Moral philosophy Goodness has nothing to do with it

[xchrom]

http://www.economist.com/node/21530078

IN THE grand scheme of things Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill are normally thought of as good guys. Between them, they came up with the ethical theory known as utilitarianism. The goal of this theory is encapsulated in Bentham’s aphorism that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”

Which all sounds fine and dandy until you start applying it to particular cases. A utilitarian, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand. That type of observation has led Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell to ask what sort of people actually do have a utilitarian outlook on life. Their answers, just published in Cognition, are not comfortable.

One of the classic techniques used to measure a person’s willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology. The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway railway trolley or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which leads to people’s deaths. For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger’s large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.

Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing one individual to save five. What no one had previously inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.

[WhiteTara]

1. INteresting article indeed.

To find out, the two researchers gave 208 undergraduates a battery of trolleyological tests and measured, on a four-point scale, how utilitarian their responses were. Participants were also asked to respond to a series of statements intended to get a sense of their individual psychologies. These statements included, “I like to see fist fights”, “The best way to handle people is to tell them what they want to hear”, and “When you really think about it, life is not worth the effort of getting up in the morning”. Each was asked to indicate, for each statement, where his views lay on a continuum that had “strongly agree” at one end and “strongly disagree” at the other. These statements, and others like them, were designed to measure, respectively, psychopathy, Machiavellianism and a person’s sense of how meaningful life is.

Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro then correlated the results from the trolleyology with those from the personality tests. They found a strong link between utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities that were psychopathic, Machiavellian or tended to view life as meaningless. Utilitarians, this suggests, may add to the sum of human happiness, but they are not very happy people themselves.

That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone’s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes? Apparently, yes.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. On the basis of the article, Republicans are always utilitarians since they throw under the bus....

the poor, helpless, disabled, old, children, etc. so that the mega-rich and corporations might benefit greatly.

[PATRICK]

3. Maybe a different case

But a larger and action sample are all the military personnel with their fingers on nuclear triggers and their profile to go through with orders. Do they have to be moral cripples themselves and therefore undesirable for other decision making reliability, flexibility, values? I suspect in the animal kingdom a range of behavior enables survival, even in ugly scenarios, but tis that any longer necessary for human survival per se? most people would sacrifice the few NOT to engage in deplorable pragmatic behavior, yet there is a great divide with their leaders who go far beyond large, fearful threats to the community to cause harm not just to individuals, but the majority and even threaten survival. All in the name of pragmatism as they define it. Power, money meeting morality produces incredibly bad results, pooling into decision making and ego like a justification in itself for which they lose no sleep, have no care, suffer no fear except for their own. I have seen the slightest addition of money and power, pathetic in scope, utterly corrupt a heretofore harmless innocent.

The trolley car test seems like the desert island fantasy scenarios. We really don't know how we will act except for memories of time/response to other crises. We have many real life experiences to show what actually happens, who does what and with what resources. The problem is hinted at though. The "greater good" rational, 'wise" and "strong" don't cut the mustard. The good let too much bad happen and enable authoritarianism. They themselves get corrupted by acquiring communal power and/or wads of money(or its mere prospect). The balancer who looks out for people welfare as allies or in real sympathy in the midst of his own corruption I always thought was a perilous fulcrum. The "good" people who won't act, and as it turns out won't act for the good either become stymied until extremely evil means seem their only avenue. Those on the evil road keep going down and are determined, by fear or selfishness, to keep the public down, victimize them etc. like serial killers who prey on the vulnerable except for needing the public stamp of affirmation(making them more harmful than hobby killers).

Some of the ten percent may be less murderous than rebellious against a frozen status quo that routinely accepts and enables harm. Some are the cold blooded bastards( I wonder about their background and income level too). The ruinous effect of great generational wealth on children was pretty obvious in a HBO special. The general prosperity of Americans belies its very shaky democratic institutions more than any healthy relation between the two. The greatest good for the greatest number is obvious far from the globalist or nationalist attitude and the contradiction fantastically proves.

The trolley answer. Confront futility and evil. Throw oneself in the way calling out for help, not knowing if anyone else will? In a flash the problem with human nature is revealed and the only potential is an outlier attitude rooted in higher moral principles, not lower. Failing that, putting faith in the imperfect will not just yield grimly imperfect results but species threatening applications of murderous power. A supposed faith in reason does not really extend to faith in the best of human nature. If you have the needed group it is easier to throw yourself in front of the tanks. The few who don't need the power of the group might not be followed at the time.