The Moral Side of Murder - Eugene Wong

Since I have always had profound interest, I found this lecture on law very interesting. In many ways, this lesson was as much about philosophy as about law. I really enjoyed learning about different styles of reasoning that explained why some people would consider one action (in this case, turning the trolley car to kill one person instead of two, or saving four moderately urgent patients instead of one in critical condition) “right” over another option.

            For me, between consequentialism and categorical moral reasoning, I’ve always been more a categorical moral reasoner. I personally find consequentialist thinking much too cold-blooded and mechanical. In a situation a situation where I were driver of a dysfunctional trolley car, I would choose to let the events unfold naturally, even if it means killing four more people, rather than consciously steer the car into another man. The reason being, the latter option is very much thought out, and in some ways could arguably labeled as murder, albeit justifiable.

            For example, if you chose to kill the one person and save other four, once the family of the one person heard that you chose to kill her/him, they might blame you for the death. If I they did, the blame would be justifiable. However, if you decided to let the five workers die, there is no way anyone would blame you for what you did. The only one who could be blamed is the car mechanic. When Michael Sanders turns the question around and says that you would have to push a fat man to save the other workers, if you follow my way (categorical moral thinking) you would have a consistent answer for both question, unlike the majority of people, who switched between consequentialist and categorical moral reasoning.

            However, I strongly believe that if you were a doctor, you would be obligated to save the four people over the one. In this way, you wouldn’t be consciously killing the patient, but not saving him either. However, in this case, as a doctor, it is literally in your job description to save most people possible. When Sanders again turns the question around and asks if you had to murder the person the save the others, I wouldn’t (as most people wouldn’t). This is because in the second situation, stealing the organs from a completely uninvolved man isn’t killing by not saving, it’s full-fledged murder.

            So that is some insight my opinion and an explanation. To conclude, I am a categorical moral reasoner. I found I’ve learned a lot from this relatively short lesson on law, so I think will continue to watch Michael Sanders’ lectures. I hope you enjoyed reading my opinion of the lecture!!!