Funding for this program is provided by financing additional provided by This is a course on justice and we start with a story Suppose you are the tram driver and your tram goes at full speed along the tracks at 60 miles per hour. At the end of the road you see five workers working in the ways.
You try to stop, but no you can. Your brakes don’t work. You feel desperate because you know that If you crash into those five workers, they will all die. Let’s assume you know for sure and then you feel helpless until you notice that there is a road to the right side. At the end of that road there is a worker working on that road.
Your steering wheel works, so you can turn the tram onto that side road if you want, killing one, but saving at five. Here is our first he asks. What is correct? What would you do? Let’s do a survey. How many would turn the tram to the side road? How many wouldn’t? how many would they continue ahead? Keep your hands up those who They would continue straight ahead.
a handful of people would do it. The vast majority would spin. Let’s listen first. Now we have to start investigating the reasons why who believe that this is the correct action. Let’s start with those of the majority, those who They would turn onto the side road. why would they do it? What would be your reason? Who wants to offer a reason? Go ahead, stand up.
Student, because it can’t be right kill five people when you can kill only still in place. It wouldn’t be right to kill five if you could kill to one in its place. Sandel, that’s a good reason. Who else? Are you all agree with that reason? Go ahead, student. Well, I was thinking that It’s the same reason. On September 11 we consider heroes to the people who crashed the plane in Pennsylvania because they chose to kill those on the plane and not kill more people in large buildings.
So the principle there was the same. It is a tragic circumstance, but it is Better to kill one so that five can live Sandel, is that the reason for the most of you, the ones who would turn? Yes. Let’s now listen to those from the minority, those who would not turn. student. Well, I think that same kind of mentality that justifies genocide and totalitarianism to save a guy of race you annihilate the other.
Sandel, So what would you do in this case? you would crash into the five and the would you kill to avoid the horrors of genocide Student, presumably yes. Sandel, who else? That’s a brave response. Thank you. Let us consider another case of the tram and Let’s see if those in the majority want adhere to the principle that it is better Let one die so that five may live.
This Maybe you’re not the tram driver. You are a spectator standing on a bridge that passes over the tracks. along the tracks a tram is coming. At the end of the tracks There are five workers. The brakes don’t work. The train is about to collide with the five and kill them. You are not the driver. you feel helpless until you notice that at your side, leaning on the bridge, there is a man very fat You could push it.
would fall from bridge to the tracks, right on the road of the tram. I would die, but I would save the five. How many would push the man Fat man on the bridge? Raise your hand. How many wouldn’t? Most wouldn’t. Here is the obvious question. What happened to him principle of better saving five lives even if it means sacrificing one? What happened to the beginning that almost did everyone support the first case? I need to listen to someone who has been in the majority in both cases.
How do you explain the difference between the two, student? The second, I suppose, involves an active choice to push a person and that person, otherwise, would not have been involved in the situation. Choose on your behalf, involve you in something I would have otherwise avoided It’s more than what you have in the first case, where the three parties, the driver and the two groups of workers, they are already in this situation.
Sandel, but the worker who is in the side road did not choose to sacrifice your life, or is it? That’s true, but he I was on the tracks. This guy was in the bridge Go ahead, you can answer yes you want. It’s a difficult question, but you did very well. It’s a difficult question. who else can find a way reconcile the reaction of the majority in these two cases? Student, I guess in the first case where you have the worker lonely and at five, it’s a choice between those two.
you have to take one decision and people are going to die for it tram. Not necessarily because of your direct actions. The tram is out of control and you have to make a decision on fractions of a second. While pushing the fat man is an act of murder on your part. You have control over that, while that maybe you didn’t have it on him tram.
So I think it’s a situation slightly different. Sandel, does anyone want to respond to that? It’s a way out. I don’t believe it. Student two. I don’t think that be a very good reason because You also choose who dies. Or you turn and kill a person who is a act of conscious thought or push to the fat man who is also a active and conscious action.
Either way, you’re taking a decision. Sandel, do you want to answer? Student one. Well I’m not I’m really sure that’s the case. Follow the act of pushing seeming different someone on the tracks and kill them. yourself you kill him with your own hands. It is different from directing something that is going to cause death to another.
It doesn’t sound right to say it now that I’m up here. Sandel. No, it’s okay. What is your name? Andrew. Andrew, let me ask you one. he asks. Suppose that on the bridge next to the fat man you don’t have to push him. Suppose you were standing on a trapdoor that you could open by turning a steering wheel Would you do it, Andrew? For some reason it continues seeming more incorrect.
Maybe yes you will accidentally lean on it steering wheel or something like that. But if the car is going at full speed towards a switch that will open the trapdoor, then it could be agreement. Sandel, acceptable. It still seems wrong way that doesn’t seem like it at first case turn. And in another way, in the first situation you are directly involved in the matter.
In the second, you are a spectator. You have the option to get involved or not. pushing the fat man. let’s forget for a moment in this case. It’s good, but let’s imagine a different case. This time you are a doctor in a room emergencies. Six patients arrive. They have had a terrible accident tram. Five have injuries moderate, one is seriously injured.
You could spend all day taking care of the who is seriously injured, but meanwhile the five would die. Or you could serve all five, restore them to health, but while Therefore, the one who is seriously injured I would die. How many would save the five as a doctor? How many would save the one? Very few, a handful.
Same reason, I guess. A life against five. Let us consider another case of a doctor. This time you are a surgeon transplants. You have five patients. each one desperately needs a transplant organ to survive. One needs one heart, one lung, one kidney, one liver and the fifth a pancreas. You do not have organ donors and you are about to see them die.
Then, you It happens that in the next room There is a healthy guy who came to a checkup. He’s taking a nap. you could come in very quietly, extract the five organs. That person would die, but I could save all five. How many would they do? Someone? How many? Raise your hand if you would. Does anyone on the balcony? Would you do it? have be careful. Don’t overload yourself.
How many wouldn’t? What do you say on the balcony that would tear out the organs? Why, balcony student? I I would like to explore a possibility slightly alternative. Take one of the five who needs a organ that dies first and use its four healthy organs to save the four others. Sandel, that’s a very good idea.
It is a great idea, except you just ruin the philosophical point. Let’s step back from these stories and these arguments to note a couple of things about the way the arguments have started to develop. Certain moral principles have begun to emerge from our discussions. Let’s consider what those principles look like.
morals. The first moral principle that emerged from The discussion said that the right thing to do moral, depends on the consequences that result from your action. At the end of the day, It is better that five live even if one should die. That is an example of reasoning consequentialist morality. Consequentialist moral reasoning locates morality in the consequences of an act in the state of the world that It will result from what you do.
But then we went a little further. We consider those other cases and people I wasn’t so sure of the reasoning. consequentialist morality. When people hesitated to push fat man or in ripping out organs of the innocent patient, people pointed out reasons related to quality intrinsic to the act itself.
Whatever were the consequences, people were reluctant. People thought it was just incorrect, categorically incorrect, kill an innocent person, even for the sake of saving five lives. At least those people thought about it in the second version of each story that We reconsider. This points to a second way categorical thinking reasoning moral.
Categorical moral reasoning places morality in certain requirements absolute morals, in certain duties and categorical rights. Regardless of the consequences, We will explore in the days and weeks future the contrast between consequentialist moral principles and the categorical ones. The most influential example of consequentialist moral reasoning is utilitarianism, an invented doctrine by Jeremy Bantam, the political philosopher 17th century English.
The greatest philosopher important of moral reasoning categorical is the German philosopher of 17th century, Emmanuel K. So we’ll look at those two ways. different from moral reasoning, we will evaluate and also consider others. If you look at the course program, You will notice that we will read several books great and famous books Aristotle, John Lock, Emmanuel Kunt, John Stewart Mill.
You will also notice from the program that it does not We will only read these books, but we will also address controversies contemporary political and legal They raise philosophical questions. We will debate about equality and inequality, affirmative action, freedom of expression versus hate speech, marriage between people of the same sex, compulsory military service, a variety of practical issues.
Because? Not only to encourage these books abstract and distant, but to clarify and bring to light what is in game in our daily lives, including our political lives to the philosophy. So we will read these books and We will debate these issues and see how each informs and illuminates the other. This can sound enough attractive, but here I must issue a warning.
The warning is this. read these books this way as an exercise of self-knowledge, entails certain risks. Risks that are so much personal as well as political, risks that every student of political philosophy has known. These risks arise from the fact that the Philosophy teaches us and disturbs us confront ourselves with what we already know.
There are an irony The difficulty of this course It is that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar and unquestionable environments and making it strange. This is how Did those examples work, the hypotheses with which we began, with its mixture of fun and seriousness. This is how these books work philosophical.
Philosophy takes us away from the familiar, not providing new information, but inviting and provoking a new way of seeing. But here is the risk. Once the familiar becomes Strange, it’s never the same again. The self-knowledge is like innocence lost. As disturbing as it may be, don’t It may be unthought of or unknown.
What makes this company difficult, but also fascinating, is that Moral and political philosophy is a story and you don’t know where it will lead history, but what you do know is that the story is about you. Those are the personal risks and political risks. A way to present a course like This would be to promise you that when reading these books and discuss these topics, you you will become a better citizen, more responsible.
You will examine the budgets of the public policies, you will perfect your impeachment, you will become a most effective participant in affairs public. But that would be a partial promise and deceptive Political philosophy, at its greatest part, it has not worked that way. You have to allow the possibility of that political philosophy can become a worse citizen instead of a better one or at least a worse one citizen before becoming one better.
And that’s because philosophy is a distance activity, even debilitating. And you see this going back to Socrates. There is a dialogue, the Gorgias, in which one of Socrates’ friends, Callicles, He tries to dissuade him, to philosophize. Callicles tells Socrates that Philosophy is a nice toy if one gives to her sparingly in the right time of life, but if one He pursues her more than he should, it’s ruin absolute.
Take my advice, says Callicles. Drop the argument. Learn the active life skills. Take as models not to those people who lose time with these petty niceties, but to those who have a good life, reputation and many others blessings. So Cali is telling Socrates, “Stop philosophizing, go back to reality, go to school business.
” And Callicles had a point. He had a point because philosophy distance from conventions, established assumptions and established beliefs. Those are the personal risks and politicians. And in the face of these risks there is an evasion characteristic. The name of that evasion is skepticism. The idea is more or less like this.
No we resolved once and for all neither cases nor the principles that We argued at the beginning. And if Aristotle, the K and M have not resolved these questions after all these years, who are we us to think that here in the Sanders theater during a semester can we solve them? So maybe it’s just a matter of everyone has their own principles and there is nothing more to say to the respect. There is no way to reason.
That is the evasion, the skepticism, to which I would offer the following response. It is true that these questions have been debated for a long time, but the very fact that they have reappeared and persisted may suggest that although they are impossible in a sense, they are inevitable in another.
And the reason why that are inevitable, the reason why are unavoidable is that we live some answer these questions every day. So skepticism, simply throw your hands in the air and give up Moral reflection is not a solution. Immanuel Kant wrote very well problem with skepticism when wrote, “Skepticism is a place of rest for human reason where you can reflect on your ramblings dogmatic, but it is not a dwelling place for a permanent settlement.
“Simply accept skepticism,” wrote Kant, can never be enough to overcome the restlessness of reason. I have tried to suggest through these stories and plots some sense of the risks and temptations, of the dangers and possibilities. I would simply conclude by saying that the The objective of this course is to awaken the restlessness of reason and see where can take us.
Thank you very much, student. Brands in such a situation desperate You have to do what you have to do to survive. Sandel, you have to do what you have what to do Marcus, basically, If you have gone 19 days without food, Someone has to make the sacrifice. Someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive.
Sandel, very good. What is your name? Marcus. Marcus, what do you say to Marcas? Last time we started with some stories, some moral dilemmas about trams, doctors and healthy patients vulnerable to being victims of organ transplants. We notice two things about the arguments we had. One had to do with the way we argued.
It began with our trials in cases individuals. We were trying to articulate the reasons or principles behind our judgments and then, confronted With a new case, we found ourselves reexamining those principles, revising each in the light of the other. We notice the inherent pressure to try to align our judgments on cases individuals with the principles that we would support after reflection.
We also noticed something about the substance of the arguments that arose from the discussion. We notice that sometimes we we were tempted to place morality of an act in the consequences, in the results, in the state of the world that produced. We call that reasoning. consequentialist morality, but we also notice that in some cases did not convince us, only the results.
Sometimes many of us we feel that not only the consequences, but also the quality or character intrinsic nature of the act matters morally. Some argued that there are certain things that are categorically incorrect, even if they produce a good result, even if they save five people at the cost of a life. so we contrast moral principles consequentialists with the categorical ones.
Today in the next few days we will begin to examine one of the most recent versions influential moral theory consequentialist and that is the philosophy of utilitarianism. Jeremy Betam, the political philosopher Englishman of the 17th century, gave the first systematic and clear expression to the utilitarian moral theory.
Betam’s idea, its essential idea, is very simple and has a lot of moral appeal intuitive. Betam’s idea is the following. It correct, fair, is to maximize the utility. What did you mean by usefulness? I wanted say the balance of pleasure over pain, of happiness over suffering. That’s how it got to the beginning maximize utility.
He began by observing that all of us, all human beings, we are ruled by two sovereign masters, the pain and pleasure. We humans we like pleasure and we don’t like pain. Therefore, we should base the morality, whether thinking about what to do in our own lives or as legislators or citizens, thinking about how the laws should be, in acting so as to maximize the overall level of happiness.
Betama’s utilitarianism is sometimes sums up the greatest happiness with the motto for the greatest number. With this basic principle of usefulness in hand, let’s try it and examine it turning to another case, another story, but this time not a story hypothetical, but a true story, the Queen’s case against Dudley and Stephens.
This was a British legal case from 19th century, famous and much debated in law faculties. This is what it happened. I will summarize the story and then I want hear how you would fail imagining that they are the jury. A newspaper report from the time described the context. It was never told a sadder story of disaster in the sea than that of the survivors of the mignonette yacht.
The ship was wrecked in the South Atlantic 13 miles from the cape. There were four in the crew. Dudley was the captain. Stepens was the first officer. Next era a sailor, all men of excellent character,” the report said. The fourth crew member was the cabin boy Richard Parker, 17 years old. He was an orphan, had no family and was on his first long sea voyage.
It was, the report said, rather against the advice from his friends. It was with the hope of youthful ambition, thinking that the trip would be done by a man. Unfortunately it wasn’t going to be like that. The facts of the case were not in dispute. A wave hit the boat and the mignonette sank The four crew members They escaped to a lifeboat.
The only food they had was two tins of preserved ships. They didn’t have fresh water. The first three days they didn’t eat anything. On the fourth day They opened one of the ship cans and They ate it. The next day they caught a turtle that together with the other can of ships allowed him to survive the following days.
Then, for 8 days they had nothing, no food, no water. Imagine yourself in a situation like that, what would you do? This is what they did. By then cabin boy Porker was lying at the bottom of the lifeboat, in a corner, because he had drunk sea water against the advice of others, he had sick and seemed to be dying.
So on the 19th, Dudley, the captain He suggested that they should do a lottery, let everyone cast lots to see who I would die to save the rest. Brock he denied. He didn’t like the idea of the lottery. We don’t know if it was because he didn’t want to. take the risk or because I believed in categorical moral principles, but in any case they were not done luck.
The next day there was still no ship in sight. So Dudley told Proxara the looked and made a sign to Stepens that It was better to kill the Parker boy. Dudley offered a prayer, told the boy that his time had come and killed with a knife by stabbing him in the jugular vein. Brock came out of his conscientious objection to share the macabre loot.
During 4 days, the three fed on the body and blood of the cabin boy. History real. and then they were rescued. Dudley described his rescue in his diary with chilling irony. Al vi4 day, while we were having breakfast, a ship at last. The three survivors They were picked up by a German ship, taken back to Falmus, England, where they were arrested and courts.
Brock became a prosecution witness. Dudley and Stepens went to trial. No They disputed the facts. They claimed they acted out of necessity. That was his defense. They argued, in effect, it was better that one died so that three could save. The prosecutor He was not convinced by that argument. He said, “Murder is murder.
” And so the case went to trial. now Imagine that you are the jury. For simplify the discussion, let’s stop aside the legal issue. Suppose that you as a juror have the task of deciding whether what they did was morally permissible or not. how many would vote not guilty than what Did they do it was morally permissible? And how many would vote guilty than what What they did was morally wrong? A fairly large majority.
Now let’s look at people’s reasons. Let’s start with those who are in the minority, the defenders. Let’s hear Dudley’s defense first and Stepens. Why would they be morally exonerated? Student, defense I think it is morally reprehensible, but there is a difference between what is morally reprehensible and what it does to someone legally responsible.
As the judge said, what is not always morality does not necessarily go against law. And although I don’t think the need justify robbery or murder, in at some point the degree of need if exonerates you from all blame. Sandel, others defenders, moral justifications of what they did. Mark, I feel that in such a situation desperate you have to do what you have to do to survive.
Sandel, you have to do what you have what to do Marcus, basically, If you have gone 19 days without food, someone has to make the sacrifice and people can survive. And furthermore, let’s say they survive and then They become productive members of the society they return home and found a million charities. They benefit everyone in the end.
I don’t know what they did next. maybe They went and killed more people, but whatever. S. What if they returned home and Will they turn out to be hired killers? Marcus, well I would like to know who they murdered Sandel, that’s true too. Alright. What is your name? Marcus. We have heard the defense. now Let’s listen to the accusation.
Most people think that what they did It was bad. Why, Brit? One of the first things I thought was, “If you haven’t eaten for a long time, perhaps his mental state was affected. That could be used for defense. No They were in their right mind. They took decisions they would not otherwise make. But if that argument is attractive, you had to be in an altered mind to do something like that, suggests that those they find it convincing they believe that They acted immorally.
But I want to know what you think. you You voted guilty, right? I don’t think to act morally appropriate. Sandel, and why not? What do you say to Marquez? Did you hear what he said? you have you have to do what you have to do. Brit, there is no situation that allows beings humans take fate or life others in their own hands.
we don’t have that power. Sandel. And your name? Reid. Who else? Katlen, I wonder if Dudley and Stepens would have asked for the Richard Parker’s consent if that would have exonerated them from the act of murder. And if so, would it be morally Justifiable? Sandel, that’s interesting. consent. What’s your name? Katlen.
Katlen proposes a scenario Dudley with the knife in his hand, but instead of the sentence Parker says, do you Does it matter? We are desperately hungry You’re not going to last long. Of he can be a martyr anyway. What do you it seems? Assuming that Parker in his semi-stupor says, “Okay, I’d be morally justified. So, Katlen, I don’t think it’s morally justifiable.
But I wonder, Sandel, not even with consent. There are those who think that the consent would do it morally justified. Why would consent make a moral difference? student in favor of consent, if it was your own original idea and it was your idea from the beginning, then it would be the only situation I would see it in appropriate, because this would not be possible argue that he was pressured.
And if he made the decision to give his life, took on the agency to sacrifice himself, which some might see as admirable. Sandel, someone who thinks that neither not even Parker’s consent would justify killing him. Student, against, I think Parker would be killed in the hope that the others were rescued. There is no definitive reason why he should be killed, because you don’t know when They will be rescued.
If you kill him, you kill him in vain. And if you continue killing crew members until They rescue you and you end up with no one. Sandel, if Parker gave his consent, would that be okay? Student, no. It still wouldn’t be right. Sandel, why not? student, First, cannibalism is morally incorrect. You shouldn’t eat a human at all anyways, Sandel.
someone who can explain why consent does a moral difference. What about the lottery idea? That counts as consent. Remember that at the beginning Tudley He proposed a lottery. Suppose they had agreed on a lottery. How many would then say that Was it good? How many would say it is Morally permissible? The numbers are going up if we add the lottery Let’s listen to someone for whom lottery would make a moral difference.
Why what, mat? The essential element that me makes it a crime is the idea that at some point they decided that Their lives were more important than him. That is the basis of any crime, which my needs and desires are more important than yours and have priority. If they had done a lottery where everyone agreed that someone should die, as if everyone were sacrificing to save the rest, then it would be fine.
Sandel, a little Grotesque, but morally permissible. Matt. Yes. Sandel. And your name? Matt. So, Mat, what’s bothering you isn’t cannibalism, but the lack of due process. Matt, I guess you could say that, Sandel, someone who agrees with Mat, why would the lottery do it morally permissible? Student two. The point was that the cabin boy was never consulted.
In the lottery everyone knows there will be a death. The cabin boy did not know that this discussion It was even happening. Sandel, suppose everyone accepts the lottery. The cabin boy loses and changes opinion. Student two, you already decided. It’s like a verbal contract. you can’t go back. You know that you are dying so that others live and if another had died, you would consume.
Sandel. But he might say, “I know, but I lost. The moral problem is that they were not consulted to the grunet If he had known what happened, it would be more understandable. Sandel, I want to finally hear those of you who think that even with consent, even with lottery, even with a murmur of Parker’s consent in the last moment would still be bad.
Why, categorical student, all the time I have leaned towards moral reasoning categorical. I could accept the idea of the lottery and let the loser commit suicide so that there is an act of murder. But even then it is coercive and also there is no remorse. In Dudley’s diary, while we had breakfast it seems as if he didn’t value the life of the other.
That makes me lean for the categorical stance. Sandel, do you want me to drop all the weight of the law for its lack of remorse? Okay, student two. I think without a doubt In our society murder is murder. Society sees it the same way all cases. It is not different in no case. Sandel, let me make you one he asks.
There were three lives at stake against one. The crumete had no family, he had no dependents. The other three had families in England, wives and children. think about Betam. Betam says that we must consider well-being, usefulness, happiness of everyone. You have to add it all up. It’s not just numbers, three against one, but also all those people at home.
The London newspapers sympathized with them. They said that if they were not motivated for the affection and concern for his loved ones, they would not have done it. Student two. And how is it different that thing about the people on the corner he tries to feed his family with it same desire? I don’t think it’s any different.
If I kill you to improve my status, that’s murder. We should see all of that the same way. It’s the same act and the same mentality. The need to feed your families. Sandel. What if there weren’t three? What if Was it 30? one life to save 300 or 3,000? Yes The stakes were even higher. Student two.
I still think that’s what same. Sandel. Do you think Betam was wrong to say that the right thing is add collective happiness? Student two. I don’t think he is wrong, but I think murder is murder in any case, Sandel. So, Betam has to be wrong. If you are right, student two. So, he is wrong. Sandel. Very good, well done. Let’s step back from this discussion and note How many objections have we heard? We hear defenses based on necessity, the terrible circumstance and, at least implicitly, the idea that numbers matter.
And not only the numbers, also the most their families, their dependents. Parker was an orphan, no one I would miss If you add, if you try to calculate the balance of happiness and suffering, you could argue that what they did It was correct. Then we heard at least three different types of objections. We heard an objection that said What they did was categorically incorrect.
In the end, murder is Murder is always wrong, even if increases overall happiness society. It is the categorical objection. But we still have to investigate why murder is categorically incorrect. It is because even the cabin boys have certain fundamental rights. And if that’s the reason, where do they come from those rights? Don’t they come from some idea of well-being, usefulness or general happiness? That’s question number one.
Others They said a lottery would make a difference, a fair procedure, Matt. Some were convinced by that. That’s not exactly an objection. categorical, but rather it says that all should be counted as equal, although at the end of the day one can be sacrificed for the general welfare. That leaves us with another question for investigate.
Why the agreement to a certain procedure, even a fair one, justifies any result derive from your operation? That’s question number two. And the third, the basic idea of Consent, Catleen. If the cabin boy had accepted voluntarily and without coercion They will take their lives to save others, then it would be fine. Even more people agreed with that idea.
But that raises a third philosophical question. What moral work do you consent? Why does an act of consent a moral difference such that an act that would it be wrong? Take a life without consent is morally permissible with consent. To investigate these three questions we’re going to have to read some philosophers. And starting next time we will read Betam and John Stewart Mill, philosophers utilitarians.
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