The Trolley Problem and Self-Defense

I realize that the main focus here at the Garden is usually on issues pertaining to free will and moral responsibility, but since there is a special category for The Trolley Problem, I figured I would post a draft of a short piece I am working on about the trolley problem and self-defense.  Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated.  Just be gentle--it's still a little rough around the edges.  But before I do any more work on it, I thought I would see what the gardeners think about the general strategy I adopt first.  Thanks in advance!

Download trolley_problem_revisited.pdf

Comments

[john alexander]

Thomas
You are probably already aware of this, but over on Ethics Etc. they are having a 'reading group' on Kamm's Intricate Ethics. She utilzies the trolley problem is many of its formulations and there has been some discussion going on re her analysis.
I look forward to reading your paper.

[Clayton]

Thomas,

I like the paper, but there were a few things I thought I'd flag.

First, you write:
By intentionally hitting the switch or pushing the large man, the bystander
knowingly adopts a plan that will harm and wrong one person in order to save
five others.

I agree that in flipping the switch you k-ingly harm. I don't think it's obvious that you k-ingly wrong. I don't think it's obvious that you don't k-ingly wrong the guy if you flip the switch. As a test, you might ask:
Could the guy who is about to be flattened resent that I flipped the switch?

He'd be mad, to be sure. But, he might also know that I've acted permissibly in which case the action might be a necessary evil without being wrongful. It's tricky, but I don't think 8 captures an obvious symmetry between your two cases.

I had a question about T's views about permissible self-defense. I'm looking at pp. 5. It seems the conditions you list are sufficient conditions for self-defense, but it also seems that you need some claim about what T thinks is necessary for self-defense to say, "Hence, if we adopt
Thomson's permissibility conditions for self-defense, it is impermissible for the five
workmen to kill the bystander in order to save themselves." Now, maybe she somewhere else says that satisfying these conditions is necessary or maybe the necessity claim falls out of something else she says, but I don't quite see yet how this is a consequence of her views. Now, it's true that given what she said about the trolley cases, her intervention principles use this notion of direct/indirect rights violation, but I think it's not the case that we can determine when self-defense is justified by thinking about justified intervention.

You later write that Thomson's view of justified killing in self-defense is this, "Keep in mind that on Thomson's view X is justified in killing Y in self-defense if
and only if Y will (impermissibly) violate X's general right to life."Doesn't that conflict with her claim that you can justifiably kill in self-defense even when the aggressor is innocent?

In general, I have this concern. It seems possible that circumstances might arise in which X is permissibly acting in a way that will predictably lead to Y's death and Y can permissibly act in such a way as to prevent X from acting even if that predictably will lead to X's death. So far as morality is concerned, you might think, there's no mandatory outcome. Maybe what matters is that X and Y don't adopt evil means for accomplishing their unfortunate ends. (Here's a case. X is about to drop bombs in a just war. Y is about to be killed as a side-effect. Y could just take it. Y's death is a necessary evil. But, Y could also decide to take arms against a just liberator in order to save her own skin. X can permissibly kill Y. Y can permissibly kill X.) If that's right, there's no general presumption that if Y can justifiably interfere with X, X was in the wrong, was about to violate rights, etc...

Anyway, some of the claims about what Thomson must say about self-defense didn't seem to fall out of the passages you quoted and I couldn't see any way to derive those implications without assuming something contentious.

[Thomas Nadelhoffer]

Clayton,

Thanks for the suggestions. I happen to share some of your worries concerning how I have construed Thomson's view concerning self-defense. For now, I will go back and take another look at her view. Once I have thought it through, I will post a comment to let you know what I came up with.

In the meantime, I think what I was trying to do was suggest that the difference is self-defense and self-preservation is that while the former is always morally permissible, the latter may often not be--even if it could be excusable nonetheless. An obvious difference between the two is that the former, unlike the latter, requires an impermissible rights violation. I took that to be Thomson's view. But as you've made clear, I need to make sure that I am right about this.

One more quick point for now:

You say:

"I don't think it's obvious that you k-ingly wrong."

It may not be obvious, but I take that to be Thomson's view. Indeed, she explicitly claims that in hitting the switch you wrong the lone workmen, but your doing so is permissible nonetheless given (a) the numbers game, and (b) the purported fact that you method of wronging him involves an indirect rather than a direct right's violation--or something along those lines.

As I said in the post, I realize the paper needs more work. But before I bothered putting any more time and energy into it, I wanted to make sure I wasn't making some simple mistakes (or unfairly reconstructing Thomson's view). So, thanks for helping me along!

[Clayton]

Thomas,

Yeah, I liked the paper so I hope my comments were helpful. I didn't know that it was Thomson's view that you wronged the people you killed as side-effects. I feel the pull towards saying that the action of killing them as side-effects is prima facie wrong, but I don't feel the pull towards saying that by performing such a p.f. wrong act you've thereby wronged the guy. I do a better job saying that with the appropriate tone of voice than writing that. But, if Thomson is on the hook, she's on the hook.

Anyway, if you bang out another draft I'd love to see it. I've been trying to use intuitions about justified intervention similar to yours to do some work in epistemology. Maybe we can compare notes sometime.

[Mark Smeltzer]

Thomas,

I have one major worry, and one suggestion. The worry involves this quote from the final paragraph, "Keep in mind that on Thomson’s view X is justified in killing Y in self-defense if and only if Y will (impermissibly) violate X’s general right to life." The word "impermissibly" is a required qualifier for what you say in the rest of the paragraph to hold, yet you've got it in parentheses. If Thomson's view doesn't strictly require that qualifier, I don't see how your conclusions count as a criticism of Thomson's view.

My suggestion involves the main argument of your paper is contained in the final sentences of the paper and it comes off very rushed and unsupported in reading. Perhaps you could place your main argument earlier in the paper.

[Thomas Nadelhoffer]

Mark,

Thanks. The "impermissible" qualifier is something I am suggesting Thomson needs in order to distinguish impermissible (but perhaps excusable) cases of self-preservation and justified cases of self-defense. But obviously I need to do a better job motivating that claim since both you and Clayton picked up on it. But first I need to look back over Thomson's piece on self-defense.

I am also aware the paper seems a bit rushed, but I am trying to keep it conference length for now--which is not always easy. I nevertheless appreciate your advice. I hope to rework the paper this weekend and I will post the updated parts to see whether I have satisfied the worries expressed by both you and Clayton.

[Thomas Nadelhoffer]

Clayton,

Here are some salient quotes from Thomson:

“Suppose there weren’t anybody on the straight track, and the bystander turned the trolley onto the right-hand track, thereby killing, the one, but not saving anybody, since nobody was at risk, and this nobody needed saving. Wouldn’t that infringe a right of the one workman’s, a right in the cluster of rights that he has in having a right to life?” (1404)

“I think, moreover, that there is some reason to think that the bystander will infringe a right of the one if he throws the switch, even though it is permissible for him to do so. What I have in mind issues simply from the fact that if the bystander throws the switch, then he does what will kill the one…but the one did not volunteer his life so that the five might live; the bystander volunteered it for him. The bystander made him pay with his life for the bystander’s saving of the five.” (1405)

In the end, Thomson concedes the bystander would wrong the lone workmen, but it is nevertheless “a wrong it is permissible to do him.”

But I am still unsure I have her on the hook just yet. The key to my argument depends on her view concerning self-defense--especially with respect to the impermissibility of the violation that triggers it. But more on that later...

[Jasper Yate]

thetimefortrusting.blogspot.com

My blog is about sports as a means to show the practicality of philisophical tohught and often deals with capitalism and the commercial control of modern culture and seeks to question the validity of criticizing these things or supporting them. It's light hearted and I urge philosophers to be open minded and to think in new and different ways and steer clear of dogmatism. My aim is to raise the awareness among the masses of intellectual independence using practical philosophy. I study metaphysics and epistemology and enjoy it, but promote the practical use of philosophy, for if it is not used, the opinions of the ignorant about philosophy being pedantic become true - excercize your philosophy on your reality; you must have one.