this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Well yeah but I think that’s the materialist criticism of the problem itself.
Like, the question implicitly imposes the view that the morality of a decision is centered on the decision tree we follow to reach that decision rather than upon a consideration of its consequences.
I don’t quite agree that consequentialism is what I mean by this but it’s something pretty close to consequentialism. Holistic material consequentialism maybe?
Like to the trolley problemists it’s usually a question about the moral agency of the bystander: is it right for that person to choose who lives or dies seems to be the contention. And when a materialist counters that “that’s not really what matters in terms of consequences” then the trolley problemist insists upon a vacuum of consequences which really just a denial of materialism itself.
If you have to eliminate certain consequences of a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others, then we simply aren’t talking about a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others.
Yea I'm definitely not simply talking about a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others. This new viewpoint is supposed to dissuade people from answering "as a materialist". I'm sure most, if not all of us agree that pulling the lever IS the correct thing to do, but arguing from a materialist perspective is completely divorced from reality
How many of us up there would actually think in the moment only about the material consequences of our choices? It completely disregards all the human emotions involved in the decision process. Maybe some people are just built different but this is why I don't like the materialist approach
It's interesting to think about but doesn't actually answer the question
No well I think most of us will think “fuck 5 are about to die, only one guy over there, fuck I need to save these 5 people, time to pull that fucking lever” which is materialist.