Evidence is to respected, except for where it upends personally preferred narratives. This can be, and often is, true for any human who has preferred narratives, I’m afraid.
Anyway, what you posted isn’t the kind of evidence that’s really the problem. The issue is one of morality and logic. Some people say “stop killing innocent people”, and others agree that killing innocent people is bad, but Americans must (at least temporarily) accept the killing of brown children in a far-off country in order to reduce harms in America, and for Americans to hold their nose as they vote.
This is not how morality works, though, and it is not how logic works, either. Logically, if harming the innocent is wrong, then it is wrong to do so even as a sacrifice for the greater good of those who you live amongst. Morally, I wouldn’t press a button to kill a stranger in another country to make my life better, and I wouldn’t judge someone else who did that positively.
Instead, these ideas are practical. It is a practical concern to ignore morality and logic. But I’m not someone who elevates the practical above the moral certainty that hurting innocent people is wrong.
Some people raise the beguiling spectre of the trolley problem, which is a shit thought experiment when used to explain real-world harm.
Source: medium
In 1976, Judith J. Thomson expanded the problem into the classic version that most of us know today.
Would you push a fat man off a bridge to stop a runaway trolley from killing 5 workers on the tracks?
This version is not just about switching tracks, but brings the moral issue much closer to home by saying if you want to save 5 people, you yourself have to push someone off a bridge.
To make matters worse, these are also the only two choices that you have. There is nothing else you can do; there is no escaping the problem.
[…]
Like many philosophy instructors, I have given this thought experiment to my students many times. In my philosophy classes, Students of all levels and ages are repulsed by the experiment. They think that it is stupid that there are only two choices and that there is nothing else they can do.
[…]
But something I have never seen given much consideration is the initial response that my students and so many others have to the problem.
[…]
Our intuition is that if we are in a lose-lose moral situation where the right moral action does not feel satisfactory, then someone else made a bad moral decision already; leaving us holding the bag.
Evidence is to respected, except for where it upends personally preferred narratives. This can be, and often is, true for any human who has preferred narratives, I’m afraid.
Anyway, what you posted isn’t the kind of evidence that’s really the problem. The issue is one of morality and logic. Some people say “stop killing innocent people”, and others agree that killing innocent people is bad, but Americans must (at least temporarily) accept the killing of brown children in a far-off country in order to reduce harms in America, and for Americans to hold their nose as they vote.
This is not how morality works, though, and it is not how logic works, either. Logically, if harming the innocent is wrong, then it is wrong to do so even as a sacrifice for the greater good of those who you live amongst. Morally, I wouldn’t press a button to kill a stranger in another country to make my life better, and I wouldn’t judge someone else who did that positively. Instead, these ideas are practical. It is a practical concern to ignore morality and logic. But I’m not someone who elevates the practical above the moral certainty that hurting innocent people is wrong.
Some people raise the beguiling spectre of the trolley problem, which is a shit thought experiment when used to explain real-world harm.
Source: medium