OK, I think I’m sort of with you now, but I’m just want to be clear about the nature of the similarity claim you’re making. Is it that:
you think there’s some sort of justificatory similarity between not-sacrificing and harm-by-inaction such that you those who are inclined to allow harm-by-inaction, should therefore also be more willing to allow not-sacrificing; or is it just that
you just happen to hold both the view that harm-by-inaction is allowed and the view that not-sacrificing is allowed, but the justifications for these views are independent (i.e. it’s merely a contingent surface similarity)?
I originally assumed you were claiming something along the lines of 1. but I’m struggling to see how such a link is supposed to work, so maybe I’ve misinterpreted you’re intention.
you think there’s some sort of justificatory similarity between not-sacrificing and harm-by-inaction such that you those who are inclined to allow harm-by-inaction, should therefore also be more willing to allow not-sacrificing
Yes. I’d generally hold that it is not morally wrong to allow harm-by-inaction: there is not a general moral obligation to act to prevent harm. In real moral dilemmas there is a continuum of cost to the harm-preventing action and when that cost is low relative to the harm prevented it would be morally good to perform that action but not morally required. At extremely low cost relative to harm things become a little fuzzy and inaction borders on an immoral choice. When the cost of the action is extremely high (likely or certain self-sacrifice) then there is no fuzziness and inaction is clearly morally allowed (not-sacrificing by jumping in front of a trolley cart to save 10 is not immoral).
Given inaction being morally permitted in the trolley case, I have difficulty imagining a coherent moral system that would then say that it was not permissible for the 11th man to save himself. The evil king does change the problem but I can only see it making not-sacrificing more rather than less morally acceptable. I can conceive of coherent moral systems that would allow the 11th man to save himself but would require the trolley jumper to sacrifice himself. I have difficulty conceiving of the reverse. That’s not to say that one doesn’t exist, it’s just sufficiently removed from my own moral sense that it doesn’t present itself to me.
That would fall in the territory I describe as fuzzy above. At a sufficiently low cost inaction begins to seem morally questionable. That is largely driven by intuition though and I’m skeptical of attempts to scale it up and draw moral conclusions. I believe there are reasons the intuition exists that do not scale up simply. In other words, scaling up from this to conclude that if a very small cost is obligatory to save a single person then a very large cost is obligatory to save a million people is faulty reasoning in my opinion.
OK, I think I’m sort of with you now, but I’m just want to be clear about the nature of the similarity claim you’re making. Is it that:
you think there’s some sort of justificatory similarity between not-sacrificing and harm-by-inaction such that you those who are inclined to allow harm-by-inaction, should therefore also be more willing to allow not-sacrificing; or is it just that
you just happen to hold both the view that harm-by-inaction is allowed and the view that not-sacrificing is allowed, but the justifications for these views are independent (i.e. it’s merely a contingent surface similarity)?
I originally assumed you were claiming something along the lines of 1. but I’m struggling to see how such a link is supposed to work, so maybe I’ve misinterpreted you’re intention.
Yes. I’d generally hold that it is not morally wrong to allow harm-by-inaction: there is not a general moral obligation to act to prevent harm. In real moral dilemmas there is a continuum of cost to the harm-preventing action and when that cost is low relative to the harm prevented it would be morally good to perform that action but not morally required. At extremely low cost relative to harm things become a little fuzzy and inaction borders on an immoral choice. When the cost of the action is extremely high (likely or certain self-sacrifice) then there is no fuzziness and inaction is clearly morally allowed (not-sacrificing by jumping in front of a trolley cart to save 10 is not immoral).
Given inaction being morally permitted in the trolley case, I have difficulty imagining a coherent moral system that would then say that it was not permissible for the 11th man to save himself. The evil king does change the problem but I can only see it making not-sacrificing more rather than less morally acceptable. I can conceive of coherent moral systems that would allow the 11th man to save himself but would require the trolley jumper to sacrifice himself. I have difficulty conceiving of the reverse. That’s not to say that one doesn’t exist, it’s just sufficiently removed from my own moral sense that it doesn’t present itself to me.
OK, I see where you’re coming from now. (We still have strongly differing intuitions about this, but that’s a separate matter.)
This thought experiment among other things convinces me that omission vs. commission is a sliding scale.
That would fall in the territory I describe as fuzzy above. At a sufficiently low cost inaction begins to seem morally questionable. That is largely driven by intuition though and I’m skeptical of attempts to scale it up and draw moral conclusions. I believe there are reasons the intuition exists that do not scale up simply. In other words, scaling up from this to conclude that if a very small cost is obligatory to save a single person then a very large cost is obligatory to save a million people is faulty reasoning in my opinion.