Ah, yes. I'm done with mine. Since some of the students gave everyone in their group 100% an others actually haned out reasonably fair (if still inflated) grades, I briefly considered changing my own participation grades to compensate, and then decided fuck it, I don't care that much.
But I can't figure out how to enter the formula into the stupid WebCT. It keeps coming out wrong, and it's pissing me off. Hoping the tech support people can do it for me before my grades are due Monday afternoon...
I don't even give/collect my finals until Tuesday. I do have a bunch of papers that I should have been grading, but procrastinating on them helped me got a lot of work done on something I'm writing. But I'll have a mess o'stuff to take home for Xmas--which may distract me from the looming APA. Also, my parents' house has a staircase so grading will go quickly.
Like, you did notice I've been procrastinating, didn't you?
For some reason I feel as though it may be better not to leave my whole name on this comment.
Damnit, I just got back from the grocery store myself (dishwashing detergent, cat food, and a frozen cheesecake), and I didn't buy Pelligrino. And now I want it.
Hey Labs, what do you think of the double effect thread over at DeLong's? I caught myself wanting to speak harshly to one of the participants so I decided not to participate any more. Also, DeLong seems to have disappeared his archives, but you can find it through the trackback.
Occupational hazard, I think--everybody thinks they can do philosophy better than we can. Is the Norquist example OK, do you think? I wasn't quite sure I'd got it right.
I think the Norquist example works, supposing that
(a) leaving the AMT in place is morally good or neutral
(b) it accomplishes some good end
(c) the AMT's good end doesn't proceed through the bad effect, that is, we have a true case of "double effect"
(d) the good is proportional to the bad (harm to the blue states)
Norquist aims at the harm, viz., harm to the blue states, while Mr TMA aims at or intends the good brought about by the AMT and merely foresees the harm. So Norquist's action (supposing that adopting the AMT were an action of his) would be impermissible, but TMA's would be permissible.
The counterfactual thing you mentioned is what I was trying to get at with the orphans example-- i.e., the terror bomber is committed to the civilian deaths whereas the strategic bomber is not. I need to look at the literature on this anyway-- if I get around to it I'll post the results.
As someone who posted on the DeLong thread, but saw it here first I'm honestly curious. I think I understand the doctrine, but I'm not convinced of it's utility, so if you could help me out I would appreciate it.
Let me ask about the abortion example:
Imagine a situation in which a doctor is examining a pregnant woman, sees that she is weak and near death, has available a course of treatment that will treat the symptoms and save the life of the woman, bit is likely to kill the fetus. The doctor doesn't know if the primary cause of the weakness is the pregnancy or an additional disease. It seems odd to me that the doctor needs to determine the cause of the suffering before being morally able to administer treatment.
If the doctor knows that the woman does have an external illness, but doesn't know if it's a primary cause of the suffering or, itself, a symptom of the body being weakened by the pregnancy (and yes, this is purely a theoretical pregnancy, I'm trying to ask a logical point, not construct a factual scenario)? I just have a hard time understanding how the morality of adminstering treatment can turn on that determination.
Nick--I just want to make clear that it wasn't you I was attacking! (It was the guy who said that this showed that all ethicists were stupid, or something like that.)
My sense is that not everyone thinks that the doctrine of double effect actually has utility. The argument over at DeLong's was based on his claim that he can't make sense of the assertion "of the assertion that even though consequence X was a clear and foreseeable consequence of our action Y, and even though we undertook action Y, we did not intend for consequence X to happen." I think most people in the field agree that you can make sense of the difference between those two cases; not everyone agrees that the difference can be morally significant.
In your case, it might not be a case of double effect. It might be the case that the pregnancy is causing the illness, but that the death of the fetus is nevertheless a side effect to the cure. If that's not the case--if the doctor knows that the cure will work, but doesn't know whether the death of the fetus is a side effect or a cause, then you do have double effect. And it does seem odd to me that that could affect the morality of treatment. But then, I'm pro-choice anyway.
Liveblogged grading? That's like liveblogging a Congressional Conference Committee.....
Careful, you'll give away our secrets. I work really hard to impress upon my students the judicious and non-subjective nature of grading, and try really hard to not expose the conditions under which it's really done. If this catches on, we could all be in trouble.
To avoid spillover flame, what's really relevant is that I think abortion to save the life of the mother is completely unproblematic. And that's what's at issue in these hypothetical examples.
The specific case that I was presenting was one in which the essential situation is known:
The pregnant mother is dying
The possible treatment is known:
It is certain that treatment will both cure the mother and kill the fetus
But the cause of the situation is unknown:
The mother could be suffering because of the pregnancy alone, or because of the combination of the pregnancy and an additional illness.
As far as I can tell, if you believe that abortion is only justified by the DDE, in situations where the danger is caused by a source other than the pregnancy it is vital to resolve that unknown before beginning treatment.
Given what is known (the situation and the treatment) I, personally, can't see how the unknown factor (the cause of the situation) makes any difference at all. For that reason I am suspicious of the DDE.
I see it as saying that there are certain things that are usually impermissable, but are permissable in certain situations where the cause and effect are separated by a (in my mind) morally neutral third party (disease, in the abortion question, or the switch in the trolly problem).
The fact that I see the third entity as morally neutral (even inanimate in the trolly problem) means that I don't understand how it can change the morality of the action.
Let me clarify my last point with an utterly absurd hypothetical (as if the previous one wasn't.).
Take the trolley problem:
"It would be wrong to throw someone into the path of a runaway trolley in order to stop it and keep it from hitting five people on the track ahead; that would involve intending harm to the one as a means of saving the five. But it would be permissible to divert a runaway trolley onto a track holding one and away from a track holding five: in that case one foresees the death of the one as a side effect of saving the five but one does not intend it."
Imagine that we are not in the real world but are in Cartoon Land (tm) and you see the runaway train on a track with two spurs one that has 5 people, and one that has nobody on it. You see the switch and run to divert the trolley to the empty track. As you get there you see an Acme (tm) OUT OF ORDER sign on the main switch but there is a smaller, emergency switch, that will DROP A FAT MAN OUT OF THE SKY in front of the trolly (the man being sufficiently fat to derail the train). Unfortunatly the fat man, in the process of derailing the train, will also be run over.
Is it moral to pull the emergeny fat man switch?
I understand that part of the intuitive pull of the trolley problem is that we have a negative reaction to the sort of person who is so utilitarian that they are willing to actually shove someone under the wheels of a train. I'm also not sure that is indicative of a psychologically healthy person (actually, I'm sure that it isn't), but I also believe that if we're looking at the problem strictly as a puzzle in moral philosophy then I don't see how the fat man switch is any different from the standard switch. In both cases the switch is, in my mind, just the mechanism by which you execute the decision to endager one person to save 5.
Based on the link that FL provided that is a hotly debated question -- if you believe that suicide is imoral. If you think that suicide is moral, I think that would be the most heroic course of action.
But that wasn't the dilemma that I was trying to get at.
Yes, I realize that I was throwing the original trolley a bit off-track, but I thought I'd ask anyway. I must have missed FL's reference to locating the link through the trackback so I hadn't read the discussion on Brad DeLong's site.
I do wonder about how much the intentions of the person jumping in front of the trolley matter. Even people who hold that suicide is immoral often make exceptions when they frame it as an "act of self-sacrifice" for a greater good.
that I was throwing the original trolley a bit off-track
Well, that certainly was the intention, wasn't it? (rimshot)
My guess is most people would say it's a heroic act of self-sacrifice. The double-effecters might say: Even if you want to die for other reasons, if your purpose in jumping on the track is to save the people, then it's heroic. If your purpose is to kill yourself, and then as you're doing it you think "And I save these people, what a nice side effect," then I think double-effecters say you are immorally committing suicide. Though if I were down the track I'd find it hard to condemn you!
Has anyone here read A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't, but from what I hear about the end what Sidney Carton does might be a case of self-sacrifice where he's feeling suicidal; but since the point of the action is to save the other person, rather than to kill himself, he gets credit.
Hmm. Now that I think of this in these cases the good effect proceeds directly through the bad cause. That might rule it out as a case of double effect. This stuff is hard.
It's been a long time since I read A Tale of Two Cities but I do remember the ending being presented as a kind of self-sacrifice; I don't remember if Sidney Carton is feeling suicidal in the normal sense, or if it's really more of a literary sense that his character would aquire a deeper meaning by ending his life the way he does.
In any case, I also remember feeling sort of unsatisfied with the novel as a whole, but whether that has to do with the ending alone I can't really say.
I got my grades in yesterday an hour before they shut down the system, and I'd just like to say that lazy grading and easy grading go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Ah, yes. I'm done with mine. Since some of the students gave everyone in their group 100% an others actually haned out reasonably fair (if still inflated) grades, I briefly considered changing my own participation grades to compensate, and then decided fuck it, I don't care that much.
But I can't figure out how to enter the formula into the stupid WebCT. It keeps coming out wrong, and it's pissing me off. Hoping the tech support people can do it for me before my grades are due Monday afternoon...
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 2:34 PM
[redacted]
Posted by [redacted] | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 2:42 PM
Yeah, I hate it, but we're required to use it for our grades. Sigh.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 2:47 PM
I don't even give/collect my finals until Tuesday. I do have a bunch of papers that I should have been grading, but procrastinating on them helped me got a lot of work done on something I'm writing. But I'll have a mess o'stuff to take home for Xmas--which may distract me from the looming APA. Also, my parents' house has a staircase so grading will go quickly.
Like, you did notice I've been procrastinating, didn't you?
For some reason I feel as though it may be better not to leave my whole name on this comment.
Posted by Matt W. | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 3:01 PM
See you at the APA-- I'll be the one who's crying and/or masturbating at the receptions.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 3:08 PM
No; it is not my fault any any more. Tenure is lovely. But, I make sure the kiddies are content.
Posted by lise | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 3:30 PM
Like that'll help me pick you out from the crowd, Labs.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 4:14 PM
Damnit, I just got back from the grocery store myself (dishwashing detergent, cat food, and a frozen cheesecake), and I didn't buy Pelligrino. And now I want it.
Bah.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 8:40 PM
"work out from there" means what, division into quartiles & further if necessary, or just eyeballing it so it comes right, or what?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 9:13 PM
Just eyeballing, actually. That's the part that makes me nervous.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 9:31 PM
best excuse ever given in a class for grade inflation, (paraphrasing)
"It's my understanding that grade inflation started in the 60s as a way to keep kids out of the war. Given this noble history, I'm all for it."
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12-18-04 9:36 PM
I have to say, liveblogging grading has to be a FL original. Excellent.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 1:24 AM
Yes, excellent. Definitely deserving of 100 plus comments.
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 6:54 AM
Ogged, I think you missed a golden opportunity with the wisdom teeth. Wait until I liveblog the next time I have sex (scheduled for late 2007).
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 9:08 AM
Sex liveblogging
Posted by Fontana Labs
on 5.12.07
8:27: Cry.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 10:00 AM
You think he'll wait till afterward? $10 says he cries during.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 10:49 AM
I gotta say, if fucking me ever made a man cry, I would be really goddamn impressed.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 11:55 AM
That was supposed to be a reference to "cry, cry, masturbate, cry".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 12:01 PM
Hey Labs, what do you think of the double effect thread over at DeLong's? I caught myself wanting to speak harshly to one of the participants so I decided not to participate any more. Also, DeLong seems to have disappeared his archives, but you can find it through the trackback.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 1:53 PM
Yeah, that's a pretty bad thread. If you're going to make fun of the thing, you at least have to get it right, eh?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 3:17 PM
Occupational hazard, I think--everybody thinks they can do philosophy better than we can. Is the Norquist example OK, do you think? I wasn't quite sure I'd got it right.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 3:49 PM
Bch: Why do you automatically assume it would be in a good way?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 9:57 PM
Bch: Why do you automatically assume it would be in a good way?
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 9:57 PM
I think the Norquist example works, supposing that
(a) leaving the AMT in place is morally good or neutral
(b) it accomplishes some good end
(c) the AMT's good end doesn't proceed through the bad effect, that is, we have a true case of "double effect"
(d) the good is proportional to the bad (harm to the blue states)
Norquist aims at the harm, viz., harm to the blue states, while Mr TMA aims at or intends the good brought about by the AMT and merely foresees the harm. So Norquist's action (supposing that adopting the AMT were an action of his) would be impermissible, but TMA's would be permissible.
The counterfactual thing you mentioned is what I was trying to get at with the orphans example-- i.e., the terror bomber is committed to the civilian deaths whereas the strategic bomber is not. I need to look at the literature on this anyway-- if I get around to it I'll post the results.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 9:59 PM
Michael, you'll just have to trust me on that one, I guess.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 12-19-04 10:04 PM
faith? my dear, I'm a philosopher.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 12:30 AM
FL,
As someone who posted on the DeLong thread, but saw it here first I'm honestly curious. I think I understand the doctrine, but I'm not convinced of it's utility, so if you could help me out I would appreciate it.
Let me ask about the abortion example:
Imagine a situation in which a doctor is examining a pregnant woman, sees that she is weak and near death, has available a course of treatment that will treat the symptoms and save the life of the woman, bit is likely to kill the fetus. The doctor doesn't know if the primary cause of the weakness is the pregnancy or an additional disease. It seems odd to me that the doctor needs to determine the cause of the suffering before being morally able to administer treatment.
If the doctor knows that the woman does have an external illness, but doesn't know if it's a primary cause of the suffering or, itself, a symptom of the body being weakened by the pregnancy (and yes, this is purely a theoretical pregnancy, I'm trying to ask a logical point, not construct a factual scenario)? I just have a hard time understanding how the morality of adminstering treatment can turn on that determination.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 10:20 AM
Nick--I just want to make clear that it wasn't you I was attacking! (It was the guy who said that this showed that all ethicists were stupid, or something like that.)
My sense is that not everyone thinks that the doctrine of double effect actually has utility. The argument over at DeLong's was based on his claim that he can't make sense of the assertion "of the assertion that even though consequence X was a clear and foreseeable consequence of our action Y, and even though we undertook action Y, we did not intend for consequence X to happen." I think most people in the field agree that you can make sense of the difference between those two cases; not everyone agrees that the difference can be morally significant.
In your case, it might not be a case of double effect. It might be the case that the pregnancy is causing the illness, but that the death of the fetus is nevertheless a side effect to the cure. If that's not the case--if the doctor knows that the cure will work, but doesn't know whether the death of the fetus is a side effect or a cause, then you do have double effect. And it does seem odd to me that that could affect the morality of treatment. But then, I'm pro-choice anyway.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 2:18 PM
Liveblogged grading? That's like liveblogging a Congressional Conference Committee.....
Careful, you'll give away our secrets. I work really hard to impress upon my students the judicious and non-subjective nature of grading, and try really hard to not expose the conditions under which it's really done. If this catches on, we could all be in trouble.
Posted by Jonathan Dresner | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 2:41 PM
But then, I'm pro-choice anyway
To avoid spillover flame, what's really relevant is that I think abortion to save the life of the mother is completely unproblematic. And that's what's at issue in these hypothetical examples.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 2:42 PM
Matt,
Thanks for the response.
The specific case that I was presenting was one in which the essential situation is known:
The pregnant mother is dying
The possible treatment is known:
It is certain that treatment will both cure the mother and kill the fetus
But the cause of the situation is unknown:
The mother could be suffering because of the pregnancy alone, or because of the combination of the pregnancy and an additional illness.
As far as I can tell, if you believe that abortion is only justified by the DDE, in situations where the danger is caused by a source other than the pregnancy it is vital to resolve that unknown before beginning treatment.
Given what is known (the situation and the treatment) I, personally, can't see how the unknown factor (the cause of the situation) makes any difference at all. For that reason I am suspicious of the DDE.
I see it as saying that there are certain things that are usually impermissable, but are permissable in certain situations where the cause and effect are separated by a (in my mind) morally neutral third party (disease, in the abortion question, or the switch in the trolly problem).
The fact that I see the third entity as morally neutral (even inanimate in the trolly problem) means that I don't understand how it can change the morality of the action.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 3:01 PM
Let me clarify my last point with an utterly absurd hypothetical (as if the previous one wasn't.).
Take the trolley problem:
"It would be wrong to throw someone into the path of a runaway trolley in order to stop it and keep it from hitting five people on the track ahead; that would involve intending harm to the one as a means of saving the five. But it would be permissible to divert a runaway trolley onto a track holding one and away from a track holding five: in that case one foresees the death of the one as a side effect of saving the five but one does not intend it."
Imagine that we are not in the real world but are in Cartoon Land (tm) and you see the runaway train on a track with two spurs one that has 5 people, and one that has nobody on it. You see the switch and run to divert the trolley to the empty track. As you get there you see an Acme (tm) OUT OF ORDER sign on the main switch but there is a smaller, emergency switch, that will DROP A FAT MAN OUT OF THE SKY in front of the trolly (the man being sufficiently fat to derail the train). Unfortunatly the fat man, in the process of derailing the train, will also be run over.
Is it moral to pull the emergeny fat man switch?
I understand that part of the intuitive pull of the trolley problem is that we have a negative reaction to the sort of person who is so utilitarian that they are willing to actually shove someone under the wheels of a train. I'm also not sure that is indicative of a psychologically healthy person (actually, I'm sure that it isn't), but I also believe that if we're looking at the problem strictly as a puzzle in moral philosophy then I don't see how the fat man switch is any different from the standard switch. In both cases the switch is, in my mind, just the mechanism by which you execute the decision to endager one person to save 5.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 4:07 PM
What if you happen to be fat and solve the trolley problem by throwing youself in front of the car, saving everyone else but you die in the process?
Is that an act of heroism?
Posted by aj | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 4:52 PM
oops, that should be "yourself" not "youself"
Posted by aj | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 4:53 PM
Based on the link that FL provided that is a hotly debated question -- if you believe that suicide is imoral. If you think that suicide is moral, I think that would be the most heroic course of action.
But that wasn't the dilemma that I was trying to get at.
Posted by NickS | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 5:02 PM
I was going to say "not if you were feeling suicidal anyway.".
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 5:03 PM
Yes, I realize that I was throwing the original trolley a bit off-track, but I thought I'd ask anyway. I must have missed FL's reference to locating the link through the trackback so I hadn't read the discussion on Brad DeLong's site.
I do wonder about how much the intentions of the person jumping in front of the trolley matter. Even people who hold that suicide is immoral often make exceptions when they frame it as an "act of self-sacrifice" for a greater good.
Posted by aj | Link to this comment | 12-20-04 6:42 PM
that I was throwing the original trolley a bit off-track
Well, that certainly was the intention, wasn't it? (rimshot)
My guess is most people would say it's a heroic act of self-sacrifice. The double-effecters might say: Even if you want to die for other reasons, if your purpose in jumping on the track is to save the people, then it's heroic. If your purpose is to kill yourself, and then as you're doing it you think "And I save these people, what a nice side effect," then I think double-effecters say you are immorally committing suicide. Though if I were down the track I'd find it hard to condemn you!
Has anyone here read A Tale of Two Cities. I haven't, but from what I hear about the end what Sidney Carton does might be a case of self-sacrifice where he's feeling suicidal; but since the point of the action is to save the other person, rather than to kill himself, he gets credit.
Hmm. Now that I think of this in these cases the good effect proceeds directly through the bad cause. That might rule it out as a case of double effect. This stuff is hard.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 12-21-04 8:49 AM
It's been a long time since I read A Tale of Two Cities but I do remember the ending being presented as a kind of self-sacrifice; I don't remember if Sidney Carton is feeling suicidal in the normal sense, or if it's really more of a literary sense that his character would aquire a deeper meaning by ending his life the way he does.
In any case, I also remember feeling sort of unsatisfied with the novel as a whole, but whether that has to do with the ending alone I can't really say.
Posted by aj | Link to this comment | 12-21-04 11:15 AM
I got my grades in yesterday an hour before they shut down the system, and I'd just like to say that lazy grading and easy grading go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 12-24-04 3:40 PM