Introductory Ethics

Consider the following scenarios1:

(i) Your neighbor comes home with your dream car, the car you have wanted since you were a teenager. He gets out of it beaming, obviously proud to have the money and ability to afford such a magnificent machine. As he walks towards you to surely boast about his purchase you grab a monkey wrench from the garage and bludgeon him to death in his own drive way. You get in the car of your dreams and (since the keys are still in the ignition) park the car in your garage and continue about your day.

(ii) After a night of libations and conversation at the local bar, you bid your company a good night walk out of the bar and begin your trek home. Upon reaching your apartment complex you find a wallet on the ground full of money. The license has an address in your building. The next morning you return the wallet to its owner (just as you found it).

(iii) A trolley is barreling towards a fork in the tracks, its operator is obviously some sort of villain as he has a menacing mustache and is laughing maniacally. Quickly you notice that one tine of the fork has three people tied to it and the other tine of the fork has one person tied to it. You can see ahead the lever that will switch the direction the trolley will travel on the fork. You have enough time to reach the lever before the trolley hits the fork, but certainly not enough time to try to untie anyone (do to your distance from the lever and the speed of the trolley). The fork is currently set so that the trolley barrel over the group of three, what should you do?

Each of these scenarios has surely evoked some sort of opinion in you. Most people (although not necessarily all) would disagree with murdering your neighbor for his new car as depicted in (i). Most people would agree with returning the wallet to its owner as in (ii). There is a sort of murkiness that is intentional when it comes to (iii), the outcome of your decision will ultimately result in some sort of harm done, more on (iii) later.

Now, your natural gut reaction to the scenarios here have something to do with the philosophical branch of philosophy called "ethics." People who study ethics are concerned with the concepts of "right" and "wrong." As in it would be "wrong" to murder your neighbor for a car. It is the "right thing to do" not to take any money out of the wallet and return it to your neighbor.

Ethics is a great subject to start the amateur philosopher with because everyone has a sort of idea what is "right" and what is "wrong." Whether you analyze each situation and make a decision accordingly or you subscribe to some sort of ethical system (that you have concocted or that accords with your religion, etc...).

Most studies in ethics are concerned with developing some sort of ethical system that can be applied to any situation and produce a consistent outcome. The tricky thing about ethics is that not every situation is ethically cut and dry as it is in both (i) and (ii).

As ridiculous as (iii) is, it demonstrates an ethically sticky situation. No matter what you decide to do a person will get horribly hurt or die. Perhaps you choose to switch the tracks so that the three people are saved and the single person faces the wrath of the trolley. What if i told you that the one person was a baby, and that the three people were three geriatric old men, would this change your decision? Or what if the one person was not a baby but the leader of a neo-nazi sect of the KKK and the three people were single mothers? What if they all were neo-nazis? What if they all were members of your family?

Scenario (iii) is a famous philosophical scenario and an important one because it makes us think about all ethical situations in such a way that we ask why we consider a decision to be a "right" one or a "wrong" one. The point of it is not to avoid the decision you have to make by say throwing yourself at the trolley in an attempt to stop it before it hits the fork, or running super fast and switching the tracks, using your machete to untie the single person saving everyone before the trolley can do any harm. The point of studying ethics is making that hard decision and knowing why you have chosen the way that you have.

What makes a question a philosophically ethical one? If it is concerned with morality and/or the difference between right and wrong.



1. These scenarios are all thought experiments, or hypothetical situations invented to evoke some sort of reaction to prove a point. Thought experiments are an important philosophical and scientific tool.