Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? #1

I had been recommended by a good to watch the whole series of this Justice Course produced by Harvard University and taught by Professor Michael Sandel a few months ago. To say the least, I binged watched all the lectures within a week, harder than I did when I was introduced to Gray’s Anatomy. The lectures were engaging (even through a screen) and got me thinking outside the box, Prof. Sandel was like the teacher I never had. Today, I’d love to share with you all and throw out a few hot takes to challenge us all to think and discuss!

Scenario 1 - The Moral Side of Murder

Funny enough, I had actually been introduced to the Trolley Problem in my philosophy class at school; And essentially we are in a scenario where a trolley cart is travelling at a high speed, with the train brakes misfunctioning, where straight ahead are 5 people tied together in the rails, and you are there, witnessing the whole process. However, there is something you can do, you see on your side, a very fat man, leaning over. If you gave the man a little shove, he’d fall over the tracks, and die, but his heroic act would spare the 5 people as the fat man blocks the train tracks.

The most straight forward way of thinking was to play the numbers game, it’d be better to kill that 1 person than to kill the other 5 people because 5 is greater than 1. Duh, right? Well, not exactly, because now, you’re playing an active role as the agent, choosing to push a victim (the fat man) over to save the 5, should you be deemed as a hero, or should you be named as a first-degree murderer?

As the discussions progressed, two sides began to emerge. On one hand, out of all the examples given but with the same context, the minority of people, myself included, faced each problem with the belief that whether an act is right or wrong, depends on the situation. This is called consequentialism and I can call myself a consequentialist, because I analyse and approach each issue differently, and depending on the consequences of my actions, will I then consider what’s right or wrong. If I was in the position of the agent to push the man, I would do it. Sure, it is considered, legally, a first-degree murder, but in the end, I still saved those 5 innocent people. “But the man didn’t wish to be killed, he was probably going out for a nice stroll.”, that’s true, but neither did the 5 people, they didn’t voluntarily want to be run over as well. It isn’t to say that just because I acted as a bystander and I watched 5 people suffer, I can now say I’m innocent, and I’m still a good person. That is selfishness in my opinion, only considering for your own wellbeing, and then able to watch the 5 die, knowing you could’ve done something. Also, I believe that there is nothing to do with the fact that the man was fat or not, if he acts as a mean to save those 5 people, and if death of a certain person or the occurrence of a tragedy is inevitable, I would choose to commit towards the numbers game. This is, no matter what I decide to do, ignoring the human rights side, these 6 patients all have human rights and all did not want to die, but the train isn’t going to wait up on you.

Taking a step back, it’s also not hard to understand why many would just sacrifice the 5 lives. My friend who watched this lecture with me and even the students from the lecture video, the majority of them would never consider pushing the man over, it could be for religious beliefs or moral beliefs, but to them, murdering is never the solution. It is just wrong. This is called a categorial/deontological reasoning, which is the argument that some things are just right or wrong “in themselves”, there are just some things you do not do. This way of reasoning doesn’t ignore the however cruel consequences of a certain action but will always stick to their morals, they wouldn’t consider the numbers game because lives are lives; But also, I would challenge this saying because these morals and beliefs, who sets them? It might seem as if I had committed a murder by pushing the man over, but I also saved 5 lives, saving someone else despite my own safety should be considered a hero, right? So, what am I?

Scenario 2 - The Case for Cannibalism

It was mind-boggling to me that the following case, was an actual real-life incident, where a group of people had gone on a boat voyage, but unfortunately had to resort to a tiny lifeboat due to the weather conditions. They had 2 cans of turnips that were very quickly finished with no rescue boats in sight, out of desperateness, the captain of the boat, Dudley, suggested that they kill the cabin boy, who was already struggling to stay alive. The others agreed and lived off of the boy’s blood and body until they were rescued. Now, to even imagine that scene in my head is absolutely disgusting, but to put yourself in the shoes of a jury that was to trial the men who lived, what would you do? Is this act of murder to stay alive morally dismissible? Was it justified?

Because I consider myself a consequentialist, I also agree, to some extent, with act utilitarianism (“Greatest good for the greatest number”); But in this scenario, I don’t think that if Dudley and the 2 other crewmates had survived, the life of the cabin boy should have been sacrificed. Though in the end, the crew members were able to live off of the body of the cabin boy, this seemed like a bit of a gamble to me. Perhaps ‘gamble’ might not be the best word to describe it, but sacrificing someone’s life just so you would get a glimpse of a chance of surviving until rescue comes is beyond selfish in this situation. What if the rescue came if everyone had held on together? What if it was Dudley or the other 2 crewmates that were to die? It all seems a bit like a wager, with a terribly unbalanced consequences for the parties (of Dudley & crew and the cabin boy).

I wonder, though, if anyone, including myself, would be swayed by the possibility of consent on behalf of the cabin boy. Had the cabin boy known that he wasn’t going to live long and gave the consent to become a sacrifice, would this act of murder be morally permissible? For me, yes, I think this would be the only time in this situation where Dudley and crew’s actions would be morally permissible. I would, not only, gain respect for the selflessness of the sick cabin boy but also see this agreement as like a verbal contract, he gave his consent out of the knowledge that he wouldn’t live long and that he has no dependants anywhere (he was an orphan), unlike the 3 other men, all with families and loved ones.

That is not to say that people who have dependants back home are of more value than those with none, hence why many would categorically call out the fact that murder is murder, it doesn’t matter the circumstance. Crimes happen because of the selfishness and the ignorance to decide that your life is more valuable than the other’s, which is what happened here, no matter if the cabin boy had given consent or not.

This blog is the first of the “Justice: What’s the right thing to do?” series. I loved watching all the lectures and forming my own philosophical ideas but getting challenged by the students in the video, so I strongly recommend everyone reading this to go engage with these lectures. I hope we can all debate and comment about these stories and dilemmas to discover all the different perspectives.

Thanks for reading and see you all in a bit.

-Winnie 28/08/2022