Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Moral dilema regarding a man dying on the street.

Rate this topic


Andreas

Recommended Posts

One of my friends and I were discussing a problem the other day. The situation was this: You and another man discover a third man lying by the side of the road. The third man needs help to survive. What is the worst you can do of theese two:

-Not helping the man at all (just walk on)

-Not help the man yourself, but force the other man to help

My friend was sure that not helping the man at all was the worst thing to do, I was leaning a bit to the other side.

Any thoughs?

Andreas

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Under the assumption that the moral choice would be to help the man (i.e. that his situation is temporary and no fault of his own, that he is not an enemy, that such help would be for the selfish value of life as such, etc.) the second option is clearly the worse choice. It adds to the sin of not helping the man that of initiating force. By initiating force against one's companion, one asserts the notion that his life is not his own, to do with as he sees fit. That one's initiation of force resulted in the man receiving unwilling help from one's companion doesn't confer any moral uprightness on one's actions. Morality is a matter of choice, and choice is an individual concern. Since neither person chose to help the man, neither can claim any moral rectitude. For the same reasons, the situation is not changed if one is unable to help the man while one's companion is able, but unwilling.

I'm going to make a presumption, perhaps unwarranted, that your discussion was in relation to welfare, that your friend was arguing that the government is justified in forcing some people to help others, because it's less bad than doing nothing. This adds another wrong to the situation in that it confers upon those in need a "right to be helped." That one's help should be of value to them is undeniable; if they value their life, they should value that which sustains it. (It may be observed that chronic welfare cases, in fact, do not value that which sustains their life, and thus that they can not value their own life.) Values must be created, however, and the mere value of something does not confer upon one a right to it. The only values one has a right to are the ones created or otherwise earned by one's own thought and effort. This right is by virtue of the fact that one holds soverignty over one's mind and body and thus over the product thereof. As soon as one resorts to an initiation of force, one denies that very right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What if stepping on a crack will break your Mothers' back?

What should you do?

A. Avoid all sidewalks

B. Only transport yourself with a wheelchair

C. Amputate your own legs to protect your mom

D. Walk carefully around cracks

E. Proceed as normal

These modern ethicists so worried about all these hypothetical situations should get out of the philosophy departments and go get a medical degree so they can work in ambulances responding to emergencies. Those folks deal in life and death emergency situations all the time, follow rational guidelines, do the best they can, and aren't constantly wringing their hands about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What if stepping on a crack will break your Mothers' back?

What should you do?

A. Avoid all sidewalks

B. Only transport yourself with a wheelchair

C. Amputate your own legs to protect your mom

D. Walk carefully around cracks

E. Proceed as normal

D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Obviously helping the man yourself is the best solution, but if that is not given as an option forcing the other man to help the man is superior. Forceing a man to take an action is bad because it limits his freedom but I don't think its reasonable to consider the man lying on the side of the road needing help to survive free nor would I consider a corpse free. So in this case I would say that the use of force to make one man help another is better than doing nothing since the man who is forced to help the dieing man loses choice over how he would spend the time that it takes to help the dieing man and the dieng man gains the choice over how he would spend the balance of his life. Thus in using force you are creating a net increase in peoples freedom. This is a good thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You have the right not to help anyone, but you obviously don't have the right to force others to help.

Helping a man that's lying on the side of the road might be a nice thing to do, but there are a lot of situations in which the moral thing to do is NOT to help him. For example - if your own wife lies wounded on the other side of the road and you can only help one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to make a presumption, perhaps unwarranted, that your discussion was in relation to welfare, that your friend was arguing that the government is justified in forcing some people to help others, because it's less bad than doing nothing.

This was indeed what the discussion was about, and thank you for the good answers.

So in this case I would say that the use of force to make one man help another is better than doing nothing since the man who is forced to help the dieing man loses choice over how he would spend the time that it takes to help the dieing man and the dieng man gains the choice over how he would spend the balance of his life.

Can you explain this a little more? I don't see how taking one man's freedom can be a good thing in any case. I may have misunderstood your post, but it seems to me that you claim power to distribute other men's freedom, and that means they have no freedom at all. Forcing someone can never, in my opinion, create freedom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Can you explain this a little more? I don't see how taking one man's freedom can be a good thing in any case. I may have misunderstood your post, but it seems to me that you claim power to distribute other men's freedom, and that means they have no freedom at all. Forcing someone can never, in my opinion, create freedom.
One obvious example of how taking away a freedom can create freedom is the case of slavery. By abolishing slavery the government eliminated peoples right to a own certain forms of property and conduct certain types of buisiness transactions (those governing ownership of other people.) This however increased the freedom for a great number of people.

A less extreme and more controversial example is banning the sale of certain addictive substances. People choose to take these substances initially and through dependence become less free. Thus forcing people not to sell or purchase these substances creates more freedom than it eliminates.

Forcing a man to return property he stole or attempt to redress past wrongdoings are other examples.

Yes, I claim that it is right for certain people or institutions or even myself to situationally restrict other peoples freedom. If someone is attacking another person I would be resticting his freedom to attack by restarining him or calling the police. I would be justified in doing this. If I prevent a friend from driving under the influence I would be restricting his freedom and would be greatful if he would so restrict my freedom to drunk driving in the future.

The ends never justify the means. Forcing a man to help another would be worse.

This kind of moral absolutism can run into brick walls. For example it would never be just to have civillian casualties in a war as you would be killing the innocent which is clearly wrong, but sometimes many more lives will be saved by accepting certain civillian casualties. What if it was necesary to sacrafice the life of one innocent to save the life of another, or two, or a town, or a nation, or the human species.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One obvious example of how taking away a freedom can create freedom is the case of slavery. By abolishing slavery the government eliminated peoples right to a own certain forms of property and conduct certain types of buisiness transactions (those governing ownership of other people.) This however increased the freedom for a great number of people.

Nobody has a right to own someone else. Rights are not created and distributed by government, they are inalienable and recognized and protected by man. The Founders failed to recognize and protect the rights of some people, and they permitted these people's rights to be violated.

I suggest you read up on Ayn Rand's view of rights. Try her essay Man's Rights in The Virtue of Selfishness.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Inalienable means incapable of being alienated, surrendered, or transferred. If rights are indeed inalienable why would they need protecting by man?

I don't believe rights are inalienable, they exist only so long as a person or group of people are powerful enough to protect them.

Nobody has a right to own someone else.
Try telling that a plantation owner in the 17th centaury. For thousands of years many people did not recognize in others a number of the rights that seem so evident today. Now I'm not saying people should have a right to own someone else, I am saying that they did have a right to own someone else and the evidence that they had this right is they owned other people and they were, in most cases, never punished for it.

Rights are not created and distributed by government

See I think the fundamental difference here is how we define rights. If we define what rights ought to be I would probably agree with your list fairly closely (although I would probably be much less strict with allowing a man's right to property) However I don't think rights exist as an ought; I think they only exist in so much as you can expect them to be enforced. The government is responsible for much of the enforcing of rights so to that extent I do believe rights come from the government.

Sorry for going off topic, I just find the objectist view interesting (if not entirely agreeable) and am interested in finding more about it.

Try her essay Man's Rights in The Virtue of Selfishness

Will do. (edited for spelling)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't believe rights are inalienable, they exist only so long as a person or group of people are powerful enough to protect them.
I believe you are right when you say that the difference is how we define rights. When I am talking about rights, I am talking about something which is and will be and has always been, regardless of the government's or anyone else's opinion. Thus I don't think plantation owners had any more right to own slaves in the 17th century than they have today.

Do you think that if just enough people decides to make something a right, it is a right? What if those "powerful enough to protect the rights" decides that everyone has the right to take money from you? Would you consider that a right? Would it be to take away their freedom to steal you money, if you resisted? This is surley not my opinion of what a right is...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe you are right when you say that the difference is how we define rights. When I am talking about rights, I am talking about something which is and will be and has always been, regardless of the government's or anyone else's opinion.

Like what? How do you know whether something is a right or not? Where do you find evidence for the nature of a right in the absence of its application by the sufficiently powerful? Rights aren’t even necessary on an individual level, what I mean by that is that a right to life doesn’t apply to bear attacks or drowning it applies only against the actions of other men. Rights are a social phenomenon, are meaningless in the absence of a society, and have no definition outside of this context.

Do you think that if just enough people decides to make something a right, it is a right? What if those "powerful enough to protect the rights" decides that everyone has the right to take money from you?

I might argue that this is not “right” and may have good reasons for thinking such, but no right would be evident without the power to protect it. If went to Saudi Arabia I would have many rights similar to property rights over my wife (if I had one) I would not think many of these rights are appropriate but I would certainly have them and could exercise them if I so desired.

My question is this; where do rights, as you define them come from? Rights as I define them are a malleable social contract in which people agree to take or abstain from certain actions under the expectation that others will also take or abstain from other actions. This occurs because people have the idea that life with a more widespread fidelity to the agreement is better than life with less universal fidelity to the agreement. Thus rights as I define them arise through something like evolution where more viable systems persist and less viable systems are altered or overthrown.

I think it would be a mistake however to assume that one’s conception of rights came from some nobler place inside or outside the self and that it's possible to judge rights as a thing in themselves rather than on the characteristics they impart upon a society that adopts them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What if it was necesary to sacrafice the life of one innocent to save the life of another, or two, or a town, or a nation, or the human species.

It would be wrong to sacrifice anyone. A person would be depraved to be willing to "sacrifice" themselves, and it would be wrong to sacrifice someone against their will. Sacrifice is an evil mentality, it inherently violates self-interest. The ends never justify the means. You can achieve your self interest in a number of irrational ways, but that doesn't make it right.

I am not a pragmatist. I believe in moral absolutes. Absolute principles that are absracted from reality will never run into brick walls. I guarantee it. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...