Ethics and Practical Dilemmas: Torture in Desperate Times

1. A madman who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been apprehended. Unfortunately, he has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It is possible that hundreds of people may die. He refuses to say anything and requests a lawyer to protect his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. Do you agree? If you do, would it also be morally justifiable to torture the mad bomber’s innocent wife if that is the only way to make him talk? Why? • Is torture wrong? If so, why?

2. The Trolly Problem

3. Ethics • Ethics: moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity. • Generally, the goal of ethical theory is to provide a systematic answer to the question: “how should we behave?”

4. Theory 1. Moral Objectivism • Moral Objectivism: What is morally right or wrong doesn’t depend on what anyone thinks is right or wrong. 'Moral facts' are like 'physical' facts in that what the facts are does not depend on what anyone thinks they are.  They simply have to be discovered. • The position that moral truths exist independently from opinion.  • E.g., Divine Command Theory – what’s right is what God commands; what’s wrong is what God forbids

5. Theory 2. Moral Relativism • Moral Relativism: What is morally right or wrong depends on the prevailing view in the society or culture we happen to be dealing with. • Often presented as a tolerant view: ‘if moral relativism is true, no one has a right to force his moral views on others.’ • Increasingly popular in recent years • Did this change with Sept. 11?

6. Objectivist Theories • Suppose for the moments that objectivism is true. What are the objective facts of morality? • Main Candidates: • Consequentialism • Deontological Theories

7. Theory 3: Consequentialism • Consequentialists maintain that whether an action is morally right or wrong depends on the action's consequences.  • In any situation, the morally right thing to do is whatever will have the best consequences. • Consequentialist theories are sometimes called teleological theories.

8. What Kind of Consequences? • Consequentialism isn't very informative unless it's combined with a theory about what the best consequences are. • Utilitarianism is such a theory. • Utilitarianism is the most influential variety of consequentialism

9. Utilitarianism • The Basis of Utilitarianism:  ask what has intrinsic value and assess the consequences of an action in terms of intrinsically valuable things. • Instrumental Value - a thing has only instrumental value if it is only valuable for what it may get you • e.g., money • Intrinsic Value - a thing has intrinsic value if you value it for itself • i.e., you’d value it even if it brought you nothing else • What, if anything, has intrinsic value?

10. Only Happiness has Intrinsic Value • What Utilitarians Think Is Intrinsically Valuable:  happiness (or pleasure or satisfaction…) • "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." (John Stuart Mill's Greatest Happiness Principle) • In other words, judge an action by the total amount of happiness and unhappiness it creates

11. Theory 4: Deontology • 'Duty Based' Ethics • Deontologists deny that what ultimately matters is an action's consequences.  • They claim that what matters is the kind of action it is. What matters is doing our duty.

12. Kantian Deontology • Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is the most influential deontologist. • Rejecting Consequentialism:  "A good will is good not because of what it effects or accomplishes." Even if by bad luck a good person never accomplishes anything much, the good will would "like a jewel, still shine by its own light as something which has its full value in itself."

13. In Kant’s view, the moral worth of an action is not determined by its consequences because: 1. It is possible that someone does something out of evil intention, but ends up bringing good consequences to society. 2. It is also possible that someone does something out of good intention, but ends up bringing about bad consequences. 3. The consequences of an action are not under our control. 4. We can only control our motives when acting as a moral person. 5. Therefore the moral worth of an action is given by our good will.

14. The Categorical Imperative • Kant claims that all our actions should be judged according to a rule he calls the Categorical Imperative.  • First Version:  "Act only according to that maxim [i.e., rule] whereby you can at the same time will that it become a universal law." • Second Version:  "Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end and never simply as a means." • Important to treat people as autonomous agents

15. Lying Is Wrong Because… • If everybody lies, then words lose its function to express truth. The principle of lying therefore cannot be universalized. • Lying can be successful only if we use other people’s ignorance. But in this case we are treating them only as a means to our ends.

16. Problems • Deontology: What if doing your duty has repugnant consequences? • Kant on telling lies • Consequentialism: What if you have to do something that seems wrong in order to produce the best consequences? • Convicting the innocent

17. Social Contract Theory MORALITY AS BASED ON CONTRACTS?

18. The Origins of the State Imagine being without a government – what is it like? IS this a desirable place to live? ‘State of nature’: no political organization, no laws. Everyone is “free” • How does political organization begin? Why have a state at all?

19. THOMAS HOBBES AND THE STATE OF NATURE • S.O.N, is a state of ‘war,’ all against all. • Life is ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ • The only law or rule is self-preservation.

20. Escaping the State of Nature • Hobbes proposes that it is in our own self-interest to make a covenant or contract with the aim in preserving peace and respecting human life. This of course would mean the abandonment of the state of nature. People would agree to trust the judgements of an agreed person or assembly of people, who in return could offer a more secure and substantial way of living than that of the savage free-for-all of the state of nature.

21. HOBBES ON SOCIAL CONTRACTS • When self-preservation is threatened, it is rational to agree to political (from Greek politēs - citizens)  organization • Agree with others to give up natural right to absolute freedom and submit to law • But before we have agreed, how can we trust others to keep the contract? • The Free Rider Problem: While others play by the rules, it benefits individuals to break them.

22. THE LEVIATHAN • Biblical monster • The “coercive power” that scares people into compliance • Must be stronger than any one person or any group of people. • “covenants without the swords are but words.”

23. The Sovereign as the Source of Morality • There are two ways of identifying the sovereign. The sovereign in a society is a person or body of persons who: • has been given the right of governing through the social contract. (Lev. ch. 17, par. 13). • has the three “marks” of sovereignty, namely, control of the military, ability to raise money, and control of religious doctrines. (Lev. ch. 18, par. 16).

24. The Sovereign as the Source of Morality • The Sovereign is the only thing standing between order and chaos. • Hobbes believed there should be no right to revolution on ideological grounds. • No one has the right to overthrow the sovereign and install a new one or to change the form of the state

25. LD RESOLUTION OPTIONS • Resolved: Wealthy nations have an obligation to provide development assistance to other nations. • Resolved: Oppressive government is more desirable than no government. • Resolved: Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices. • Resolved: Public health concerns justify compulsory immunization. • Resolved: In the United States, national service ought to be compulsory.

26. 3B – LD RESOLUTION • Resolved: The United States ought to prioritize the pursuit of national security objectives above the digital privacy of its citizens.

27. 1A - RESOLUTION • Resolved: Adolescents ought to have the right to make autonomous medical choices.