Auschwitz
From a simple math problem last week, to a rape and murder this week. You never know where these thought experiments will take you.
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Private Sacks was about to do a terrible thing. He had been ordered to first rape and then murder the prisoner, whom he knew to be no more than an innocent civilian from the wrong ethnic background. There was no doubt in his mind that this would be a gross injustice - a war crime, in fact.
Yet quickly thinking it over he felt he had no choice but to go ahead. If he obeyed the order, he could make the ordeal as bearable as possible for the victim, making sure she suffered no more than was necessary. If he did not obey the order, he himself would be shot and the prisoner would still be violated and killed, but probably more violently. It was better for everyone if he went ahead.
His reasoning seemed clear enough, but of course it gave him no peace of mind. How could it be that he was both going to do the best he could in the circumstances and also a terrible wrong?
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 19.
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I generally haven't found the answers in Baggini's book to be very helpful for these thought experiments so far (they usually just consist of a few paragraphs of raising more questions), but there is an important point about how to deal with problems like this in the response for this one. I thought I should share it with you now to help confine your thinking for the week. Baggini writes:
The temptation to imagine a third possibility - perhaps just shooting the prisoner and himself - is hard to resist. But resist it we must, for in a thought experiment we control the variables, and what we are asking in this one is what he should do if the only two possibilities are to carry out the order or to refuse to do so. The whole point of fixing the dilemma this way is to force us to confront the moral problem head on, not think our way around it.
So how would you confront this? What should Private Sacks do? And can we then blame or praise him for those actions?
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Private Sacks was about to do a terrible thing. He had been ordered to first rape and then murder the prisoner, whom he knew to be no more than an innocent civilian from the wrong ethnic background. There was no doubt in his mind that this would be a gross injustice - a war crime, in fact.
Yet quickly thinking it over he felt he had no choice but to go ahead. If he obeyed the order, he could make the ordeal as bearable as possible for the victim, making sure she suffered no more than was necessary. If he did not obey the order, he himself would be shot and the prisoner would still be violated and killed, but probably more violently. It was better for everyone if he went ahead.
His reasoning seemed clear enough, but of course it gave him no peace of mind. How could it be that he was both going to do the best he could in the circumstances and also a terrible wrong?
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 19.
-------------------------------------------
I generally haven't found the answers in Baggini's book to be very helpful for these thought experiments so far (they usually just consist of a few paragraphs of raising more questions), but there is an important point about how to deal with problems like this in the response for this one. I thought I should share it with you now to help confine your thinking for the week. Baggini writes:
The temptation to imagine a third possibility - perhaps just shooting the prisoner and himself - is hard to resist. But resist it we must, for in a thought experiment we control the variables, and what we are asking in this one is what he should do if the only two possibilities are to carry out the order or to refuse to do so. The whole point of fixing the dilemma this way is to force us to confront the moral problem head on, not think our way around it.
So how would you confront this? What should Private Sacks do? And can we then blame or praise him for those actions?
