Lie to save a life? |
1 2 3 4 5 | What obligations do you feel in this case? | |
| (5) | The Rings of Gyges Do whatever you want? |
1 2 3 4 5 | Do you care about more than consequences? |
Media Attributions
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