I believe most of our "economic" problems are really moral ones. The
problem is most of what "morality" is is just so much turkey. The
problem expressed in the link above is whether to divert a train that
will kill 5 innocent people to another line where it will kill only
one innocent person. 90% of us divert the train in a simulation.
Moral problems as posed to me in real life have never been so simple.
I won't go into them here but can hint. In the UK's internal war in
Northern Ireland I was asked to do appalling things with informants
(and via pressuring wives and families) - the excuse was 'the greater
good'. I know now I was conned.
What might a modern morality of the greater good be? What are the
problems with "morality" and how might we fix them. The Saudis are
putting forward interesting extremes such as allowing women to drive
cars 'bringing about' all sorts of corruption like homosexuality and
adultery. What of the role of madness, rationalisation and the clown
zealot in morality? And what role do facts play?
The train example is easy - but what if the person on the other line
is your son or daughter? Would you shoot a child suicide bomber
advancing into a crowded area if you had time to run to her and only
put your life at risk? Do you really think your performance in the
field would match that in thought experiment?
0 comments:
Post a Comment