I keep seeing discussions on the question of would you save your dog or a random child if you could only save one. Also including the alternative question would you save your 12 year old dog or a random child. The fact this question is divisive was surprising to me, as I felt strongly that most people would value a human life over an animal. However I found out that this is actually the unpopular position, and most people would save their dog in both situations. What is your stance? And why do you think that way?

I came up with a thought experiment about moral responsibility and the degree of personal involvement

Hi everyone! This is my first Reddit post, so I hope I'm posting this in the right place.

Recently, I came up with an idea that I'm currently calling “The Theory of Minimal and Maximal Involvement.”

I'm not claiming that this is an established psychological theory. For now, it's more of a thought experiment that I'd like to discuss.

The main question is:

If the final outcome is exactly the same, does our moral responsibility change depending on how directly we participate in achieving that outcome?

Imagine the following situation.

You are 100% certain that a dangerous serial killer lives in a particular house. You know with absolute certainty that he is guilty, and for the purposes of this thought experiment, assume that you will face no consequences for his death.

Now imagine five different levels of involvement.

1. Minimal involvement — 10%

You call the police and report him.

The police take him away. From that point on, he could receive life imprisonment, the death penalty, or even be released.

Your personal involvement is minimal.

Question: If you only reported the person, are you responsible for what eventually happens to him?

1. Passive involvement — 30%

Imagine that the person is placed in a gas chamber. Gas begins filling the room.

You are standing on the other side of the glass. You have a button that would save him.

You can press it — or simply do nothing.

You are not physically causing his death, but you knowingly allow the situation to end in his death.

Question: Can inaction become an action when you already know exactly what the outcome will be?

1. Indirect involvement — 50%

You pay a hitman to kill him.

You don't physically kill him yourself.

However, the killing happens because you made the decision and arranged for it to happen.

Question: Does your responsibility become smaller simply because another person stands between you and the actual death?

1. Direct involvement — 80%

The person is tied to a chair.

You are holding a gun.

One pull of the trigger causes his death.

There is no intermediary anymore.

You personally perform the action that directly causes the outcome.

Question: Why does this feel psychologically so different from the previous situations?

1. Maximum involvement — 100%

The person is still in front of you, but now the situation requires direct physical contact.

You have to approach him and carry out the act yourself.

There is almost no psychological distance left:

you → action → person → outcome.

You directly experience what you are doing and its immediate consequences.

And this is what really interests me.

In all five scenarios, the final outcome is identical: the person dies.

Yet the degree of personal involvement is completely different.

Why might someone say:

“I could report him.”

or:

“I could let him die.”

but at the same time say:

“I could never kill him myself”?

Where exactly does that psychological boundary come from?

Why might someone who is willing to choose the second level be unwilling to move to the first, third, fourth, or fifth?

And can a person perceive themselves as less responsible simply because there is a greater physical or psychological distance between them and the outcome?

For now, I'm calling this “The Theory of Minimal and Maximal Involvement.” I realize that this idea may overlap with existing concepts in psychology, philosophy, ethics, or moral psychology.

So I'd really like to know:

Does something like this already exist?

How would you rank these five levels of responsibility?

And does physical proximity to an action actually change how we perceive our own guilt and responsibility?

I’d be really happy to hear your thoughts, answers, and opinions! I’m genuinely curious to see how you interpret this idea and whether anything similar already exists. ❤️

Throwawayccount

I wish it wasnt so but i see it all the time.

Whenever someone steps up and tries to be a good person there will be a swarm of people either idling or even worse hindering/ridiculing the attempt to solve whatever problem is present.

society is speedrunning its own demise and it make me depressed AF.

What can i do?

What can you do?

What can the world do?

Would it be ethical to quietly but deliberately steer or manipulate people around you, if it led to an overall positive condition for those involved?

It seems incredibly arrogant. To make decisions about the welfare of a group of people without their input feels deeply immoral, even hubristic.

On the other hand, if you can see a resolution in the midst of chaos, are you not ethically required to pursue that - even if the 'peace' would be rejected without external influence?

At the end of the day, isn't this the essence of politics and diplomacy?

Consider also scale - influencing a group of friends to promote interpersonal cohesion, to global politic and national morale. Is there a line, and where is it if so?

(sorry for the repeated ?s, I realise it looks obnoxious)

Hey everyone, I have a bit of a philosophical conundrum I’ve thought about for years, but could never figure out.
How far is too far for redemption? Is there a limit on how bad a person could be before they’re excluded from redemption? Say if someone kills three people, but decides to turn their life around. They admit what they did was wrong, and will actively spend the rest of their life doing better. Can that person be redeemed? Can they be worthy of having a normal life? A family, friends, all that? Or are they damned after a certain point? Are their actions towards redemption worthless due to their past crimes?
I used to think there was a limit to it. That past a certain point, no matter what you did, you couldn’t be redeemed. That if you did enough evil, no amount of good could offset it, even if you somehow cured cancer and created world peace.
What do you all think? Is there such a limit? Like you can kill one person, but be redeemable, but two is irredeemable? Or you can rape two people, but any more and you’re damned?
Thanks for any and all responses, this is just a moral thought experiment I’ve had in my head for years.

PLEASE READ FIRST!! Please note that this is my first Reddit post and that all topics covered are for hypothetical thought processes.

For an explanation Goop is what others may call a "Human Sludge".

I have come to the personal finding that the ship of Theseus paradox is that it is still the ship when it has its crew that give it its identity. From this the topic of teleportation was discussed. Then i continued to show my ideas of how it would work and that way would be that the person is scanned and the exact state of their being is copied including the strain and structure of the neurons that your brain is made up of. Because thought is the electrical signals of the brain those signals would be copied and transferred to the sight of teleportation.

Teleportation would be a form of public transit and the way it would work would be as follows. The person beginning the proses of teleportation would be scanned, Gooped, then have their conscious transferred, then reassembled upon the other end of teleportation. Goop is what makes up all of a human from the toe to the last strand of hair with the viscosity of the result being somewhat in-between that of oil and honey. Said Goop is stored in large communal tanks stored in the immediate vicinity to make storage and reassembly easier. In the event that a person gains mass in-between teleportation events the mass would consist of a mix of cancer cells and the communal Goop. Upon witch the person may be fined depending on said amount of Goop and cancer biomass used. The inverse however would not be true for people who have lost mass. Any of said person would have parts of outstanding fines paid based upon lost mass.

Goop does expire and has a shelf life between 12-15 months based upon use and storage conditions said shelf life would decrease upon the age and time the Goop is used. After expiration Goop is turned into one of the 2 following things. One of these said things being Soylent Green which would then be fed to poor people as to reduce government expenditures on things like food stamps. The other option is that it would be burned for fuel/biofuel which would be similar of that to things like coal but a weird viscous liquid.

The cancer that I referred to earlier would come from cancer farms. With its use to be biomass as to supply to the Goop tanks in the event of mass loss or rapid expiration. The reason why I chose cancer is because of its properties of rapid growth.

The main part of my concerns would be the initial harvest of Goop with it being from people who have committed crimes against humanity like that being SA and other monstrosities. along with wither or not it is ethical to feed the poor said Soylent Green along with the burning of Goop

I will do my best to respond and answer all questions to the best of my ability which also includes questions on the Goop its self

Question posed by the Good. Organ. Organization. Party.

Obviously hypothetical, however side question of is it even possible to live a life where you do no harm to anyone?

This is a reply to Jesse Prinz and Paul Bloom’s skepticism about the moral importance of empathy. It concedes that empathy is spontaneously biased to individuals who are spatio-temporally close, as well as discriminatory in other ways, and incapable of accommodating large numbers of individuals. But it is argued that we could partly correct these shortcomings of empathy by a guidance of reason because empathy for others consists in imagining what they feel, and, importantly, such acts of imagination can be voluntary – and, thus, under the influence of reflection – as well as automatic. Since empathizing with others motivates concern for their welfare, a reflectively justified empathy will lead to a likewise justified altruistic concern. In addition, we argue that such concern supports another central moral attitude, namely a sense of justice or fairness.

Incorporeal moral psychology asks whether morality ultimately emerges from conscious experience. If so, ethical evaluation may need to consider intention, awareness, suffering, empathy, and the subjective experience underlying action—not merely behavior or social status.

Zurich could force privately funded Christian care facilities to allow assisted suicide on their premises - that is how the proponents and opponents argue

So hurting someone for doing something bad is extremely normalized. When you can reward good behaviors or disregard bad ones rather than doing bad things to stop bad things. It such an obvious oxymoron but half the world doesn't pick up on this. Its normalized with politics, crime, even franking couples normalize hurting each other. People won't listen the first time so we need to use excessive force.

Do we have to rely on excessive force for the leaders or top of society to get their way? They are very aware of what I said, they just earnestly believe they are more right than others and point to their work to provide for others to show their inherent 'greater' value. Which results in some hypocritical, backwards behavior where the mind isn't aware it is making itself ill and insane doing circles in the ground.

In life were trying to stomp out criminals. For good. Once and for all. But its never happened, well cause I guess everyone can be a criminal, anyone can lie, so we just need technology to catch up to capture, document, all aspects of life and track the wrongdoers so no one will disagree or hurt the system that is trying over! You guys want to criticize what's in place, but its in place for a reason ya know. (alright I am the critical guy where, enough with that mockery no one initially understood)

look we just want good ideas in the world to win, proliferate. The system does the best that it can and it captures people who I hate, who you'd reasonably hate if you were in my position. And its easy to find others to agree and stick with mob mentality that hurts all individuals, despite the mod is comprised of individuals so hurting them is pointless, antithetical to what we set out to do. I think this is why even when someone gains traction and moves on their mountain, slowly we realize we keep creating limiting circumstances for our own lives, cause we want to avoid chance, luck, the wheel of fortune, cause luck and chance are either on your side or not. They are not always nice concepts despite big wins.

Well so, at the end of the day. We all wanted the same thing. Good ideas to win, individuals to be honored while the majority isn't forced to act how a select few or an tyrannical individual may dictate. Reasonable actions to win out. But it does not always win out

Its not reasonable to be upset someone hurt and victimized someone so now you victimize them to show them how it feels. The weird thing, its like an eye for an eye. Its leaving everyone blind when we let our basis for attacking someones eyes if they did it to us or to someone we care about or just people in genearl. So cops with guns to stop shooting, secret crimes that are OK so long as someone is santioned to do it, means people have a right to fight back. Now we all know what happens is slowly we move to a totaliarian state to fix this. but the thing is that doesn't happen like it does in the movies. Cause not one single person wants to force others to live like that. But controlling behaviors is still common. I think decency can be taught, not enforced. I think that's the only way to stop crime. Those movies about government controlling all aspects of life could prove true for a bit, but realistically it would be dismantled by even the people fighting for it. No one wants to be controlled in life. Even managers, CEO's, wise leaders. Only if crime proliferated more would this happen and right now numbers are down. Even if there was an influx no one would enjoy that life. It would be over quickly.

Why do we engage in hypocritical methods to make it in the world? Is it possible were all stuck around unthoughtful actors posing as thoughtful and wise, when even as a wise person you are an individual with individual desires and concerns, so honoring what you feel is right is most important?

I said 'nothing' because this topic is about people who go in circles. The motivation to start a circle is the problem, then no one would go in circles all day. The mental disturbance, illness it takes to make you want to start going in hypocritical circles just to do something, is the same thing as sitting around not doing much cause both people go nowhere. Can we all realize this? its not the person sitting around who doesn't realize this (that's me) its the person going in circles putting themselves on a pedestal when all they did was move in a circle. Can we honor this obvious, reasonable truth somehow? I'm feeling very lonely in this analysis and observation. Knowing the world is built around people going in circles so they can feel better but those circles hurt others and I have to accept working with people who accept these never ending circles.

As an atheist i often find hard to stick to morality. Well it is easy for most of time but sometimes it is very hard, and it is often due to others action. For example i find it immoral to eat animal when we have so many veg options but still i see many people opting non-veg just for the sake of taste which icks me to be honest. Many societies around the world repress women and abuse human rights, will they be brought to justice is often i think. You see mass killers who were never trialed for their deeds roaming freely and will die peacefully..

I know i didn't articulated the post properly but i hope you guys get what i'm trying to say

In this post, I argue that we shouldn't prioritize humans over other animals in moral decision-making. I specifically argue against the views that:

1. Human suffering is more important than animal suffering
2. Animals suffer vastly less than humans
3. We, as humans, have a unique obligation to help other humans
4. Helping humans is best long-term

Debate, banter, dismiss, disagree, ... etc. Prove censorship or enticensorship just to brag about value is a convenient payoff for preexisting wealth

So I've been thinking about the three major approaches to ethics: consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics, and I'm trying to figure out which one makes the most sense as a general framework for morality.

As I understand them:

• Consequentialism state that an action is morally right or wrong primarily according to its consequences.
• Deontology: an action is morally right or wrong according to duties, principles, or rules, regardless of whether it produces the best consequences.
• Virtue ethics: morality is primarily about developing good character and acting as a virtuous person would.

What makes this difficult for me is that all three seem to consider consequences to some degree. A deontologist obviously can't be completely indifferent to what happens as a result of an action, and a virtue ethicist also has to consider the circumstances and consequences of acting virtuously. So perhaps the real distinction isn't whether consequences matter, but what role they play in determining moral rightness.

For example, imagine a person is hiding in my house because someone is trying to kill them. The would-be murderer comes to my door and asks whether the person is inside.

A consequentialist might say that lying is justified because it produces the better outcome.

But what would a deontologist or virtue ethicist say? Does a deontologist have a duty to tell the truth even if doing so results in an innocent person being killed? Or can the duty to protect an innocent person override the duty of truthfulness?

If you had to choose only one of these three frameworks as the fundamental basis of morality, which one would you choose, and why?

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1850271

https://www.smashwords.com/books/1849090

PREFACE / A Philosophical Kaleidoscope: A kaleidoscope of philosophical thoughts, novel contemplations, and sharp aphorisms – in praise of what is and not merely what ought to be! Offering answers – or at least insight into questions such as: Is there intrinsic meaning in human life? Can we ever truly know something with absolute certainty? Is Free Will an illusion? Can the suppression of desires bring happiness? Has self-deception in humans been favored by natural selection? Why are hypocrisy and insincerity so widespread in human societies? Is Morality objective, and can it be preserved without religion? Should philosophy aim primarily to attain approximate truths, or is its main purpose to offer peace of mind and a good mental life? Is the pandemic of self-admiration and self-deification in the West a product of the decline of religion – or of disinterest in philosophy? Is Selfhood an illusion? Can there be any freedom in a deterministic world? Is it true that the unexamined life is not worth living?

PREFACE/Novel Philosophy: Science and Metaphysics reveal aspects of what “is”. Logic and Epistemology help us interpret these aspects and understand how much of them we can truly know. Finally, Ethics teaches us how to embrace this knowledge and how to focus on the things that foster endurance and contentment in the long run, while avoiding those that keep our hearts buried in the ground. How to live well and decently, and how to help society function properly.

This book is by no means a rejection of the centuries of wisdom bestowed upon us by great thinkers such as Socrates, Aristotle, Tagore, Laozi, Seneca, Hypatia, Epicurus, Einstein, Darwin, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Popper, and many others. Rather, it is an attempt to take a small step forward.

"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order."

- Alfred North Whitehead