Today we did not have discussion groups because Anthony gave his presentation and we all had questions and inputs about it. First off Phil asked our input on his improvements for teaching next semester. Then we went over the reading about Foot, Thomson, Rawls, Wolff, Moyers, and Campbell. The philosophers dealt mainly in thought experiments like the trolley conundrum and the un wanted violinist. Whereas the Campbell supported the power of myths. In the trolley conundrum I would think that if the five pedestrians were frail old people with one foot in the grave and the one person on the other track was an early to middle aged adult then I would run over the old people. Yes it sounds evil but the old people have ten to twenty good years left before dimension or Alzheimer's sets in while the younger person, assuming they don't act as dumb or dumber then now, has sixty to eighty. If the idiots were all the same age then I would definitely run over the one person and if the ages were reversed in my first scenario. So I guess my comment discussion is what scenario would make you chose what group to run over.
I'm Lee Gish and this is artificial selection at work
FQ-American Philosopher John Searle was born when? (1932)
ReplyDeleteDQ- Do you judge people if they are smart or not by just looking at them?
Comment- I thought that his presentation was well prepared and made his point across smoothly
Link-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFQ0Spu50Oc short and to the point and clear to understand
It's a hard decision, and I'm really not sure you can say there is a right or wrong. You may have personal beliefs about which decision would make you feel better, but can you really assert that onto others and say everyone should make that decision? I do think that it makes sense to kill the one, but I don't have any confidence that I'd actually do it in the moment. But really, you don't know which one is better, because you don't know who the people are. Even if you did, who are you to make that judgement?
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of this show I watched once called Monster. In the show, there's a genius brain surgeon, and one day two patients come in who both need immediate attention. One is a little orphan boy, and the other a powerful political figure. He can only operate on one, and nobody else can perform the surgery, so whichever one he picks he knows the other will die. The boy came in first, but the doctor is ordered to operate on the powerful man instead because he is more important. He ignores the order, believing that it's his moral obligation to operate on whoever is first in line, regardless of who they are. He saves the boy, the powerful man dies, and he spends the next ten years believing he did the right thing. Eventually, however, he finds out the boy had become a serial killer and due to his decision dozens more died. So in the end, which decision was the right one?
(16-1) If they can't get themselves off the track, they deserve to get hit by a train. They had no business hanging out on the tracks anyways.
ReplyDeleteYou're being a bit literal. Not to mention heartless.
ReplyDelete