Funding for this program is provided by...Additional funding provided by...This is a course about justice and we begin with a you're the driver of a trolley car, and your trolley car is hurtling down the trackat miles an hour. And at the end of the track you notice five workers working on the try to stop but you can't, your brakes don't feel desperate because you know that if you crash into these five workers, they will all 's assume you know that for so you feel helpless until you notice that there is, off to the right, a side track and at the endof that track, there is one worker working on the steering wheel works,so you can turn the trolley car,if you want to,onto the side trackkilling the one but sparing the 's our first question:what's the right thing to doWhat would you doLet's take a many would turnthe trolley caronto the side trackRaise your many wouldn'tHow many would go straight aheadKeep your hands up those of youwho would go straight handful of people would,the vast majority would 's hear first,now we need to beginto investigate the reasonswhy you thinkit's the right thing to 's begin with those in the majoritywho would turn to goonto the side would you do itWhat would be your reasonWho's willing to volunteer a reasonGo ahead. Stand it can't be rightto kill five peoplewhen you can onlykill one person wouldn't be rightto kill five if you could killone person 's a good 's a good elseDoes everybody agreewith that reason Go I was thinking it's the same reasonon / with regardto the people who flew the planeinto the Pennsylvania fieldas heroes because they choseto kill the people on the planeand not kill more peoplein big the principle therewas the same on /.It's a tragic circumstancebut better to kill oneso that five can live,is that the reasonmost of you had,those of youwho would turn YesLet's hear nowfrom those in the minority,those who wouldn't turn. , I think that'sthe same type of mentalitythat justifies genocideand order to saveone type of race,you wipe out the what would you doin this caseYou would, toavoidthe horrors of genocide,you would crashinto the five and kill themPresumably, would. Who elseThat's a brave 's consideranother trolley car caseand see whether those of youin the majoritywant to adhereto the principle"better that one should dieso that five should live."This time you're not the driverof the trolley car,you're an 're standing on a bridgeoverlooking a trolley car down the track comesa trolley car,at the end of the trackare five workers,the brakes don't work,the trolley caris about to careeninto the five and kill now, you're not the driver,you really feel helplessuntil you noticestanding next to you,leaning over the bridgeis a very fat you couldgive him a would fall over the bridgeonto the track right in the wayof the trolley would diebut he would spare the , how many would pushthe fat man over the bridgeRaise your many wouldn'tMost people wouldn''s the obvious became of the principle"better to save five liveseven if it means sacrificing one"What became of the principlethat almost everyone endorsedin the first caseI need to hear from someonewho was in the majorityin both do you explainthe difference between the two second one, I guess,involves an active choiceof pushing a person downwhich I guess that person himselfwould otherwise not have beeninvolved in the situation at so to choose on his behalf,I guess, to involve himin something that heotherwise would have escaped is,I guess, more than whatyou have in the first casewhere the three parties,the driver and the two sets of workers,are already, I guess,in the the guy working,the one on the trackoff to the side,he didn't chooseto sacrifice his life any morethan the fat man did, did heThat's true, but he wason the tracks and...This guy was on the ahead, you can come backif you want. All 's a hard question. You did did very 's a hard else can find a wayof reconciling the reactionof the majorityin these two cases , I guess in the first casewhere you have the one workerand the five,it's a choice between those twoand you have to makea certainchoice and peopleare going to diebecause of the trolley car,not necessarily becauseof your direct trolley car is a runaway thingand you're making a split second pushing the fat man overis an actual actof murder on your have control over thatwhereas you may not have controlover the trolley I think it's a slightlydifferent right, who has a replyThat's good. Who has a wayWho wants to replyIs that a way out of thisI don't think that'sa very good reasonbecause you choose to-either way you have to choosewho dies because you eitherchoose to turn and kill the person,which is an actof conscious thought to turn,or you choose to pushthe fat man overwhich is also an active,conscious either way,you're making a you want to replyI'm not really surethat that's the just still seemskind of act of actually pushingsomeone over onto the tracksand killing him,you are actually killing him 're pushing himwith your own 're pushing himand that's differentthan steering somethingthat is going to causedeath into know, it doesn't really sound rightsaying it , no. It's good. It's 's your name me ask you this question, standing on the bridgenext to the fat man,I didn't have to push him,suppose he was standing overa trap door that I could openby turning a steering wheel like you turnFor some reason,that still just seems more I mean, maybe if you accidentallylike leaned into the steering wheelor something like ... Or say thatthe car is hurtlingtowards a switchthat will drop the I could agree with 's all right. Fair still seems wrong in a waythat it doesn't seem wrongin the first case to turn, you in another way, I mean,in the first situationyou're involved directlywith the the second one,you're an onlooker as right. -So you have the choiceof becoming involved or notby pushing the fat right. Let's forget for the momentabout this 's 's imagine a different time you're a doctorin an emergency roomand six patientscome to 've been in a terribletrolley car of themsustain moderate injuries,one is severely injured,you could spendall daycaring for the oneseverely injured victimbut in that time,the five would you could look after the five,restore them to healthbut during that time,the one severely injured personwould many would save the fiveNow as the doctor,how many would save the oneVery few people,just a handful of reason, I life versus fiveNow consider another doctor time, you're a transplant surgeonand you have five patients,each in desperate needof an organ transplantin order to needs a heart,one a lung, one a kidney,one a liver,and the fifth a you have no organ are about to see them then it occurs to youthat in the next roomthere's a healthy guywho came in for a he's – you like that –and he's taking a nap,you could go in very quietly,yank out the five organs,that person would die,but you could save the many would do itAnyone How manyPut your hands upif you would do in the balconyI would Be careful,don't lean over too many wouldn'tAll right. What do you saySpeak up in the balcony,you who would yank outthe organs. WhyI'd actually like to explore aslightly alternate possibilityof just taking the oneof the five who needs an organwho dies first and usingtheir four healthy organsto save the other 's a pretty good 's a great ideaexcept for the factthat you just wreckedthe philosophical 's step back from these storiesand these argumentsto notice a couple of thingsabout the way the argumentshave begun to moral principleshave already begun to emergefrom the discussions we've let's considerwhat those moral principles look first moral principlethat emerged in the discussionsaid the right thing to do,the moral thing to dodepends on the consequencesthat will result from your the end of the day,better that five should liveeven if one must 's an exampleof consequentialist moral moral reasoninglocates moralityin the consequences of an act,in the state of the worldthat will result from the thing you then we went a little further,we considered those other casesand people weren't so sureabout consequentialist moral peoplehesitatedto push the fat manover the bridgeor to yank out the organsof the innocent patient,people gestured toward reasonshaving to do withthe intrinsic qualityof the act itself,consequences be what they were thought it was just wrong,categorically wrong,to kill a person,an innocent person,even for the sakeof saving five least people thoughtthat in the second versionof each story we this pointsto a second categorical wayof thinking about moral moral reasoninglocates moralityin certain absolutemoral requirements,certain categorical duties and rights,regardless of the 're going to explorein the days and weeks to comethe contrast betweenconsequentialist and categoricalmoral most influential exampleof consequential moral reasoningis utilitarianism,a doctrine inventedby Jeremy Bentham,the th centuryEnglish political most important philosopherof categorical moral reasoningis the th centuryGerman philosopher Immanuel we will lookat those two different modesof moral reasoning,assess them,and also consider you look at the syllabus,you'll notice that we reada number of greatand famous books,books by Aristotle, John Locke,Immanuel Kant, John Stewart Mill,and 'll notice toofrom the syllabusthat we don't onlyread these books;we also take up contemporary,political, and legal controversiesthat raise philosophical will debate equality and inequality,affirmative action, free speech versushate speech, same sex marriage,military conscription,a range of practical questions. WhyNot just to enliventhese abstract and distant booksbut to make clear,to bring out what's at stakein our everyday lives,including our political lives,for so we will read these booksand we will debate these issues,and we'll see how each informsand illuminates the may sound appealing enough,but here I have to issue a the warning is this,to read these booksin this way as an exercisein self knowledge,to read them in this waycarries certain risks,risks that are both personaland political,risksthat every studentof political philosophy has risks spring from the factthat philosophy teaches usand unsettles usby confronting us withwhat we already 's an difficulty of this courseconsists in the factthat it teacheswhat you already works by taking what we knowfrom familiar unquestioned settingsand making it 's how those examples worked,the hypotheticals with which we began,with their mix of playfulnessand 's also how thesephilosophical books estranges usfrom the familiar,not by supplying new informationbut by inviting and provokinga new way of seeing but,and here's the risk,once the familiar turns strange,it's never quite the same knowledge is like lost innocence,however unsettling you find it;it can never be un-thoughtor makes this enterprise difficultbut also rivetingis that moral and political philosophyis a story and you don't knowwhere the story will what you do knowis that the story is about are the personal what of the political risksOne way of introducing a courselike this would be to promise youthat by reading these booksand debating these issues,you will become a better,more responsible citizen;you will examine the presuppositionsof public policy,you will hone your political judgment,you will become a moreeffective participant in public this would be a partialand misleading philosophy,for the most part,hasn't worked that have to allow for the possibilitythat political philosophymay make you a worse citizenrather than a better oneor at least a worse citizenbefore it makes you a better one,and that's becausephilosophy is a distancing,even debilitating, you see this,going back to Socrates,there's a dialogue,the Gorgias, in whichone of Socrates' friends, Callicles,tries to talk him out tells Socrates"Philosophy is a pretty toyif one indulges in itwith moderationat the right time of life. But if onepursues it further than one should,it is absolute ruin.""Take my advice," Callicles says,"abandon the accomplishmentsof active life,take for your modelsnot those people whospendtheir time on these petty quibblesbut those who have a good livelihoodand reputation and manyother blessings."So Callicles is really saying to Socrates"Quit philosophizing, get real,go to business school."And Callicles did have a had a point because philosophydistances us from conventions,from established assumptions,and from settled are the risks,personal and in the faceof these risks,there is a characteristic name of the evasionis skepticism, it's the idea –well, it goes something like this –we didn't resolve once and for alleither the cases or the principleswe were arguing when we beganand if Aristotle and Lockeand Kant and Millhaven't solved these questionsafter all of these years,who are we to think that we,here in Sanders Theatre,over the course of a semester,can resolve themAnd so, maybe it's just a matterof each person having his or her ownprinciples and there's nothing moreto be said about it,no way of 's the evasion,the evasion of skepticism,to which I would offerthe following 's true, these questions have beendebated for a very long timebut the very factthat they have recurred and persistedmay suggest that thoughthey're impossible in one sense,they're unavoidable in the reason they're unavoidable,the reason they're inescapableis that we live some answerto these questions every skepticism, just throwing up your handsand giving up on moral reflectionis no Kant described very wellthe problem with skepticismwhen he wrote"Skepticism is a resting placefor human reason,where it can reflect uponits dogmatic wanderings,but it is no dwelling placefor permanent settlement.""Simply to acquiesce in skepticism,"Kant wrote,"can never suffice to overcomethe restlessness of reason."I've tried to suggestthrough these storiesand these argumentssome sense of the risksand temptations,of the perils and the would simply conclude by sayingthat the aim of this courseis to awaken the restlessness of reasonand to see where it might you very , in a situation thatdesperate,you have to dowhat you have to do to have to do what you have to doYou got to dowhat you got to do, pretty you've been going dayswithout any food, you know,someone just hasto take the has to make the sacrificeand people can , that's 's your name, what do you say to MarcusLast time,we started out last timewith some stories,with some moral dilemmasabout trolley carsand about doctorsand healthy patientsvulnerable to being victimsof organ noticed two thingsabout the arguments we had,one had to do with the waywe were began with our judgmentsin particular tried to articulate the reasonsor the principles lying behindour then confrontedwith a new case,we found ourselvesreexamining those principles,revising eachin the light of the we noticed thebuilt in pressureto try to bring into alignmentour judgmentsabout particular casesand the principleswe would endorseon also noticed somethingabout the substanceof the argumentsthat emerged from the noticed that sometimeswe were tempted to locatethe morality of an actin the consequences, in the results,in the state of the worldthat it brought we called thisconsequentialist moral we also noticedthat in some cases,we weren't swayedonly by the , many of us felt,that not just consequencesbut also the intrinsic qualityor characterof the act matters people arguedthat there are certain thingsthat are just categorically wrongeven if they bring abouta good result,even if they saved five peopleat the cost of one we contrasted consequentialistmoral principles with categorical and in the next few days,we will begin to examineone of the most influential versionsof consequentialist moral that's the philosophyof Bentham,the th centuryEnglish political philosophergave first the first clearsystematic expressionto the utilitarian moral Bentham's idea,his essential idea,is a very simple a lot of morallyintuitive appeal,Bentham's ideais the following,the right thing to do;the just thing to dois to maximize did he mean byutilityHe meant by utilitythe balance of pleasure over pain,happiness over 's how he arrivedat the principle of maximizing started out by observingthat all of us,all human beings are governedby two sovereign masters:pain and human beingslike pleasure and dislike so we should base morality,whether we're thinking aboutwhat to do in our own livesor whether as legislators or citizens,we're thinking aboutwhat the laws should right thing to do individuallyor collectively is to maximize,act in a way that maximizesthe overall level of 's utilitarianismis sometimes summed upwith the slogan"The greatest goodfor the greatest number."With this basic principleof utility on hand,let's begin to test itand to examine itby turning to another case,another story, but this time,not a hypothetical story,a real life story,the case of the Queenversus Dudley and was a th centuryBritish law casethat's famous and much debatedin law 's what happened in the 'll summarize the storythen I want to hearhow you would rule,imagining that you were the newspaper account of the timedescribed the sadder story of disasterat sea was never toldthan that of the survivorsof the yacht, ship flounderedin the South Atlantic, miles from the were four in the crew,Dudley was the captain,Stevens was the first mate,Brooks was a sailor,all men of excellent characteror so the newspaper account tells fourth crew memberwas the cabin boy,Richard Parker, years was an orphan,he had no family,and he was on his firstlong voyage at went,the news account tells us,rather against the adviceof his went in the hopefulnessof youthful ambition,thinking the journeywould make a man of , it was not to facts of the casewere not in wave hit the shipand the Mignonette went four crew membersescaped to a only food they hadwere two cans ofpreserved turnips,no fresh the first three days,they ate the fourth day,they opened oneof the cans of turnipsand ate next daythey caught a with the othercan of turnips,the turtle enabled themto subsist for the next few then for eight days,theyhad food. No yourselfin a situation like that,what would you doHere's what they now the cabin boy, Parker,is lying at the bottomof the lifeboatin the cornerbecause he had drunk seawateragainst the advice of the othersand he had become illand he appeared to be on the th day,Dudley, the captain,suggested that they should allhave a lottery,that they should draw lotsto see who would dieto save the didn't like the lottery don't knowwhether this wasbecause he didn't wantto take the chanceor because he believedin categorical moral in any case,no lots were next daythere was still no ship in sightso Dudley told Brooksto avert his gazeand he motioned to Stevensthat the boy, Parker,had better be offered a prayer,he told the boy his time had come,and he killed himwith a pen knife,stabbing himin the jugular emergedfrom his conscientious objectionto sharein the gruesome four days,the three of them fedon the body and bloodof the cabin then they were describes their rescuein his diary with staggering euphemism."On the th day,as we were having our breakfast,a ship appeared at last."The three survivorswere picked up by a German were taken backto Falmouth in Englandwhere they were arrestedand turned state's and Stevens went to didn't dispute the claimed they hadacted out of necessity;that was their argued in effectbetter that one should dieso that three could prosecutor wasn't swayedby that said murder is murder,and so the case went to imagine you are the just to simplify the discussion,put aside the question of law,let's assume that you as the juryare charged with decidingwhether what they didwas morally permissible or many would vote'not guilty',that what they didwas morally permissibleAnd how manywould vote 'guilty',what they did wasmorally wrongA pretty sizeable let's see what people's reasons areand let me begin with thosewho are in the 's hear first from the defenseof Dudley and would you morallyexonerate themWhat are your reasons think it is morallyreprehensiblebut I think thatthereis a distinctionbetween what's morally reprehensibleand what makes someonelegally other words,as the judge said,what's always moralisn't necessarily against the lawand while I don't thinkthat necessity justifies theftor murder or any illegal act,at some point your degreeof necessity does, in fact,exonerate you from any . Good. Other voices for the justificationsfor what they did. just feel likein the situation that desperate,you have to dowhat you have to do to have to dowhat you have to , you've got to dowhat you've got to you've been going days without any food, you know,someone just has to take the sacrifice,someone has to make the sacrificeand people can furthermore from that,let's say they surviveand then they become productivemembers of societywho go home and startlike a million charity organizationsand this and thatand this and mean they benefited everybodyin the end. , I mean I don't knowwhat they did afterwards,they might have gone and like,I don't know,killed more people, I don't but. -WhatMaybe they were if they went homeand they turned out to be assassinsWhat if they'd gone homeand turned out to be assassins Well…You'd want to knowwho they 's true too. That's 's fair. I would want to knowwho they right. That's 's your name. All 've heard a defense,a couple of voicesfor the we need to hearfrom the people thinkwhat they did was wrong. WhyYes. -One of the first thingsthat I was thinking wasthey haven't been eatingfor a really long timemaybe they're mentallylike affected and sothen that could be usedas a defense,a possible argumentthat they weren'tin the proper state of mind,they weren't making decisionsthey might otherwise be if that's an appealing argumentthat you have to bein an altered mindsetto do something like that,it suggests that peoplewho find that argument convincingdo think that they wereacting what do you-I want to knowwhat you defend 'm sorry, you vote to convict, rightYeah, I don't think thatthey acted in a morallyappropriate why notWhat do you say,here's Marcus,he justdefended said –you heard what he you've got to dowhat you've got to doin a case like that. do you say to MarcusThat there'sno situation that would allowhuman beings to take the ideaof fate orthe other people's livesin their own hands,that we don't havethat kind of . what's your name. Okay. Who elseWhat do you say Stand 'm wondering if Dudley and Stevenhad asked for Richard Parker'sconsent in you know, dying,if that would exonerate themfrom an act of murderand if so,is that still morally justifiableThat's right. wait, hang 's your name sayssuppose they had that,what would thatscenario look likeSo in the story Dudley is there,pen knife in hand,but instead of the prayeror before the prayer,he says "Parker, would you mind""We're desperately hungry",as Marcus empathizes with,"we're desperately 're not going to last long anyhow."-Yeah. You can be a martyr."Would you be a martyrHow about it Parker"Then what do you thinkWould it be morally justified thenSuppose Parkerin his semi-stupor says "Okay."I don't think it would bemorally justifiable but I'm wondering if –Even then, even then it wouldn't be don't think thateven with consentit would be morally justifiedAre there people who thinkwho want to take upKathleen's consent ideaand who think thatthat would make itmorally justifiedRaise your handif it would, if you think it 's very would consentmake a moral differenceWhy would it , I just thinkthat if he was makinghis own original ideaand it was his ideato start with,then that would bethe only situationin which I would see itbeing appropriate in any waybecause that wayyou couldn't make the argumentthat he was pressured,you know it's three-to-oneor whatever the ratio . -And I think that if he wasmaking a decisionto give his lifeand he took on the agencyto sacrifice himselfwhich some peoplemight see as admirableand other people might disagreewith that if he came upwith the idea,that's the only kindof consent we could haveconfidence in morallythen it would be , it would be kind ofcoerced consentunder the circumstances,you thereanyone who thinksthat even the consent of Parkerwould not justify their killing himWho thinks that us why. Stand think that Parkerwould be killed with the hopethat the other crew memberswould be rescued so there's nodefinite reason thathe should be killedbecause you don't knowwhen they're going to get rescuedso if you kill him,it's killing him in vain,do you keep killing a crew memberuntil you're rescuedand then you're left with no onebecause someone's goingto die eventuallyWell, the moral logicof the situation seems to be that,that they would keep onpicking off the weakest maybe,one by one,until they were in this case, luckily,they were rescued when three at leastwere still , if Parker did give his consent,would it be all right,do you think or notNo, it still wouldn't be tell us whyit wouldn't be all of all, cannibalism,I believe, is morally incorrectso you shouldn't beeating human cannibalism is morallyobjectionable as such so then,even on the scenario ofwaiting until someone died,still it would be , to me personally,I feel like it all dependson one's personal moralsand like we can't sit here and just,like this is just my opinion,of course other peopleare going to disagree, but –Well we'll see,let's see what their disagreements areand then we'll seeif they have reasons that canpersuade you or 's try that. All , is there someonewho can explain,those of you who aretempted by consent,can you explain whyconsent makes sucha moral differenceWhat about the lottery ideaDoes that count as consentRemember at the beginning,Dudley proposed a lottery,suppose that they had agreedto a lottery,then how many would then sayit was all rightSuppose there were a lottery,cabin boy lost,and the rest of the story unfolded,then how many people would sayit was morally permissibleSo the numbers are risingif we had a 's hear from one of youfor whom the lotterywould make a moral would itI think the essential element,in my mind,that makes it a crimeis the idea that they decidedat some point that their liveswere more important than his,andthat, I mean, that's kind ofthe basis for really any It's like my needs,my desires are more importantthan yours and minetake if they had done a lotterywhere everyone consentedthat someone should dieand it's sort of like they're allsacrificing themselvesto save the it would be all rightA little grotesque but–.-But morally permissible what's your name Matt, for you,what bothers you isnot the cannibalismbut the lack of due guess you could say And can someone who agreeswith Matt say a little bit moreabout why a lottery would make it,in your view, morally way I understood itoriginally was thatthat was the whole issueis that the cabin boywas never consultedabout whether or notsomething was goingto happen to him,even with the original lotterywhether or nothe would bea part of that,it was just decidedthat he was the onethat was going to , that's what happenedin the actual if there were a lotteryand they'd all agreed to the procedure,you think that would be okayRight, because then everyoneknows that there's going to be a death,whereas the cabin boy didn't know thatthis discussion was even happening,there was no forewarningfor him to know that"Hey, I may be the one that's dying."All , suppose everyone agreesto the lottery, they have the lottery,the cabin boy loses,and he changes his 've already decided,it's like a verbal can't go back on that,you've decided,the decision was you know that you're dyingfor the reason of others to someone else had died,you know that you wouldconsume them so –Right. But then you could say,"I know, but I lost".I just think thatthat's the whole moral issueis that there was no consultingof the cabin boyand that's what makes itthe most horribleis that he had no ideawhat was even going had he knownwhat was going on,it would be a bit right. I want to hear –so there are some who thinkit's morally permissiblebut only about %,led by there are some who saythe real problem hereis the lack of consent,whether the lack of consentto a lottery, to a fair procedure or,Kathleen's idea,lack of。
