After reflection, this brings up for me the "Trolley Problem", a widespread (and also contrived) thought experiment in moral philosophy. Briefly, for any reader not familiar, it goes like this:
"An out of control trolley car is barrelling down the track and about to kill 10 innocent workers further down the track, who cannot see it in time. However, you are stationed at a track switch between the trolley and the workers and can see the whole situation, and you know that if you pull a lever, the trolley will be diverted down another track, where there is only one worker who will be killed. Should you pull the level?"
You can think about that a bit and perhaps posit and answer.
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But then let's add some emotional juice to it:
"If you divert the trolley, before it hits the single worker, she will see that you have pulled the lever and directly caused her death, and will look you right in the eye as the trolley arrives, letting out a blood curling scream of terror. After the impact, you will have a clear view of her broken and bloody body, with her brains squished around the tracks."
Does adding this sudden jolt to the limbic system and the amygdala better illuminate the question of "what is the right thing to do morally, pull or not pull", or does it obscure that question? Would rationality (within an underlying moral value framework like causing the least harm) be a better approach to deciding the moral question, or would following your immediate visceral emotions be the wisest and best choice?
My answer: adding the emotionally evocative context does not change the moral question of pulling or not pulling the lever to switch the trolley, it just adds an additional personal cost to the person making the decision such that they might be more likely to make the wrong decision about the lever if they (understandably) can't personally bear that cost.
And that ties to a larger and more general question:
Is it wisest to determine "the right thing to do morally" based on rationally evaluating facts in light of underlying values, or by doing whatever is believed to be emotionally easiest on the decider?
Unfortunately, your quoted hypothetical question seems to me (if I understand it) to be aimed at supporting the latter approach. If in my flawed human psychology I were to be too squeamish to pull the lever in time and thus save 9 lives, that personal emotional limitation doesn't make not pulling it the morally best answer.
Nor would it make somebody who (at great emotional cost to themselves) does pull the lever a monster operating by ruthless and uncaring logic. They are still operating from deep caring, just at a higher level of cognition vs immediate emotion.
I won't delete my first response, since it's on the record and has been responded to in turn, but I like this answer better. Thanks for raising these tough issues, Dave.
Written a few days later then my other response; I'd like to take another try at clarity.
(Caution - I will NOT be analogizing anything in this post to the Gaza situation, it's about the moral reasoning we apply to many situations)
> 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚 𝐧𝐨𝐧-𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭? 𝐘𝐨𝐮! 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨 𝐢𝐭?
After reflection, this brings up for me the "Trolley Problem", a widespread (and also contrived) thought experiment in moral philosophy. Briefly, for any reader not familiar, it goes like this:
"An out of control trolley car is barrelling down the track and about to kill 10 innocent workers further down the track, who cannot see it in time. However, you are stationed at a track switch between the trolley and the workers and can see the whole situation, and you know that if you pull a lever, the trolley will be diverted down another track, where there is only one worker who will be killed. Should you pull the level?"
You can think about that a bit and perhaps posit and answer.
-----
But then let's add some emotional juice to it:
"If you divert the trolley, before it hits the single worker, she will see that you have pulled the lever and directly caused her death, and will look you right in the eye as the trolley arrives, letting out a blood curling scream of terror. After the impact, you will have a clear view of her broken and bloody body, with her brains squished around the tracks."
Does adding this sudden jolt to the limbic system and the amygdala better illuminate the question of "what is the right thing to do morally, pull or not pull", or does it obscure that question? Would rationality (within an underlying moral value framework like causing the least harm) be a better approach to deciding the moral question, or would following your immediate visceral emotions be the wisest and best choice?
My answer: adding the emotionally evocative context does not change the moral question of pulling or not pulling the lever to switch the trolley, it just adds an additional personal cost to the person making the decision such that they might be more likely to make the wrong decision about the lever if they (understandably) can't personally bear that cost.
And that ties to a larger and more general question:
Is it wisest to determine "the right thing to do morally" based on rationally evaluating facts in light of underlying values, or by doing whatever is believed to be emotionally easiest on the decider?
Unfortunately, your quoted hypothetical question seems to me (if I understand it) to be aimed at supporting the latter approach. If in my flawed human psychology I were to be too squeamish to pull the lever in time and thus save 9 lives, that personal emotional limitation doesn't make not pulling it the morally best answer.
Nor would it make somebody who (at great emotional cost to themselves) does pull the lever a monster operating by ruthless and uncaring logic. They are still operating from deep caring, just at a higher level of cognition vs immediate emotion.
I won't delete my first response, since it's on the record and has been responded to in turn, but I like this answer better. Thanks for raising these tough issues, Dave.