Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Does intention (or a desire to do good) affect the goodness or evilness of our actions?
Having good intentions or at least a desire to do good, does affect the evilness of our actions. It affects it because we could try so hard to do something right or be in the right mind to do so, and it can come out completely opposite. In "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?", by Robert Wright, talks about how this man named Joshua Greene wanted to test out an experiment. The experiment was to have 5 people tied up to a trolly, with three possible solutions for others. You could either pull a lever and only one person would die, pushing a man in front of the trolley, which would save the five and he would die or do nothing and let all five of them die. I think the people that chose to either pull the lever or to push a man in front of the trolley had good intentions of figuring out the best way to save the people but were rally just going off the top of their head or by the insticnt of their guts. Even if somebody chose to do nothing, probably has good intentitions too, but just doesn't want to suffer one, to save the rest. Those people having those thoughts to do those things are normal and they think it would be the best outcome to save the people, especially just by pulling the lever. So using either one of those ways are good examples of people having good intentions but having evilness come out of their actions.
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I agree with the fact that no matter how much you try to do something right there is a possibility of it going wrong. In the experiment by Joshua Greene, all five people are selfish and cowards because they would rather kill someone else, either directly or indirectly, to save their own lives. The reason these people would rather pull a lever to have someones life taken instead of their own as opposed to pushing a man in front of the train is because they do not have to look the man in the eyes or emotionally connect right before they kill him. No, instead they would pull a lever so technicalities could come into play and help save their morality. For example, technically they did not kill the man by force or by their own doing, so its not immoral. But it still is against morals because they consciously made a decision to sacrifice an others life to save their own.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a person can have good intentions while doing something but somehow everything turns out wrong. I believe that emotion (pathos) is behind a person’s decision making when it comes down to choosing something as important as saving lives like in the trolley experiment. I believe there is a gut feeling that comes along in situations like this and that feeling is what drives people do choose their actions. I think a gut feeling is mostly instincts but it might be a little more than that, there is also emotion and some logic that ties into having a gut feeling. It was interesting that people said they would switch a lever and have only one person die instead of five which is rational but more people rejected the idea of giving that one person a nudge and saving the five people. Peoples attitude changes when they actually have to push the person to save the others’ lives because that makes the situation more personal, it is easier to just switch a lever than to actually have to physically have contact with the person while committing the same act that will lead to the same outcome. Intentions makes all the difference on whether an action is good or evil. If a person pushed another to their death in order to keep five other people alive it is a horrendous act but the intentions are to save more lives. All acts should be viewed with the intention in which it was done.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Our desire to do good has a major affect on the goodness or evilness of our actions. I think that this desire has much to do with the natural selfishness or self-centeredness that we all have. When we think that we have done a good thing, we feel good about ourselves. There’s no denying that we all want to have this feeling. The desire to have this feeling for ourselves can become so strong that we are willing to do whatever it takes to obtain it. In the trolley problem that was mentioned in both texts, most people chose to pull the lever instead of throwing the man off the bridge. The desire to do and feel good rather than the outcome of lives that were at stake was a major part of this decision. People didn’t want to throw the man off the bridge because the act of killing a human being with their own hands was repulsive to them; it wouldn’t have made them feel good about themselves to know that they were directly responsible for the death of a man. Their desire to feel good affected the goodness of their actions or their preferred actions. I think this is the same desire that led Fritz Haber to do the things that he did. He wanted to do good, and supporting his country in any way possible was good in his eyes. When he was able to do this, it must’ve made him feel good about himself. This is what drove him to do things like leave his son with his dead wife. He probably felt like he had to do this so he could focus more on the research of chemical weapons which was his way of supporting his country. Supporting his country fed his desire to feel good.
ReplyDeleteI would also have to agree with the idea of having good intentions can possible lead various consequences that are affect by our actions. In the experiment each situation results in the death of another whether it is pulling the lever, purposely killing a man or just watch as the five people race to their deaths. No matter what choice you make one person will result in dying so which one would be the best choice? No matter where or how you look at it there is always a consequence of some kind. Personally I would have trouble deciding to pull the lever or pushing the man in front of the trolly, there is no way I would stand there and do nothing, because doing nothing is just as bad as purposely committing an evil act. As said by Edmund Burke, "evil prevails when good men fail to act". I also agree with the comment above, there is no emotional connection when you are presented with this problem, you don't know those people so it does not affect you as much, however if you consider the possibility of the people having children to think about then your actions would be affected to save the father/mother of the child. In this experiment there is no way for the outcome to be in your favor because no matter what you choose someone or multiple people will die, but does the cost of one life balance by saving five others?
ReplyDeleteI agree that having good intentions to do something does not make you a bad person if the outcome is bad. Sometimes, regardless of how hard we try, we can’t control the outcome of every situation. All we can do is have good intentions with every action we make. Just like the Trolley experiment in “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?”, It is very unfair that someone would have to make the decision of who lives and who dies. Therefore, whatever the bystander decided, they did it with good intentions. Whether it was saving five, one, or doing nothing. Either way, someone is going to get killed. I agree with you that the difference between pulling a lever, and actually pushing the man is the fact the bystander would have to physically touch the person they were killing making it personal. It is really just a shitty situation that no one should have to be in. The worst part is other people might view the bystander as a bad person because the situation is bad. When really, there was nothing the bystander could do. Again, as long as you have truly good intentions for the greater good of everyone, who’s to say you are a bad person because the outcome ended badly? We are all only human, and sometimes we cannot help the situations we get into.
ReplyDeleteI agree that having good intentions can lead to evil actions, but that doesn't make you a bad person. A lot that has to do with your decisions is affected by your emotions. For example, in "Why can't we all just get along?", All the outcomes of the choices you have result in some minor consequence, but we as humans are going to look for the solution that is for the better good for everyone. Granted it is unfair that all the choices result in someone dying, but saving who you can is a decision that you decide with good intentions. I also agree that there is a difference between pushing the man and pulling a lever because pushing someone is you forcefully killing someone which makes it more personal. In that case pushing someone to their death is more evil then simply pulling a lever. Intentions are the difference between whether a decision is good or evil. It's a gut feeling to decide the best situation and that doesn't make you a bad person if it ends up badly as long as you have the intention of doing good. After all were not perfect, were human for a reason and sometimes we can't make the perfect decision that fits everyone's interest.
ReplyDeleteI believe the intention of a person has everything to do with the way people perceive others but not the way we perceive the actions of that person. For example, in "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?” Joshua Greene’s experiment tested people mentally giving them two scenarios to be able to analyze their morality. With either decision that could be made, Green was able to analyze the persons’ brain activity and understand physiologically their decision making. With this he was able to conclude with either decision chosen either, there was much brain activity either one of two parts of their brains’ which correlated to the chosen answers. Those that chose to do nothing where using their emotion generating part of their brain and those whom chose to do something where using the logical thinking part of their brain. If one where to just to look at the decisions being made, either decision can look pretty bad and lead you to perceive that person as bad. Greene also asked the participants to explain their reasoning for their choices and this then proves their intention. The ones that chose to not do anything and let the five people die, said something along the lines that it was wrong to kill that one person, they did nothing wrong. The ones that chose to do something and kill the one and save the five, said something along the lines of safe as many people as possible, better one than five. This shows these people had good intentions although the situation was pretty crappy. In all, after knowing the people had the best intentions, the actions being done are still quite horrible if they were to do something or nothing.
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