Moral Spheres (Week 2)
Part 1:
- Consider the moral spheres chart. Do you agree with its structure? Do you believe it is an accurate representation of contemporary moral spheres? Would you rearrange it or change it in any way?
While I would consider this configuration of the moral sphere to be a relatively correct general approach to understanding the structure of ethical consideration among humans, I would argue that the sphere is not necessarily considerate of an individualistic approach to the sphere itself. For example, one might put more ethical weight on their ingroup that further extended branches of their family (I would, for example, put more ethical weight on my closest friendships than any relationships with my great-great-great grandparents simply due to proximity and immediate impact on myself.) Or, as another example, an individual who is conscious of environmental interactions might place equal ethical considerations on all living species without favoring one over another.
In terms of the rearrangement of the sphere, I would consider organizing it on a generally individialistic basis rather than from a historically “human” system. This rearrangement would benefit from more generalistic subsections as well as connections to psychological theories of moral development alongside a set system of conditions to define the individuals who would fall within this moral sphere. The center of the moral sphere will continue to be the self. The secondary ring would then be the individual’s ingroup and immediate family. The third, the outgroup and extended family. Fourth, strangers/all other humans. After these main four, the order and ranking of importance of the outer rings becomes a strictly individual idea that is difficult to generalize.
Part 2: The Trolley Problem
- Do you think that it would be ethical to switch the direction of the trolley so that it hit one person instead of five? Do you think it would be ethical to push one person off a bridge to save five people? Would your answers be different if the one person you sacrificed was a person you knew and the other five people were strangers? How does this relate to the idea of moral spheres?
The trolley problem has been an ethical argument for years, ultimately raising the question “are some human lives more valuable than others?” Personally, I believe that to society, no human life is more valuable than another. However, on a personal level, individuals closer to me (closer to the inner moral sphere) are “worth” more to me than perfect strangers simply because their lives impact me more than others. With this logic, it is ethical to switch the direction of the trolley to hit one person instead of five. I would push the person off of the bridge to save five people. However, I would not push someone I knew for five stragers (I would push a stranger off the bridge for five people I knew, though). In the end, individuals in moral circles closer to the “self” are deemed more valuable than individuals further out because there is more ethical weight on the sacrifice.
Also, I enjoy this website that proposes sitiations that are variants on the original trolley problem if you haven’t checked it out already:
Part 3: the Moral Machine
Generally, while making decisions for the moral machine, I favored saving more human lives without placing ascertained “worth” on any lives over others. To a machine (in this case, a self-driving car), it is fair to assume that there is very little moral reasoning that can occur outside of a numerical value — a car, if forced to make the choice, would “see” more logic in saving 5 lives over saving 2, regardless of the age, social standing, gender, or fitness level of each individual. I also regarded the fact that, in the case of the self-driving car, the safety of the passengers is “more important” than the safety of those outside of the cars (strictly because the performance objective of the car is to transport the passengers to their destination safely). Putting myself in the situation not as an outside observer, but as the car, I had to take these objectives into consideration.
