When I was in
elementary school, a teacher gave my class this ethical dilemma to solve.
A young man is driving
a bus filled with several young persons. While speeding across a bridge, he
suddenly sees his mother standing in the middle of the bridge. The only way to
avoid hitting and killing her instantly is to swerve and crash into the river
below, in the process killing many of his passengers and probably himself too.
What would you do if you were that young driver?
Needless to say,
this ethical poser generated heated and endless debate among us. Up till date,
several decades afterwards, there appears to be no consensus as to the right
moral choice to make in such a situation. What we did not know then was that
the ethical dilemma we were confronted with as young pupils was the biggest
question debated by the two main contrasting theories in ethical philosophy – John
Stuart Mills’ Utilitarianism as opposed to the Categorical Imperatives which
form the central thesis in Immanuel Kant’s deontological moral philosophy.
Philosophers who
support utilitarianism argue that for any action to be moral and right, it must
maximize utility. Utility may be defined to include pleasure, economic
well-being and the lack of pain or suffering. Thus, the consequences of your
action determine whether it is right or good or moral. If we agree that it is
the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and
wrong, then the correct thing for out hypothetical driver to do in the moral dilemma
posed above is to drive right ahead and crush his mother to death, saving the
life of the several passengers in his bus. Of course, he can mourn and give her
a befitting burial later, but he would be satisfied that his action saved the
lives of several people and spared many other families the pain and agony of
burying their dead had he swerved and crashed into the river.
Not so, argues
Immanuel Kant who states in his deontological ethics or deontology that the
morality of an action is based on the action's adherence to a universal rule or
law, not on its consequences. For example, it is a universal law that one must
not lie. As far as this philosopher is concerned, therefore, there can never be
a ‘good’ lie. If a person who has the intention of murdering someone asks you
of his intended victim’s whereabouts, it is not morally right for you to lie,
you must tell the truth, no matter the consequences for the victim. For our
hapless speeding driver on the bridge with his mother standing in his way,
therefore, the categorical imperative would be for him to obey the universal
laws which state that you should honour your mother and father, and ‘thou shall
not kill.’ He should swerve his bus in order to avoid killing his mother,
whatever the consequences for his hapless passengers.
I am a utilitarian
moralist, a consequentialist to the core. Much as I admire Kant’s work and am
mystified by his complicated arguments and controversial conclusions on this
issue of morality, I believe that many evil doers can hide behind his so-called
duty ethics to perpetrate a lot of evil in society. For example, just because
it is universally accepted that a man must cater for his family, does it
justify Nigerian politicians diverting and
stealing public funds, bringing misery and suffering to millions of other
Nigerians? This question is a valid philosophical poser considering that at the
trial of Nazi war criminal Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, he
was said to have declared "with great emphasis that he had lived his whole
life ... according to a Kantian definition of duty!"
Back to my
elementary school ethical dilemma, will I really be able to crush my own mother
to death on the bridge, saving the lives of my several passengers? I doubt it
very much. Even as a utilitarian, my basic instinct would be to brake and
swerve, damning the consequences. Maybe Kant added some value to our moral
philosophy after all. If only the man were not so long-winded and obscure in
his writings. Clarity prevents misinterpretation and misapplication of
concepts.
Kudos for reading this
long blog post to the very end! Can anyone respond to my ethical poser on
thieving and corrupt Nigerian politicians?
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