An Equation
Expanding on my earlier thoughts on the use of humans for the benefit of others:
Consider a situation involving the loss or sacrifice of one life for the sake of many others. The cure for cancer lies within one innocent human being and cannot be extracted without their death…is the killing justified?
This may seem like a harsh generalization, but I think the essence of the resulting conflict is the whole point of “human resources”.
Returning to the problem above, I have decided that the killing of the innocent person would be justified. While some may argue that one has no right to decide such an act, one similarly has no right to ignore the deaths of countless cancer patients. In such a case where the act itself can be discounted, it becomes a simple calculation. We can agree that saving a million lives (and more) is a far greater act than saving a single life. Thus if the “immoral” action is present on both sides of the figurative equation, it can be cancelled out leaving simple figures and a much easier calculation. In the case outlined above, the “immoral” action is killing – on one side it is the killing of a single innocent person while on the other side it is the killing of millions of people (as a result of the ignorance of their deaths) – and once cancelled from the equation, we are left with one life on one side and millions of lives on the other. Naturally, we choose the latter and sacrifice the single life for the greater good of the multitude of cancer patients.
How would this situation apply to our general problem of “human resources”? If we can justify the use of a human for the success of others, then it is possible to set a vague boundary where the positive impact of the use of a human outweighs any negative impact the resource may experience directly.
For the sake of the “greater good”, we can justifiably tap the richest natural resource on earth…right?
Eric. I
Mar 17, 06:51 AM
In theory what you say makes sense, but theories have to correspond with reality to be valid arguements. In this case, the problem that I have with your stance is that I cannot think of an actual case where a person would have to die to cure cancer.
They may already have cancer, and hence would likely die, but they don’t have to die and that has little to do with actually curing cancer.
It also matters what the specific situation is and where, in the grand scheme of things, your own position fits into the dilemma. For example, let’s say that ww3 was on the verge of breaking out and all that it would take to prevent it was the assassination of a dictator. In this hypothetical, there’s no gray area about corresponding to reality because this could very well occur in real life. From the point of the lower classes the assasination would be justified because it would spare their own lives. However, the upper classes may support him because they keep money in their pockets. Therefore from the upper class viewpoint and the dictators own viewpoint the killing is ridiculous and out of the question.
So what is the greater good? the high or low class viewpoint? By your reasoning the lower class viewpoint would be because they’re the larger portion, but the higher class runs the country. If the dictator goes they go into economic decline, and then the poor will suffer. There is long term gains from going to war aswell especially for those that run the country. Is the greater good the upper class because they run the country? Should the dictator stay alive for the financial gains, a greater good, the country might have, or should he die for the other greater good of sparing the lives of the lower class.
Quite honestly I think i’ve lost track of what my point was. Can you see how it might be hard to find such black and white cases of being sustified in exploiting people or not? I just think that such conclusions are based on particular situations and therefore are difficult to generalize to many different topics.
Tarun
Mar 17, 07:41 AM
Justified from whose point of view?
From the viewpoint of an outsider trying to assess the common good, it seems justified to you.
If you were one of the people whose lives would be saved, or if you were the person to be sacrificed, then your assessment of ‘the common good’ might change.
Any action is justifiable given a specific conditions and a specific point of view.
There is NO general answer.
If 1 good samaritans life could be given to save the lives of 100 million murders, would it be justified?
Again, justified from whose point of view? If you ask the good samaritan, he might agree. If you ask a person whose family was murdered by one of those men, they would think it was not justifiable.
What I’m saying is that all actions are justifiable and no actions are absolutely justifiable (ie justifiable under all circumstances).
I’m assuming you are making an absolute judgement about giving up one life being preferable (from an evolutionary, moral or some other point of view) to losing a large number (as defined by you) of lives (regardless of the ‘quality’ of the lives in question as judged against societal moral standards).
Ben Eastaugh
Mar 17, 08:17 AM
In other words, you’re a utilitarian.
Jonathan Dobres
Mar 17, 10:49 AM
I’d have to agree with the comments above and say that your example is seriously flawed. From your “human resources” perspective, the example implies that more often than not, one person will be suffering for the benefit of the many. In the real world this is rarely, if ever, the case. In areas as diverse as economics, industrial psychology, and infant mortality in third world countries, there are countless examples of the many suffering for the benefit of the few.
If you really did the math, you might find that the meager amounts of suffering that the “used” incur to generate the benefits of the “users” actually balances out. Regardless, you are NEVER going to have a situation like the one you outlined above. Even in the case of assassinating a dictator to avert war, you’re talking about someone who is generating suffering, not benefit, so the metaphor doesn’t hold.
Thame
Mar 17, 11:20 AM
I’m glad this sparked some discussion. I hope that nobody was too offended by it, please understand that I am thinking out loud and am trying to learn something in the process.
I suppose my example was a little far-fetched, but it was the first thing that came to my mind. For a more reasonable example with a similar problem, suppose a severely infections/contagious disease was found in single person. The disease lies dormant for a few years, but once activated it spreads ferociously with an almost total mortality rate.
The details of this are really besides the point, but in order to save the peope who might be affected by the disease, the person in question needed to be killed and have the agent within them destroyed (I imagine they would have first contracted the illness in some kind of freak exposure…sci-fi style :D).
Eric: I agree that these examples are difficut to generalize upon and your description of two types of greater goods adds to the confusion.
Tarun: I was trying to describe a case that could be fairly easily generalized, but I no longer think there is such a case. Like you said, anything can eventually become justifiable to anyone involved.
Benedict: Thanks for clearing that up :D
Jon:
“Regardless, you are NEVER going to have a situation like the one you outlined above.”
I agree, but can the concept itself be analyzed to better understand human resources, or should I find a more feasible example?
Jonathan Dobres
Mar 17, 11:50 AM
Again, the problem is that your two examples are talking about two different things. In the first, you’re killing an innocent person to alleviate the suffering of others. You do this based on the idea that while the innocent person’s life causes neither suffering nor benefit, his death will certainly cause benefit.
Your second example is different. The innocent person in question will eventually, inevitably, cause suffering by his very existance. From a practical perspective, if medical science could locate such a person to begin with, they would certainly also have the foresight to quarantine him.
That’s irrelevant, though. I know you’re going for a metaphor, so the real issue is that you’ve got a philosophical consistency problem here. Example one says murder to alter the existing state of suffering in the world. Example two says murder to prevent a NEW kind of suffering from entering the world. The two are not the same, and in the case of the second example it’s barely applicable to your “human resources” model.
As an aside, I’ve had a great liberal arts education, and had a fair amount of philosophy. This is one of the things I’ve always hated about it – that if you’re not realistic about your argument you’ll wind up fifteen miles from where you started with no idea how you got there. :-)
Eric. I
Mar 17, 02:52 PM
Let me offer a clear example, aliens come to Earth and present an ultimatum: either they kill one person for whatever reason, or they kill everybody.
In the example, If you can justify the sacrifice of one person then the theory makes sense, but only for this particular example. Even so, that doesn’t mean you can turn it into a rule talking about human resources in general. That’s the main problem I have with the theory.
I think that was clearer than what I said before :P
The issue is complicated.
Thame
Mar 17, 05:46 PM
Sorry if my last comment made things worse. I was at work and was a little rushed.
Jon:
“if you’re not realistic about your argument you’ll wind up fifteen miles from where you started with no idea how you got there. :-)”
That definitely seems to be the case here :D
Eric:
“Even so, that doesn’t mean you can turn it into a rule talking about human resources in general. That’s the main problem I have with the theory.”
I agree. While I won’t be trying to find an example that is absolutely perfect, I am trying to think of a situation that will at least be feasible enough for us to move to move to the next level (Maybe aliens are our only hope :D).
Juan
Mar 18, 10:10 AM
I would disagree. The part is greater than the whole and not vice versa. Without the individual, there can be no whole; he is the basic unit.
What use is a ‘happy’ whole, i.e., society, if large numbers of individuals had to sacrifice their felicity to achieve this happiness? Society and the individual are not one in the same.
The whole should serve the needs of the individual and not vice versa. States came into being so as to provide human beings with something that they were lacking, e.g., security, gene pool, etc. The individual is prior to the state.
Also, I suspect this sort of thinking – sacrificing some for the ‘general good’ – is what leads to the foundation of totalitarian states.
In addition, I don’t think everyone has the same definition of good. To me, what is good for the state is not necessarily what is good for the individual.
Finally, I would ask you: would you sacrifice yourself for the ‘good of mankind’? And what if the majority thought that your death would bring about general good but you somehow disagreed? How would you resolve this? Both could not be right in their views, could they?
Eric. I
Mar 18, 10:21 AM
I would like to also point out that the responses here are very western responses, in that the western societies have very individualistic ideals.
Eastern cultures on the other hand are characterized by a collectivist attitude: they put the good of the group before the individual because they define themselves as part of the group. You would never get Juan’s response from a person that grew up inside of an Eastern culture.
In this way, the sacrifice of the individual in an eastern context would be more accepted, and maybe even encouraged by the one being sacrificed.
Juan
Mar 18, 10:57 AM
I would disagree with you Eric. All one needs to do is read Western writings to realize how pro-collectivist, i.e., totalitarian, we are in the West. Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, etc.
Also, we in the West have morality, which in effect is the mentality of society as a whole in the individual. And he is guided and goaded by it.
We cannot say that the West is individualistic, to say so is simply too simplistic and too superficial. All societies are tribal, i.e., collectivist, fortunately, there are individuals that triumph over such mentality and make great contributions to society by consequence.
Eric. I
Mar 18, 11:45 AM
“Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death” (Plato’s Allegory of the Cave).
At face value, yes, this seems collectivist. But I don’t think I need to explain the actual meaning of the allegory to show that Plato was writing about seeing things differently than the majority of other people do.
The same can be said in the apology of Socrates when socrates, and only socrates, knows that he does not know truth. That’s not collectivist either.
Just because a society is more individualistic does not mean that it can not preach collectivist values. And very importantly, Greece and Rome were founded on personal glory on the battlefield or in politics.
The republic was surely had an inclusive ideal behind it, but it was run by aristocrats that desired individual power. That is why everybody still knows about Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. They were the ones that could capture power for themsleves.
As for Marx, well I can’t argue against his theories that well. That’s possibly why communism has kept its stronghold in the East where people are more willing to accept the conditions that are given to them – but that would be mere speculation.
I would also like to point out (and i’m paraphrasing this from the psychology textbook) that the west’s sense of individualism has grown substantially since the end of ww2 – compared to the family oriented values of the 50’s. And we tend to teach our children things like: “you’re responsible for yourself”, “follow your conscience”, “discover your path in life”, “think about your personal needs”. Eastern cultures do more things for the benefit of the family honor.
But don’t get me wrong, these ARE generalizations. However, what i’m saying is backed up by many studies and is, in general, valid.
Eric. I
Mar 18, 11:51 AM
*note, Alexander had nothing to do with the republic or rome, just incase my quick writing is a little awkward.
Thame
Mar 18, 12:05 PM
Juan:
“What use is a ‘happy’ whole, i.e., society, if large numbers of individuals had to sacrifice their felicity to achieve this happiness? Society and the individual are not one in the same.”
What about our contract, do we gain any obligations by joining the society?
We did not create states to maintain our individualism; we created states knowing that we would sacrifice some of these things for our greater good.
“Finally, I would ask you: would you sacrifice yourself for the ‘good of mankind’?”
I don’t know. I would like to think that I could measure the ultimate impact of my death and recognize what I should do but I don’t think I will know my real response unless I was actually facing the situation.
Eric:
It is a wide generalization, but I do agree that Western cultures are at least a little bit more individualistic than Eastern.
This difference is most clear in typical familial relations in these cultures. The West encourages individualism and self-sufficiency while Eastern and Middle Eastern cultures have longer-lasting communal ties.
Juan
Mar 18, 12:41 PM
The cave analogy has no connexion with collectivism. The cave analogy is in a sense a justification for the philosopher king. He has seen the light, in summa: truth. Hence, he must rule because he has partaken of the greatest good. And this man is none other than Plato, he has seen the truth; he is the philosopher king. Everyone else should obey him ‘cause he knows better: he should be the state.
The Apology is nothing more than a dialogue intended to place the democratic government of Athens in a bad light; they sent a good man to death, how could they! We mustn’t forget that Plato was part of the élite and his uncle was part of the dictatorship that was established by the Spartans after their defeat of Athens. Socrates sacrifices himself because he believes in the democratic state, though their conclusion, i.e., his guilt, is flawed. Would Socrates have reacted differently if he were not already near his death?
The development of Rome cannot be compared to the development of Greece. Bismarck once said of Italy that it was nothing more than a mere geographical expression without any real sense of unity. This view can also by applied to the Greek city-states. The Greeks may have seen themselves as being Greek and everyone else as barbaroi but nevertheless Greek history is a history of intestine wars. They were not even able to unite against the Macedonians.
The West pays lip service to individualism, but reflect: is our education individualized or colletivized, uniform – one size fits all.
I must remind you that communism came into power thanks to force and not through election, cp. Russia, China, Eastern Europe. The majority of the governments in Central Asia are ex-communists under the façade of nationalists (nationalism being ideologically opposed to the tenets of communism), &c.
And it is not that the citizens of these countries resigned themselves to their situation but that they have not seen an opportune moment to act. 1989 was such a moment for Eastern Europe: factors came together allowing for the transition to democracies.
Also I don’t think you should say Caesar’s name in the same sentence with Alexander the Great; one was an opportunist that courted the mob to gain power, the other brough humanist values to the Orient. Alexander the Great does not seem to have believed in the Greek-barbarian dichotomy – they were all human beings. Did he not adopt the ways and customs of the conquered people?
In the West, we are allowed to be individuals, but we seem to be ironically opposed to individualism as we shop at the same stores, watch the same programs, etc. But this freedom must remain within the framework of society. If individual freedom transgresses the limitations, it is taken away. E.g., if you kill someone (you are free to choose to kill), then you go to jail (the consequence of your action).
With regards to the contract, we do gain obligations, primarily to follow the limitations, i.e., laws. But ultimately, we only owe allegiance to the state as long as it keeps its end of the bargain. If it transgresses this, we are free from our commitment, cp. the first several paragraphs in the American Declaration of Independence.
The state was not created for the general good; it was created for the ‘good’ of the individual. Let’s say a group of people felt threatened so they came together because they needed security not only in order to be able to live but also to be able to carry transactions between one another. I don’t think they had the general good in mind. The general good did not exist as a notion then, only the individual good.
We mustn’t ever put the state before the individual. The whole is not greater than the part. If we believe this, then we are setting ourselves up for totalitarianism. Does the state truly know what is good for each individual, when we ourselves hardly know?
Eric. I
Mar 18, 05:13 PM
I think I must define individualism: a social theory favouring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.
The cave analogy: This fits the definition because the philosopher is always against those that do not understand, those in the cave, and therefore must express their personal opinion vehemently. By Plato writing the analogy, is that not breaking from the collectivist mode and putting a personal opinion above others? Would Plato be able to write this opinion if others were being considered above his own viewpoint?
The Apology: Same arguement, Plato is questioning others’ opinions. A collectivist does not do this readily, but rather accepts the opinion of others and obeys.
Rome and Greece: I was not intending to compare Rome and Greece from a political development standpoint but from a cultural standpoint – and specifically from the characters’ of Alexander and Caesar. Yes, Caesar courted the mob to gain power, and Alexander already had it. But I think it would be a folly to say that both did not act in their own best interests. Alexander hardly brought humanist values to Persia: he would have been faced with an enormous amount of people that he could never control through force alone. Instead he took the easier route and attempted to include them, assimilate them, into his empire. Also, Alexander’s men hated him for taking Persian customs and thought it was very un-Macedonian – even causing mutinies. Doesn’t that tell something about their society? The mass marriage at Susa was all one way: male Macedonians marrying female Persian nobles. It was completely political, and when Alexander died all, save one, divorced their wives. Lastly, Alexander greatly favoured the Macedonian troops, and he used the Persian troops to prevent mutinies by threatening to replace them. Without doubt, this was not because he greatly valued Persians, but rather he wanted to use them as blackmail against his, now severely dwindling, troops.
Similarly, if Alexander was truly not trying to gain personal glory then why did he not stop at Persepolis when the purpose of the league of corinth’s quest had been fulfilled? Could it not have been, and remember he slept with the Iliad beneath his pillow, that he wanted to outdo the Gods in glory. Wasn’t that why he introduced Proskynesis?
School and shopping: This does not pertain to the definition of individualism. It has nothing to do with putting one person’s will over the other. And does not the rich, successful person buy more expensive clothes at stores where a poor person could not go to? Thereby, the person that puts themself over others gets ahead.
And if I am wrong, then why do people from Eastern cultures have more conforming attitudes? Why does the West push personal achievement upon children moreso than Eastern cultures? ... such phenomena have been long documented.
Juan
Mar 18, 07:27 PM
I must add that in a collectivist society, just like an individual-oriented society (if such a thing honestly exists), hierarchy exists. Plato belonged to the upper class , such men have the leisure to think. He was educated, part of the aristocracy (the best – ariston).
In the apology, you have to separate Plato qua Socrates from Socrates the historical character. After all, Plato uses Socrates to express his own ideas, which are in essence anti-Socratic!
In the end, Socrates decides that he must abide with the decision of the jury, even though he is ostensibly not guilty. Whatever is the motive that goads these men, e.g., retribution for the atrocities committed by the pro-Spartan elements in Athens, the subjugation of the individual to the state is what is of import.
The conquest of the Orient by Alexander allowed for an easier exchange of ideas. I am not justifying the conquest by any means, but I am signaling out what occurred. His was an international empire, one embracing different people. Also at this point in time, the Cynic movement and their Christian-like belief in the brotherhood of mankind was important.
I am not deying that the Macedonians thought that they were better than the Persians and other Orientals. But the intercouse between different people trascends these particular biases.
Also, I am not speaking of putting the ‘will’ of one individual over another. Men are not created equal; it is a myth. Men are different but these differences must be sacrosact, therefore protected.
In order to attempt to answer why those people in the East seem to be more collectivist, I must bring up Darwin.
The proponents of Darwin’s theory establish a world that can be described as gladitorial, what Hobbes describes as ‘bellum omnium contra omnes’ And this is what survival of the fittest amounts to, an all-out struggle for survival. But this is only realistic if it is man against man. It does not take into consideration another factor: nature.
When it is man against nature, the gladiator view is no longer applicable. Men must come together and form a collective. By forming a collective, they have better chances of surviving (but again it is about the individual, the whole comes about because of his necessity).
Now, rice is an important staple of the diet in the East. But because of the difficulty of rice farming, it required the development of collective labor as well as central control of the irrigation of the fields. In this sense, those in the East had to come together in order to surrive; they hadn’t any other alternative, except to perish.
Perhaps this helps.
Vincenze
Mar 18, 11:41 PM
Before I read the 17 comments:
I say it is not justified. Why?
Because there is a big (and moral) difference between death and killing.
You may save many from dying but you are killing which is morally wrong (in general accepted by most people and societies…we can debate that point another time).
You also are implying that death is a bad thing. Killing is bad, death is not bad. The two are very different.
Vincenze.
Thame
Mar 20, 06:48 PM
Vincenze:
“You may save many from dying but you are killing which is morally wrong (in general accepted by most people and societies…we can debate that point another time).”
I did make the point that if one were to be faced with this situation, they would be forced to choose one or the other. Therefore, if they were to choose to prevent the innocent killing, they would be ignoring the deaths of millions of others or, essentially, killing them.
Teh Man
May 14, 12:46 AM
The problem lies within the equation. On one side, you have the killing of one person, this is a certainty. On the other side, you have the [i]possible[/i] killing of a thousand, but you cannot be sure that this will. There is a high likelihood that it will happen, but what if all of the sudden cancer disappears of the face of the Earth in between the time you kill that one innocent person and the time when you actually find the cure for cancer. This is a highly unlikely situation, but it is still possible. So if that were to happen, was the innocent person’s life worth sacrificing? No, because in the end, it served no purpose at all, except for giving us the ability to cure a disease that does not exist.
Brutal Capitalist
Jul 5, 05:35 AM
Well, here’s the deal:
Allowing to die is NOT the same as killing. If it is than we are all guilty of murder millions of times over. Every man and woman is an individual, an end in him or herself. If every man and woman had to prevent the death to everyone else at whatever cost to themself to be moral then there would be one person left in the world in the end. The morality of such a system is to remove the treads from your tires so that you don’t spray water into someone else’s windshield causing a crash. You’d have prevented a death, but probably hurt or killed yourself in the process. In a function, individualist society a person can do what’s best for themself and keep the treads on their tires and the person behind them can turn on the windshield wipers. No person owes it to another person to save them, although it may be virtuous to do so. I’m on the side of the one man who can cure cancer.
In the case of the aliens I choose my integrity. I’ll do neither and fight the bastards. I’ll grab my .45 and look that alien in the eye and say, “Do you feel lucky? Do ya, punk?”