The Irish...They Get Shit Done

[Ironic Mustache]

Yeah I hadn't forgetten it was Beebs that suggested philo classes as my elective.

[hfam95]

AP has a degree in Philo. Some of the material in the intro classes will be repackaged on the LSAT. At least it was 30 years ago or whenever it was.

[DDTempest]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

I'm not trying to white knight here, but it honestly depends on the circumstances. If someone approached me and asked me to sacrifice myself so my organs could save 10 people, hell yes i'd probably say no. If I was going to die anyways (cancer of the liver, persay, and nowhere else) i might oblige. Or if I tried to save some people and fully realize I could die in the process, then probably. Like that video someone posted in KAVotD when the lions are ripping apart someone and nobody is jumping in and helping, I can't say I wouldn't be retarded enough to jump and try to help.

I'll do you one better. What if you didn't have to die to save the lives of ten anonymous people? Would you?

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by DDTempest

I'll do you one better. What if you didn't have to die to save the lives of ten anonymous people? Would you?

Of course.

EDIT: I know this is leading somewhere ftr.

[Ironic Mustache]

I hope it doesn't go this direction:

Those two people end up killing two people each, who may or may not have been good people who may or may not have killed other people who may or many not have deserved it.

[Ironic Mustache]

Originally Posted by hfam95

AP has a degree in Philo. Some of the material in the intro classes will be repackaged on the LSAT. At least it was 30 years ago or whenever it was.

Pretty much just logic right? I'm officially starting to study after the new year.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache

I hope it doesn't go this direction:

Those two people end up killing two people each, who may or may not have been good people who may or may not have killed other people who may or many not have deserved it.

*shrugs* with the limited information i had at the time i did what was right imo

[SnakeInTheGrass]

Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache

I hope it doesn't go this direction:

Those two people end up killing two people each, who may or may not have been good people who may or may not have killed other people who may or many not have deserved it.

utilitarian logic can make any act seem evil

[Ironic Mustache]

That's why I prefaced my post, "I hope it doesn't go this direction."

[DDTempest]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

Of course.

EDIT: I know this is leading somewhere ftr.

All you have to do is live a minimalist lifestyle and use nearly all of your earnings to support / feed a few starving africans! And you don't even have do die! If you hate black people, you can choose to support some Eastern European or Southeast Asian children instead.

[hfam95]

Originally Posted by Ironic Mustache

Pretty much just logic right? I'm officially starting to study after the new year.

Depending on how the class is structured. I only took 4 classes that even addressed logic. Midway through the second, which was the first logic only class, it was basically a math class. The "baby logic" was covered in the two intro classes. That's where close to 50% of the LSAT is focused. Those 2 fucking sections of short passages where you have to pick "what if added strengthens the argument" stuff. By the time you complete a formal logic class you'll be able to whiz through the puzzles section.

We actually had a fairly large philo dept when I went.

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by DDTempest

All you have to do is live a minimalist lifestyle and use nearly all of your earnings to support / feed a few starving africans! And you don't even have do die! If you hate black people, you can choose to support some Eastern European or Southeast Asian children instead.

i'd rather die saving them from a lion or something.

[DDTempest]

Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde

i'd rather die saving them from a lion or something.

My point was that we all pretend like we would help others out, but basically we just say "fuck em" and if you aren't living your own life as a fucking monk then you are basically choosing death for others. Death that YOU CAN PREVENT. I don't send any money to Africa, and I am willing to bet that most all of you don't either, so lets not get all fucking butt-hurt about a few Irish babies being "put at risk" for "the greater good."

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

jews believe if you kill someone you kill all of the people they would have given birth to. I just thought I'd throw that in there.

jews

[Mr. Blonde]

Originally Posted by DDTempest

so lets not get all fucking butt-hurt about a few Irish babies being "put at risk" for "the greater good."

I agree...I probably wasn't the best person to use that example on in here. I think that minor experiments such ase these don't really matter.

Originally Posted by THEINCREDIBLEdork

jews believe if you kill someone you kill all of the people they would have given birth to. I just thought I'd throw that in there.

jews

BIG lol

[Beebs]

Originally Posted by Heaven Can Wait

So do you have a stance on it? I'm guessing you're saying it's wrong, but saying that 'other issues are involved' is a cop out, are you saying you can't put a price on life? something like that?

To be honest I don't quite know what my stance on this article is. I understand that the infringement on rights, justice, and care is relatively small, but so is the gain in utility.

Yes, it will save lives, but that does not mean it is automatically ok to intentionally cause harm to a helpless child. This is why ethics is more than arithmetic, because the answer is not always obvious; horrible evil could be justified through a simple body count, and on the other side horrible injustice can be carried out in the name of an inalienable right to life.

The entire crux of the argument is that you have rights, justice, utility, and care to consider, and the answer is not just which meets more of the 5, its weighing the particular circumstances; determining when one becomes more important than the other.

I'm not saying you can't put a price on life, I'm saying that the "price" is not simply a measurement of lifes, a bodycount. Is saving a life worth impeding on rights? Is saving 20? 20000?

What I'm saying is that a simple utilitarian equation is not good enough, saving lives is not always justification enough. Less people would have died had the Allies simply surrendered peacefully to the Axis; far more lives than this study on babies could save, and unimaginable horrors could have been spared, and yet, it was not the ethical thing to do, for the reasons I'm trying to explain.

Even if you do accept complete utilitarianism, is a couple hundred thousand lives worth more than ensuring the quality of others lives through protection of their rights?

[Beebs]

And we've missed the point of the trolley question, it has to do with rights vs utility, and the can be nitpicked down to malfeasance vs nonfeasance, negative rights vs positive rights, and the problem catered to those nitpicks to avoid missing the point of whole question.

Trolley problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That is the trolley problem. It can be phrased dozens of different ways, but that is just to keep people from avoid the question, the purpose is always the same; it shows that utilitarianism calculations simply are not good enough.

Its not a personality test, you are not being graded on your morality, you are being asked to think about why your answers change with the situation, thats what I think some of you are missing. It doesn't show you that you are unethical, it shows that the language and thought process most people use to describe "ethics" is insufficient, you are supposed to be unsure, thats the point.

Thats why it's called a thought experiment.

[vaga1220 *]

I say kill 'em all. -Starship Troopers.

[Mr. Blonde]

kick a ginger day

[Repugnant Abomination]

[Ugly Bastard]

Fuck each of you. You'll miss us when we're gone!

[THEINCREDIBLEdork]

Amy Adams is so fucking hawt.

[Heaven Can Wait]

Met-Art: ELISIA

NSFW NSFW NSFW