The Big Think Book

Discover Philosophy Through 99 Perplexing Problems

Peter Cave

• Publisher: Oneworld Publications
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781780747439
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Aesthetics in Philosophy

What makes me, me – and you, you?

What is this thing called ‘love’?

Does life have a point?

Is ‘no’ the right answer to this question?

Philosophy transports us from the wonderful to the weird, from the funny to the very serious indeed. With the aid of tall stories, jokes, fascinating insights and common sense, Peter Cave offers a comprehensive survey of all areas of philosophy, addressing the big puzzles in ethics and politics, metaphysics and knowledge, religion and the emotions, aesthetics and logic. Replete with a smorgasbord of amusing and mind-boggling examples, The Big Think Book is perfect for anyone who delights in life’s conundrums.

‌‌Part I:

Ethics

‌What ought we to do?

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon the world.

Albert Camus

We are often told what we ought – or, more usually, ought not – to do. We are in the realm of ethics, of morality, of duty. In this realm, perplexities are frequently those of dilemmas: witness forthcoming tales of the bear, a violinist who is plugged into you, and your opportunity for gainful employment as a hangman. The puzzles here also show how morality seeps into the law, political rights and even into the understanding of actions; after all, what makes an action my action and one that I intended? When, for that matter, did I come into existence and start performing actions?

Lurking behind this Part I’s quandaries are questions of whether we ever do act morally, whether we ever ought to act morally, whether, in fact, there is any substance to morality at all. Should we be concerned about the plight of others – of the dispossessed, of our treatment of animals – or just about ourselves and a favoured few of our family and friends? Such questions also arise with later puzzles, when we try to handle God, religion and, working at a more earthly level, our relationship to the state, government and law.

Ethics – morality – is a distinctive human concern. No one should seriously think that pigs, peacocks and porcupines possess sense of what morally ought to be done as opposed to what they want to do. The human world embraces far more than does the non-human. Humans can handle mathematics, science and historical researches, in the pursuit of truth; the human world contains the arts, philosophical reflections and, yes, ethics.

Ethics is far wider than may be commonly assumed. It carries us beyond simple headline commandments against, for example, killing, enslaving and speaking falsely; in fact, they all merit thought and nuances. Ethics, as we shall see, gives rise to conflicts between, for example, maximizing welfare and respecting a person’s right not to be used. Furthermore, ethical reflection draws our attention to how human flourishing has need of grace, refinements, compassion and empathy – and regard for our treatment of non-human creatures, such as the aforementioned pigs, peacocks and porcupines. In Ethics we try to get right about more things than the right.

Being human, we cannot easily close our eyes to others and how we affect them; being human, we ought not to close eyes, neither ours nor those of others.

‌

‌1

‌On the Run: All’s Fair with Bears?

Here are two explorers. Let them be Penelope Pessimist and Ophelia Optimist. They are exploring some mountainous regions, when they become suddenly aware of a bear in the distance, a bear big and hungry and intent upon feeding – feeding upon them. The bear heads in their direction, picking up speed, looking forward to a tasty explorer breakfast.

‘We’d better run for it,’ urges Ophelia Optimist.

‘What’s the point?’ sighs Penelope Pessimist in despair at the bear. ‘There’s no way we can outrun a bear.’

‘No need to do that,’ smirks Ophelia Optimist. ‘No need for us to outrun the bear – just for me to outrun you.’ And with that, she’s off.

—

What are we morally allowed to do to save our lives? Assuming the bear needs to breakfast on only one, either could sacrifice herself. But does morality demand such self-sacrifice? And who should do the sacrificing? Before readers ask, let us assume that both women know that they cannot overpower the bear. Running is the only answer. In such circumstances, looking after oneself seems, at the very least, morally permissible.

Let us delete Ophelia’s smirk. Both explorers recognize the tragedy of their plight. They recognize that it would be beyond the call of morality for Ophelia to have to sacrifice herself – or, indeed, for Penelope to do so. They both race away from the bear, not knowing who is faster or more skilled at twists and turns; they are letting fortune determine which one escapes – and which one dies.

The outcome, though, could be certain. They may know that Ophelia is the faster runner and will escape; so Penelope will provide the bear’s breakfast. If so, then Ophelia is letting the weaker, Penelope, go to the wall – more accurately, to the bear’s digestion. Yet that is no good reason for Ophelia to sacrifice herself. After all, were she to make such a sacrifice, we could wonder why Penelope ought not to be sacrificing herself instead. And what value exists in their both yielding to the bear? They are not lovers who cannot live without each other.

Let us modify the tale: the only way one can be sure of escape is by tripping up the other. We probably think that doing that would be morally wrong. Maybe it would be unfair; it is unfair for one woman deliberately to interfere with the other. Yet how is it fair in the first place that one woman runs faster than the other?

Is it morally permissible for you to save your life, if an innocent individual’s death results?

We swim in murky waters here. Let us focus. Consider only cases in which the life of solely one innocent person is lost through saving your own life. To avoid complexities of families, lifespan and so on, we assume that the individuals involved have similar responsibilities and potential for happiness and contributions to society.

Here are some different scenarios to test what we sense is permissible. Suppose that Ophelia and Penelope are in a queue, Ophelia at the front. A crazed individual is facing the queue, firing a revolver. Ophelia ducks to avoid being shot; as a result, the bullet kills Penelope. Ophelia, in defending herself, helps to bring about Penelope’s death. Yet even if she foresees that Penelope will be shot – perhaps Ophelia lacks time to warn her – Ophelia does not intend Penelope’s death. Her death is not the means whereby Ophelia saves herself. Had everyone in the queue ducked, maybe no one would have been killed. Penelope was an innocent and unlucky bystander.

Contrast the above with a different ‘queue’ example where Ophelia, to avoid being shot, pushes Penelope in front of her. Here, Ophelia is using Penelope as a shield – without informed consent. Surely, Ophelia is not morally permitted to do that. This suggests that an important, morally relevant feature is whether a person is being endangered through being used as a means of defence. Ophelia, if using Penelope as shield, shows no respect for her; she is using Penelope solely as means to an end. According to many, that is morally wrong – full stop. Respect for human beings involves treating them as rational agents, free to consent (or not) to how they are to be used. Respect for a person is central to the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the highly influential, eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher. We see moral questions of respect arising when viewing another contrast:

A runaway tram hurtles towards you. You are trapped on the tracks, but you have a wireless points’ control, so you are able to divert the tram onto a siding, thus saving yourself. Unfortunately, you know that there is a worker lying unconscious on the siding’s tracks. By diverting, you save your life, yet bring about the worker’s death. That may or may not be morally permissible, but it certainly is not as bad as what you do in the next scenario.

Once again, the runaway tram is hurtling towards you. The only means of saving your life is by firing a rubber bullet at a passer-by near the track. The passer-by, stunned, falls onto the track and is killed by the tram, bringing it to a halt. Thus, you are saved, saved by using the passer-by as a shield. The passer-by’s death is the necessary means whereby you are saved, unlike the worker’s death; you are certainly disrespecting the passer-by. A person surely has a right not to be used in that way. That ‘right’ amounts to its being a significant, fundamental moral wrong to deploy someone thus, without consent.

When we use someone as a shield, we are transferring our misfortune to someone else who is required to suffer. There are, then, two morally relevant factors.

One factor concerns the misfortune transferred and its significance for the recipient. If the only way to save my life is by causing an innocent person, ‘as a shield’, to have her nail varnish tarnished – well, that is morally acceptable; and if the shield protests, then she displays selfishness, lacking a sense of proportion. If I grab the fine silk scarf from a gentleman, the scarf needed to stem arterial blood flowing from my thigh, I have doubtless invaded his property; but saving a life at the cost of a silk scarf is a good deal, even if he complains about my violation of his property rights.

The second factor concerns the transference itself. In the shield examples it is deliberate and required. In the other examples, the life would be saved, even if no misfortunes were to occur to others. We may, though, question this distinction’s relevance, if we know the misfortunes will in fact occur. You have a right to defend yourself from the tram by diverting it; but if you foresee that the worker’s death will result, are you not behaving cruelly in passing that misfortune buck onto him? Of course, morally, things are different, if you know that he is conscious and could leap free to safety, with or without his nail varnish tarnished; but, in the case set out, you are surely not morally justified in passing the deadly tram onto him. The unconscious worker is, so to speak, an ‘innocent threat’ to you – a threat in that his presence, it seems, morally prevents you from doing what would otherwise be permissible to save your life, namely, diverting the tram.

*

Returning to the bear, where does this leave the morality, or otherwise, of Ophelia taking to her heels, knowing that Penelope is likely to be eaten? After all, Penelope does need to be caught and feasted upon, to ensure that the bear does not continue to chase Oph...

Table of contents

• Prologue
• Part I: Ethics
• Part II: Politics and Society
• Part III: Logic
• Part IV: Metaphysics
• Part V: Knowledge
• Part VI: The self
• Part VII: Religion
• Part VIII: Personal relationships
• Part IX: Aesthetics
• Part X: Values