Difficult Situation

Ethics
21

I’m trying to understand the answer to this problem in terms of principles (and to understand your moral intuitions in terms of principles), and I am skeptical about the possibility of there being any general balancing of principles.

Like SN, I consider these situations to be emergencies. Emergency situations are outside the realm of normal ethics. Ayn Rand actually said that “morality ends where a gun begins.” Thus, it is going to be extremely difficult (or impossible) to formulate guiding principles for such situations.

I think the guiding idea should be that you act as swiftly as possible, and you do what you personally think is reasonable. We are talking about emergency life and death situations here. It’s you versus whatever threatens your highest values, be that your own life, your wife’s life, etc. You should rationally consider your known options, and pick the action that you think is going to be most effective, and that you think you can live with for the rest of your life.

22

Like SN, I consider these situations to be emergencies.

How would you characterize an emergency? For example, if a person if going to die in a month, is that an emergency? Is certain death an essential feature of a true emergency? It is sufficient that it be someone’s death, or does it have to be your own death?

What bothers me about an appeal to the concept of emergency is that I don’t see how that does not become an automatic escape hatch for rights violations (indeed, it’s common in politics to invoke “emergency” in order to justify violating rights). If some person were holding a gun to your wife’s head and demanding her liver or her wallet, that is clearly a case where morality should not stop you from protecting her. What I would like to see is evidence that Rand actually held that it was okay to violate rights in case you have an emergency. This is not a lifeboat situation or a flood or fire, so it is in the realm of the metaphysically normal for man.

23

Like SN , I consider these situations to be emergencies. (emphasis added)

It’s not too important, but I was actually explaining your viewpoint rather than expressing my own.

Perosnally, I have not chewed the concept – emergency – enough. When someone asks me the typical question about me holding a track-switch with a train hurtling to the option of killing 1 stranger versus 2, I find that an easy concrete to classify in the “ethics weren’t designed for this” (a.k.a. “choose whaever you want personally, there’s no moral principle”) bucket. The lifeboat too.

Next, come concretes like starving in the middle of a Katrina flood, and wondering whether to break in to a store. Again, to me, the nature of the emergency is clear; but, I find it to be a different type. I can still take a moral approach, even if it might be an illegal one. The few days worth of food is something I can repay; the store was trying to sell it anyway; the supplies will probably be lost to spoilage anyway… they all add up to a clear moral alternative. In an example like this, I’m clear about the applicability of morality. While this is an emergency in the “rare event one has to deal with” sense, I cannot convince myself that it is a situation of the “morality does not apply” type. Importantly, I can act with confidence.

Now, I take that concrete to the next step, still in the midst of a Katrina-type event. I imagine there is no store available, only a neighbor. However, he has not abandoned his home. He is there with his two days supply of food, while I have none. I ask him to give me some. He says he’s sorry, but he needs it for his own family. Now what?

I start, now, to ask myself how I can claim moral authority if I did not plan for the event. If I ought to have known and did not plan, can I drop that context? I think I can, in the sense of having to act with force; but, I cannot drop the context from the perspective of a moral philosopher. If I act to take some food by force, I cannot claim innocence when the moral-philosopher points me out as the bad guy. In other words, the moral philosopher might say something like: I see you had to act, but – considering all the facts – you’re the immoral guy in this story.

The above is “thinking aloud” in the process of trying to chew the concept: emergency. I find myself searching for more concretes that fit a “bill of prior innocence”, not just an in-the-moment “I’ve got to act now” decision.

Anyway, that’s where I am, and it is incomplete. So, I have the same questions that David does about what can be used to justify my actions. The obvious example that comes to mind is poverty: can poverty be used as a justification for trying to gain something by force, when non-poverty could have solved my problem? If so, what kinds of things: life-saving drugs? but, what else? Food? Clothes? Shelter? Other concretes start to come to mind. If a loved one has a debilitating illness that will cost a few millions, does that justify stealing? and so on.

The search for the razors continues.

24

How would you characterize an emergency?

I agree with Ayn Rand’s definition of an emergency, as stated in her essay “The Ethics of Emergencies” in The Virtue of Selfishness.

An emergency is an unchosen, unexpected event, limited in time, that creates conditions under which human survival is impossible–a flood, an earthquake, a fire, a shipwreck. In an emergency situation, men’s primary goal is to combat the disaster, escape the danger and restore normal conditions (to reach dry land, to put out the fire, etc.).

In Ayn Rand Answers (p. 114) Rand also characterized a dictatorship as an emergency situation:

Under a dictatorship–under force–there is no such thing as morality. Morality ends where a gun begins. Personally, I would say the man is immoral if he takes an innocent life. But formally, as a moral philosopher, I’d say that in such emergency situations, no one could prescribe what action is appropriate. That’s my answer to all lifeboat questions. Moral rules cannot be prescribed for these situations, because only life is the basis on which to establish a moral code. Whatever a man chooses in such cases is right–subjectively.

I have given this topic considerable thought, and I don’t have anything essential to add to what Rand said about emergency/lifeboat situations. On a couple threads now, all I’ve done is attempt to explain my understanding of Rand’s position, which is a position I agree with.

If a person is going to die in a month, is that an emergency?

I can’t answer that unless I have more context.

Is certain death an essential feature of a true emergency?

I would add certain enslavement, because I also consider such things as dictatorships and kidnappings to be emergencies, and you are not certain to physically die in these cases, but you are certain to be a slave.

What bothers me about an appeal to the concept of emergency is that I don’t see how that does not become an automatic escape hatch for rights violations (indeed, it’s common in politics to invoke “emergency” in order to justify violating rights).

It shouldn’t become an automatic excuse for rights violations if you have a clear definition of emergency situations and are honest.

If some person were holding a gun to your wife’s head and demanding her liver or her wallet, that is clearly a case where morality should not stop you from protecting her. What I would like to see is evidence that Rand actually held that it was okay to violate rights in case you have an emergency.

Suppose someone lives in a dictatorship, and needs a disguise to escape. If he doesn’t get one, the Gestapo or GPU will arrest him. So he must kill an innocent bystander to get a coat. In such a case, morality cannot say what to do … I don’t think I could kill an innocent bystander if my life was in danger; I think I could kill ten if my husband’s life was in danger.

Does that help to clear up Ayn Rand’s view for you?

25

It’s not too important, but I was actually explaining your viewpoint rather than expressing my own.

Sorry about that. I misunderstood your reply.

… still in the midst of a Katrina-type event. I imagine there is no store available, only a neighbor. However, he has not abandoned his home. He is there with his two days supply of food, while I have none. I ask him to give me some. He says he’s sorry, but he needs it for his own family. Now what?

Well, this is a true emergency, and I cannot prescribe what you should do. I would probably leave them alone, because I’m not willing to kill a family over food, even if it means that I will likely starve. But then I don’t really know what I would do until I get into that situation, because one cannot prescribe rules ahead of time for such abnormal choices. If I thought I could live with myself afterward, I might do it. But thinking of it now, I don’t see how I could.

I start, now, to ask myself how I can claim moral authority if I did not plan for the event. If I ought to have known and did not plan, can I drop that context?

In such a situation I would not drop this context. Given enough time, I think you should factor in everything you can, because you are about to die, and you might never get another chance to consider it.

Can poverty be used as a justification for trying to gain something by force, when non-poverty could have solved my problem?

I don’t consider poverty to be an emergency, because it does not immediately threaten your life or freedom. Being poor is a relative state of living. If you are so poor that you are starving, then starvation is your emergency, not poverty.

26

There would be only one way to proceed in a situation like that. Assuming that the medicine could be stolen, then the doctor does not value it’s inventory enough to have the proper security systems and guards in place to protect it. Combined with the fact that my wife’s life would take precedence over everything else, and that the theft of the medicine did not result in another person that paid for it to use for a dying loved one not being able to have it, I would steal it. I would also, accept the consequences that came with that act, and within the confines of a society with a court system and criminal law, would turn myself in after taking it and getting it to my wife. I could live for a period of time in prison knowing that I did what I thought I had to do, and would pursue any legal means available to secure the funds needed to pay for it once my liberty was restored and I was back in society again. No amount of ethical philosophical debate would convince me not to do it.

And, given the current state of statism that we live in today, the same scenario could be presented, with more detail as to the origins of the life saving medicine being described above. Would the act of taking it in an effort to save one’s spouse be less of an ethical problem if within the parameters of a statist society bordering on socialism: it could be determined that the doctor secured all of the funds he attended medical school with from “government” grants and money, then obtained a large amount of money from the state to research and develop such a drug, and then at the time it was stolen was administering it primarily to patients that received medical vouchers from the government to see that doctor. Assuming all of those factors existed, then does that doctor truly own the drug that would be needed to save a spouses life. I’m sure in that scenario, the man stealing it if he had time to do a thorough accounting of all the taxes he had paid in his life up until that point, it would show that he had already indirectly “paid” for the drug a few times over already.

27

Now, I take that concrete to the next step, still in the midst of a Katrina-type event. I imagine there is no store available, only a neighbor. However, he has not abandoned his home. He is there with his two days supply of food, while I have none. I ask him to give me some. He says he’s sorry, but he needs it for his own family. Now what?

…

The obvious example that comes to mind is poverty: can poverty be used as a justification for trying to gain something by force, when non-poverty could have solved my problem? If so, what kinds of things: life-saving drugs? but, what else? Food? Clothes? Shelter? Other concretes start to come to mind. If a loved one has a debilitating illness that will cost a few millions, does that justify stealing? and so on.

The search for the razors continues.

As you point out, the “Katrina” aspect of this scenario is not really essential. Broken down, the question is, does someone else’s passive refusal to provide for my needs morally justify the elimination of their rights as they pertain to me. If a society believes that to be true, dictatorship is probably not far away. That can’t be true or it pertains to all manner of difficult circumstances and makes civilization impossible.

For it to be true, then, the other factors of the particular context would need to be the cause of rights no longer existing and not someone’s needs or wishes. As in a dictatorship where rights have already been eliminated, for example, or in a situation where death is or can be imminent for other reasons. By imminent, I mean minutes, not days or months. So you will or might die at any moment.

In the situation with the “greedy doctor” above, 30 days gives you considerable time to try and attempt another alternative. Maybe pay someone else on better terms with the doctor to buy the medicine for its normal price or auction off your house, take out loans or find an alternative approach to treating the illness which you can afford. As the day looms closer and death becomes close enough that no time exists for alternatives, there might exist a point at which theft(which necessarily includes the possibility of killing someone else and dying to keep your values) might become the amoral thing which you can personally choose, but I have trouble imagining an actual total context where I could justify it to myself.

It would need to be pure bad luck, where nothing I did caused my inability to take care of it honestly, the medicine was certain to save her life, as with an antidote to poison, no other possibilities for action existed, and some immorality on the part of the victim or society at large could justify it. So if the pharmacist was Walmart, who uses eminent domain to steal property, then I would find it more palatable.

28

There would be only one way to proceed in a situation like that. Assuming that the medicine could be stolen, then the doctor does not value it’s inventory enough to have the proper security systems and guards in place to protect it.

I’m not sure that I understand your meaning here. Are you implying that because something is able to be stolen, it is morally justifiable to do so?

29

I’m not sure that I understand your meaning here. Are you implying that because something is able to be stolen, it is morally justifiable to do so?

No, but anything that is actually valuable is either secured in a way that it cannot be stolen. Security system, guards, etc. If the medicine that is needed is actually that valuable then there would be no practical way to steal it, and the entire issue is over. Assuming it could be stolen and was needed by my wife, I would steal it if it was possible to steal it. Within the scenario given, if that type of medicine was in fact something that valuable, then I don’t understand why it would be possible to even gain access to it and take it. But yeah, I would take it, if my wife’s life depended on it, but then I wouldn’t be married to just some woman that I got along with, and enjoyed being around. It would be a woman who if she ceased to exist would cause me incredible emotional pain, so the act of taking it would be extremely selfish on my part. In saving her life, I would be saving a part of mine that I would not want to live without.