The philosophers' Does Anything Eat Wasps? In this book of puzzles and paradoxes, Peter Cave introduces some of life's most important questions with tales and tall stories, reasons and arguments, common sense and bizarre conclusions. From how to get to heaven, to speedy tortoises, paradoxes and puzzles give rise to some of the most exciting problems in philosophy - from logic to ethics and from art to politics. Illustrated with quirky cartoons throughout, "Can a Robot be human" takes the reader on a taster tour of the most interesting and delightful parts of philosophy. This title is for everyone who puzzles about the world.
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You are a surgeon – and a bit of a philosopher. You are the head of a first-class team of organ transplant specialists that has an immaculate record of successful results. On your waiting list are four young people, all desperately ill and urgently in need of transplants without which they will soon die. Andrea requires a liver transplant, Barry a heart, Clarissa a pancreas and Donald a set of lungs. No donors are available. You are in despair. You did not enter medicine for money; you wanted to help people and improve their lives, yet here you are, watching four people die. These people have done nothing wrong; they would have long and happy lives ahead, but for their illnesses. If only organs were available, all would be well – for you have overcome the problems of tissue matching, rejection and so on.
As you are about to tell your patients there is no hope, you note the arrival of the new receptionist – a young man, namely, Eric. You know from his medical records that he is healthy. Your eyes light up. You ask Eric to accompany you into the operating theatre, to show him around, of course, of course . . . Your quiet reasoning is:
I want to do my best for as many people as possible. By killing Eric, I am in a position to distribute his organs to Andrea, Barry, Clarissa and Donald, saving their lives. True, the world no longer has Eric; that is, indeed, a sad loss. But the world has gained the other four lives. Four for the price of one is an excellent deal.
Of course, killing Eric would currently be illegal but our aim is what is morally the right thing to do. If we do nothing, we lose Andrea and the others, but Eric lives on. If we sacrifice Eric, we lose his life, but gain four. Assuming that in terms of quality of life – relationships with family, contributions to society – all the individuals are similar, the moral question would seem to rest solely on quantity, on the number of lives saved. Yet, curiously, many people are horrified at the thought of killing one innocent individual, even to save a greater number.
Morally, ought you not to kill one person to save the lives of others?
Most of us are pretty inconsistent in our views on the importance of life. (Let us assume, by the way, that we are here speaking solely of human life.) In war, many people readily accept that innocent civilian lives will be destroyed to secure the greater safety of others. Or, bringing the concern closer to home, many people will die sooner than they otherwise would because governments, instead of increasing spending on health care, keep taxpayers happy with low taxes. Further, some of the money raised through taxation is spent on the arts, prestigious sports projects and government entertainments. Were this money not so spent, it could be used to improve care for the elderly and poor, reducing the numbers that die each year. Our current society is such that many lives are lost merely to ensure a better quality of life for others.
However, you, the surgeon, are proposing to kill Eric to save four lives, not merely to increase their quality. Hence, ought we not to support your reasoning? If we think that we should, we may be following, somewhat crudely, the moral doctrine known as ‘utilitarianism’, in which the right action is that which will (or is likely to) bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Is that what we should seek? Most people would say ‘no’ to the idea. ‘No one has a right to use my organs against my will,’ they insist.
* * *
Many announce that we simply have rights over ourselves – self-ownership – and that it is morally wrong for anyone, against our consent, to invade us, take our organs or kill us, unless we have ourselves done wrong. Some push this further, arguing that we also have rights over our labour and the results of our labour; hence, most taxation is a form of theft. Such rights form the bedrock of morality and such a morality makes the individual king. That is the idea.
If the individual is king, it is morally wrong to bring about an innocent individual’s death as the means to something else, however worthy, such as saving the lives of four others. Eric’s death, though, is required for the others to live. Of course, sometimes killings happen as a result of doing what is morally right, yet they are unintended, even if foreseen. The killing of innocent civilians is not usually an aim of war; rather it is (or is said to be) a very unfortunate side effect. Such unintended killing of civilians is justified in a just war, it is often argued, and is morally different from the killing of civilians that is the intended aim of some terrorists.
In contrast to making the individual king and drawing a distinction between intended outcomes and foreseen side-effects, the utilitarian ideal of the greatest happiness of the greatest number simply puts the top priority on what is the overall outcome regarding happiness. Whether deaths are side-effects or deliberate intentions, if the outcomes are the same, then, for the utilitarian, there is no morally relevant difference. For the utilitarian, there is no moral distinction between, for example, acts of war and acts of terrorism, if the consequences are the same.
Even if we adopt the utilitarian stance, we may fault the surgeon’s argument. Healthy individuals would feel highly insecure (as they do from indiscriminate terrorist acts), if there were a policy of kidnapping and killing them to use their organs. Remember, those who benefit from the treatment may themselves become victims. Because of this insecurity, total happiness may well decrease in a society with such surgeons. Of course, this is so only if people know the policy is in operation. Suppose it became a secret government policy? Well, this is where too much utilitarian reasoning may damage our health.
Looking healthy? Perhaps ’tis best to avoid walking too near a transplant hospital.
6. IN THE BEGINNING
17. GIRL, CAGE, CHIMP
The arts/The emotions
2
FICTIONAL FEELINGS?
It was astonishing. A large number of people looked on intently as a woman was manhandled by a group of ruffians, beaten, raped and left for dead. The gang had already killed her husband. No one intervened, though the crowd was well aware of everything that was happening, happening before their very eyes. It was macabre. And they ended up hooting and clapping. Not one of them called the police.
Is this the opening statement by the prosecution at a murder trial? Were the onlookers accomplices or just scared of the attackers? In the cold light of subsequent days, were they ashamed of their behaviour, of their cowardice, of doing nothing to help the victims?
The answer to all these questions is the same: ‘Not at all.’ The onlookers were in a theatre, watching a play. They knew it to be a work of fiction, yet – paradoxically – most were highly involved with the characters. They worried about what would happen to the woman; some felt shivers when the gang leader made his threats, his knife’s blade gleaming. They pitied some characters, felt proud of others and hoped justice would eventually be done. Some were on the verge of weeping. As they left the theatre, they discussed how much they felt for the woman. A few awoke in the night, wondering how the characters’ lives would develop; a few wondered how things might have gone differently.
We are moved by fictional characters, whether they appear in television soap operas, detective stories or popular films, or are famous individuals from the classics – Romeo and Juliet, Lolita or Lady Macbeth – in productions by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre or the Royal Opera House. Typically, viewers and readers are fully aware that the characters are but fictions, yet the fictions may appear as alive as real people – and not just at the times of performance. Some viewers of soap sagas wonder what the fictional characters are doing between episodes. Is not this very odd, contrasting with, for example, wondering what is happening to celebrities answering to weird demands in reality television programmes?
Why do we feel emotions – love, hate, fear, regret, admiration – towards fictional individuals?
When we feel emotions – being scared by Dracula, pitying the young Jane Eyre or feeling angry at Bill Sykes’ treatment of Nancy in Oliver Twist – we must surely believe, or at least half believe, that the individuals exist and possess features that justify our fear, pity or anger. We know that fictional entities are indeed fictional and lack existence; yet, paradoxically, we experience emotions towards them – or so it seems.
If we stress the sincerity of the audience’s belief in, and feeling of emotion towards, what is being represented on stage or in writing, we should expect the audience to be up there, entering into the action in some way. Stress the audience’s knowledge that it is just a play, a book, an opera and we are baffled by the audience’s being moved – indeed, moved sometimes even to tears.
Irrationality is one answer. Certainly, we can believe and engage in many irrational things. Our emotions too can result from irrationality or mistaken beliefs but the emotions usually fade when we realize our mistakes. Members of mobs that shout death threats outside paediatricians’ homes undergo (one hopes) emotional change when they discover paediatricians differ from paedophiles. Even if paedophiles have correctly been spotted, the anger and hatred may (again one hopes) be reduced by reflection on better ways to help. When we are scared of spiders we think poisonous, our fears should be quelled once we are convinced that the spiders are harmlessly living non-poisonous lives. In some cases, however, although we know such truths, our fears irrationally persist. And so can our emotions, even when we know the objects of those emotions to be but fictions.
Irrationality may yet prove to be too easy an answer or, on reflection, not an easy answer at all, if intended to carry conviction. The most rational of people can be moved by fictions yet, even when moved, know full well that they are seated in a theatre, reading a book or watching television. Or do they? Perhaps, one way or another, they suspend their belief in the stagy surroundings, suspend their memories of the tickets they purchased or block out the sound of the book’s rustling pages. Perhaps they fall for what is represented as being real, as being, indeed, all for real. Remember though, they cannot be taken in that much: if they were, they would be warning of danger, calling a doctor or exposing the villain – as children sometimes do when at pantomimes.
If irrationality is no right answer, perhaps the emotions are not directed at the fictional characters at all. It has been suggested that fiction leads the audience to have the fear, the pity, the joy – and so on – at real people (not the fictions) who have the relevant characteristics. The causes of emotions need not be the objects at which the emotions are directed. You feared your neighbour’s hound (or so you thought) but what caused that fear might have been no hound but a radio’s blaring. It is the radio’s sound – sound that you mistook as canine threatening howls – that caused your fear. Returning to fictions, the pity that comes from reading Charles Dickens’ portrayal of the poor, for example, is not directed at the novel’s characters but at those in poverty, in the real, real world. The tale brings those real people to mind.
Although this approach to the fictional puzzle makes sense, it lacks plausibility. Often, do we not feel approval for, pity towards or are angered by the fictional characters? Why think we are mistaken? Furthermore, perhaps the approach requires us to have specific real individuals in mind to account for our emotions, yet we rarely have such real individuals in mind when watching a play.
Other attempted solutions to puzzling fictions have rested on claiming that our emotions towards fictional characters are make-believe emotions. Such solutions also lack conviction. The tears we experience when moved by some fictions are real enough; maybe the pity is too.
* * *
The very thought of things can generate emotions, without the need for full belief or disbelief – and perhaps that is enough for handling this puzzle. We do not really believe that the woman is being harmed, as we watch the staged action; perhaps the mere thought (or some other distinct psychological state) of her being harmed is enough to generate our pity, disgust or whatever. Our thoughts are carried along by the play, book or opera and generate real emotions. Whether or not this is the right approach, we should not lapse into arguing that ...
