I'd stop at one. This seems like the obvious thing for a non-utilitarian to say, no? If the five people weren't in suitcases, then this would just be the standard footbridge case, where pretty much every deontologist is going to say that you shouldn't push the person. The fact that the people are in suitcases, and that they're willing to play the odds and hope that somebody else will be the one pushed, doesn't seem to change this at all.
Right. I don't see why a deontologist should have the intuition that pushing is the right thing to do in scenario 1, so the argument doesn't even get off the ground.
The original paper takes aim at ex ante deonotology, which tries to combine deontology with the idea that one should act in everyone's interests. But I can't see why a deontologist should accept that we should act in everyone's interests; to use the classic example, if the interests of the five patients favor murdering the one, then the deontologist will simply say that acting in their interests is the wrong thing to do. I'll have to look at the paper more closely, though.
Yeah, I took a look at the section on ex-post deontology. I didn't find it persuasive.
Firstly, it's not entirely clear to me that one should get the same results in opaque footbridge and two opaque tracks. Opaque footbridge is a case of direct killing: you're knowingly pushing one to save two. Two opaque tracks, by contrast, involves moral risk; after all, you don't actually know whether anyone is in the suitcase which gets pushed. So it's at least not perfectly obvious that our results should be exactly the same.
Now, perhaps if we push all three buttons, then the results should be the same; but the claim that we should push all three buttons relies one person ex-ante pareto, and it's not clear to me why the deontologist couldn't simply challenge the relevant principle. It's not like ex-ante pareto is free of challenges, and it wouldn't be the first time that an intuitively appealling principle turned out to be problematic. If one person ex-ante Pareto conflicts with ex-post deontology, then it seems like the deontologist should just take this as reason to be suspicious of the principle.
Those are my initial thoughts, at least. I'll have to look it over in more detail.
1) Two opaque tracks just involves a sequence of choices that collectively involve moving people and carrying out Opaque footbridge. In Two opaque tracks, if you take all three actions, it's guaranteed two will die and one will live. The claim you should push all three just relies on single person pareto--each time you push one you make one person better off and no one worse off.
Right, that's my point. The argument in that section of Kowalczyk's paper is that there are cases in which ex-post deontology bumps up against one person ex-ante Pareto. In particular, it seems like two opaque tracks presents a case where obeying one person ex-ante Pareto generates a deontologically unacceptable action. But then it seems like the deontologist could simply conclude that there are cases where one shouldn't obey one person ex-ante Pareto. As I said, it wouldn't be the first time that an intuitively appealing principle turned out to birth monsters. This isn't even terribly surprising; if making people better or worse off isn't at the center of one's ethics, then it's hardly shocking that there will be cases where the right thing to do isn't the thing that makes people better off.
Also, it seems like the intuition here is relying upon us thinking of two opaque tracks as involving three discrete actions: pressing A, then pressing B, then pressing C. In each case, the intuitively right decision is to push, so how can it be wrong to push all three? But it isn't clear that this is the right way to think about it; as Kowalczyk notes on pp. 17-18, whether one pushes A will be tightly bound up with what one does later. As such, there's really only ONE decision being made here: do you push no buttons, or do you push all three? But this is just the same decision as opaque footbridge, which is easy for the deontologist. Kowalczyk tries to improve Hare's argument (which runs into the aforementioned issue), but his improvement relies crucially upon one person ex-ante Pareto, and as discussed above, it isn't clear to me that the deontologist should accept this.
I don't have the intuition that you should push in scenario 1 (and therefore of course also not in scenarios 2-5), the categorical imperative applies even if everyone involved, from a self-interested point of view, doesn't want it to apply - that's just a logical consequence of Kantianism. Although I grant that arguments from a veil of ignorance are the best arguments in favour utilitarianism.
I *might* stop at two, depending on how likely it is that they’d all consent to the person at the top being pushed (assuming they know that it might be them, and consent to the risk anyway).
But I’d definitely stop at three: pushing the person when they expressly don’t agree to being pushed seems wrong.
I'd stop at one. This seems like the obvious thing for a non-utilitarian to say, no? If the five people weren't in suitcases, then this would just be the standard footbridge case, where pretty much every deontologist is going to say that you shouldn't push the person. The fact that the people are in suitcases, and that they're willing to play the odds and hope that somebody else will be the one pushed, doesn't seem to change this at all.
Right. I don't see why a deontologist should have the intuition that pushing is the right thing to do in scenario 1, so the argument doesn't even get off the ground.
The original paper takes aim at ex ante deonotology, which tries to combine deontology with the idea that one should act in everyone's interests. But I can't see why a deontologist should accept that we should act in everyone's interests; to use the classic example, if the interests of the five patients favor murdering the one, then the deontologist will simply say that acting in their interests is the wrong thing to do. I'll have to look at the paper more closely, though.
It takes aim at both ex ante and ex post deontology.
Yeah, I took a look at the section on ex-post deontology. I didn't find it persuasive.
Firstly, it's not entirely clear to me that one should get the same results in opaque footbridge and two opaque tracks. Opaque footbridge is a case of direct killing: you're knowingly pushing one to save two. Two opaque tracks, by contrast, involves moral risk; after all, you don't actually know whether anyone is in the suitcase which gets pushed. So it's at least not perfectly obvious that our results should be exactly the same.
Now, perhaps if we push all three buttons, then the results should be the same; but the claim that we should push all three buttons relies one person ex-ante pareto, and it's not clear to me why the deontologist couldn't simply challenge the relevant principle. It's not like ex-ante pareto is free of challenges, and it wouldn't be the first time that an intuitively appealling principle turned out to be problematic. If one person ex-ante Pareto conflicts with ex-post deontology, then it seems like the deontologist should just take this as reason to be suspicious of the principle.
Those are my initial thoughts, at least. I'll have to look it over in more detail.
1) Two opaque tracks just involves a sequence of choices that collectively involve moving people and carrying out Opaque footbridge. In Two opaque tracks, if you take all three actions, it's guaranteed two will die and one will live. The claim you should push all three just relies on single person pareto--each time you push one you make one person better off and no one worse off.
Right, that's my point. The argument in that section of Kowalczyk's paper is that there are cases in which ex-post deontology bumps up against one person ex-ante Pareto. In particular, it seems like two opaque tracks presents a case where obeying one person ex-ante Pareto generates a deontologically unacceptable action. But then it seems like the deontologist could simply conclude that there are cases where one shouldn't obey one person ex-ante Pareto. As I said, it wouldn't be the first time that an intuitively appealing principle turned out to birth monsters. This isn't even terribly surprising; if making people better or worse off isn't at the center of one's ethics, then it's hardly shocking that there will be cases where the right thing to do isn't the thing that makes people better off.
Also, it seems like the intuition here is relying upon us thinking of two opaque tracks as involving three discrete actions: pressing A, then pressing B, then pressing C. In each case, the intuitively right decision is to push, so how can it be wrong to push all three? But it isn't clear that this is the right way to think about it; as Kowalczyk notes on pp. 17-18, whether one pushes A will be tightly bound up with what one does later. As such, there's really only ONE decision being made here: do you push no buttons, or do you push all three? But this is just the same decision as opaque footbridge, which is easy for the deontologist. Kowalczyk tries to improve Hare's argument (which runs into the aforementioned issue), but his improvement relies crucially upon one person ex-ante Pareto, and as discussed above, it isn't clear to me that the deontologist should accept this.
I don't have the intuition that you should push in scenario 1 (and therefore of course also not in scenarios 2-5), the categorical imperative applies even if everyone involved, from a self-interested point of view, doesn't want it to apply - that's just a logical consequence of Kantianism. Although I grant that arguments from a veil of ignorance are the best arguments in favour utilitarianism.
I'd recommend reading the paper, for it provides a very compelling case for pushing in scenario one. https://brill.com/view/journals/jmp/aop/article-10.1163-17455243-19030009/article-10.1163-17455243-19030009.xml
Thanks, I'm gonna read it for sure!
I *might* stop at two, depending on how likely it is that they’d all consent to the person at the top being pushed (assuming they know that it might be them, and consent to the risk anyway).
But I’d definitely stop at three: pushing the person when they expressly don’t agree to being pushed seems wrong.