Posted on by Abe Austin

False Moral Dilemmas- Nazis at the Door

A Real-Life Example)

Yesterday I made the assertion that most moral dilemmas are manufactured. By far, the correct moral option is apparent in our day-to-day choices, and that thought experiments like the trolley problem tie themselves in unrealistic knots to try and force a situation where every action seems to be morally compromised.

But are there any other thought experiments that are based on historical fact? Situations that people really faced where every action was wrong?

Well, another common thought experiment that seems at first glance to fit the bill is that of the Nazis at the door. This one is at least based on an actual historical occurrence. During World War Two, there were people that would hide Jews, and Nazi soldiers would be sent from door-to-door, investigating whether anyone in the community knew where the Jews were. So, the thought experiment is simply to put yourself in the place of someone who knows where the Jews are hiding, with a Nazi officer having just asked you to reveal them.

The question is, would you lie and say that you don’t know where they are? Or, because lying is wrong, would you tell them the truth, resulting in their likely death? This is presented as an example of a time where obviously the “correct” choice is to lie. The example is given to convince us that sometimes we must do wrong to prevent a greater wrong from occurring.

The Third Choice)

But the whole thought experiment is flawed. As with the trolley problem, the situation is always presented with only two choices, implicitly discouraging any sort of moral creativity. But to suggest that lying or betraying the Jews are the only options is false.

How’s this for a third choice: refuse to engage with the Nazis by principle? Whether you know where Jews are hiding or not, you could always just refuse to say a word to them. Of course, that might have some very painful repercussions on you. You might be hurt, you might be killed, but there’s no denying that this way you didn’t do anything to compromise your conscience.

Perhaps we don’t feel that we have the moral fortitude to commit to such a course of action. Perhaps we would rather compromise our soul than suffer the consequences of silence. Fair enough, we’re all a work in progress, but let us admit that the error is in us, not in the logic of the universe. There is no paradox of having to do wrong to achieve right, our dilemma is that our fear has precluded the only good option, leaving only bad ones before us.

So, once again, we have a thought experiment designed to force us into compromising our morals, but once again it is contrived and forced. Purely moral behavior still remains an option.

Posted on by Abe Austin

False Moral Dilemmas- The Trolley Problem

A Cultural Fascination)

I do not know if moral dilemma thought experiments were a fascination of earlier ages, but they certainly are in this era. We have many theoretical situations, torturously contrived to try and force the participant into morally compromising him- or herself, no matter what choice is made.

In this series I’m going to try and discredit these false moral dilemmas and also try to see where the desire for them comes from. Why do we think that it is sometimes impossible to be moral or why do we want that to be the case?

For today, we’ll start by examining one of the most popular moral dilemma thought experiments out there.

Imagine a Trolley)

We’ve all heard of the trolley problem, in which a trolley is barreling down the tracks towards five people tied to the railway. You, alone, stand by a switch that can divert the trolley onto a second track, but there is another person tied to that track. Is it better to remain uninvolved and let more people die, or to take action, making you personally responsible for the death of one person?

This is, of course, a ludicrous setup, one that I think we can safely say no one has ever encountered in the real world. What is more, if you try to find any creative options outside of the two originally provided, the person presenting the problem will always artificially shoot those down.

“No, you can’t signal the train to stop in time. No, you can’t untie the people on the tracks. No, you can’t throw yourself on the tracks to try and force the train to stop. Why? Because you just can’t, you have to only choose from the two options that you’ve been given.”

Manufactured Dilemmas)

While the intention of the thought experiment is to get you to appreciate and consider difficult moral dilemmas, the fact that it is so unrealistic speaks to how scarce moral dilemmas really are. I’m not saying that they don’t ever exist, we’ll examine some genuine ones later, but if most of these situations have to be manufactured, then clearly moral clarity is the norm, not the exception.