You and three of your friends win a cruise for spring break.
The cruise is amazing for at least the first few days. Unfortunately, the
cruise ship starts to sink due to poor construction. Lucky for you and your
friends you are able to make it onto a lifeboat. So there you are floating on
the ocean with enough food for three days on a boat that surely should not
support ten people, however due to fortunate circumstances can. That is until a
storm comes and results in only six people left on the lifeboat. There are two
days left of food and your life raft is unable to further sustain you, your
friends, and the two other people. Here is the moral dilemma; there is a rescue
boat that can only fit five people. Who is to be left behind? The point in this
situation is that the crew of the rescue boat has to decide which five to
save. If you and your friends live, chances are you would decide to have
yourselves be saved unless of course someone in your group is self-sacrificing.
Utilitarianism’s main concept is what causes the greatest amount of pleasure
and the least amount of pain for the greatest amount of people. To some extent, I think that it makes moral dilemma's slightly more difficult. What are your thoughts? Do you agree?
I think that the utilitarianism way of thinking makes it very difficult to make a decision. The greatest amount of pleasure for the greatest amount of people can be difficult. What if the people who don’t get the “pleasure,” are your family members? What if the people who do get the pleasure are bad, hurtful people? The options aren’t and can’t always be straightforward. It would be extremely difficult to weigh the options of this situation mentioned above in the time we’re given. Decisions of that magnitude are things that need to be well thought out and not rushed. I feel that when decisions are made without the necessary time make them, they generally don’t turn out well. In using John Stuart Mill’s idea of utilitarianism, one must provide the necessary amount of time to do the calculus, otherwise the results could be something other than the definition of utilitarianism.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe utilitarianism makes the decision harder necessarily, really. Any kind of moral dilemma involving the loss of life is going to be a hard choice, and what makes that choice clear is a set out basis for ethical decision making. The kinds of circumstances in which people's lives are at stake tend to bring out the core of anyone's ethical character, I think, because suddenly it IS a life or death situation. When put under enough pressure, I think everybody shows a bit more of who they are on the inside.
ReplyDeleteRegardless though, if causing the least amount of pain is a good thing, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few in a great number of circumstances. But of course, higher pleasures are greater than base pleasures, so the decision isn't all that easy anyway, but hey if joy and pleasure are the only things to consider, you can't call that a complex system of ethics with any real depth or validity, at least in my opinion.
I think it would make the choice easier; as long as the greater number of people aren't terrible individuals (something like convicted felons, though there is certainly a lot of complexity going down THAT road), they should survive. In another situation, if the one person is a good person, one we know to be morally good and right, but the other people are bad and not good people, that might reverse the decision in some cases.