The Humanitarian with the Trolley
The Humanitarian with the Trolley
Robert Tracinski makes public, sometimes, publications that he sends out to former subscribers, of which I am one.
This one struck me because it identifies insights, that once stated, seem obvious. Even with Rand's Ethics of Emergencies, and having seen variations on the Trolley Car Problem, the observations made are like ones I'd like to be able to make more often in life.
He couches the dilemma early as:
This is an old philosophical conundr
Tracinski states,
This is not what Ayn Rand says in her essay "The Ethics of Emergencies".
The essay begins with her asking us to consider the implications of someone who begins their approach to the subject of ethics with lifeboat scenarios - which she regards as a disintegrated, malevolent, and basically altruistic approach to the subject, that cannot ultimately yield a rational system of ethics.
She did not say that lifeboat scenarios are "irrelevant", that they are the 0.01
