“Mr. Quelch wasn’t altogether certain whether sharks had lips and, if they did, whether they could lick them; but he had no doubt at all that if they did and could, that is exactly what they were now doing. The balloon was now falling faster toward the sea, and he could clearly see the many fins of the assembled diners cutting menacingly through the water …
… Mr. Quelch knew that in the next two minutes he himself and the cream of Greyfriars would be shark bait—unless they could jettison more ballast. But everything had already been thrown out of the basket—all that was left was himself and the six boys. It was perfectly clear that only Bunter was of sufficient bulk to save the day. Hard cheese for the Fat Owl of the Remove, but there really was no other way …
‘Oh, crikey … oh really, you fellows … look here, if you lay a finger on me I’ll … Yarooooh!’”
Let’s suppose that Quelch’s assessment of the situation is entirely accurate. There really are only two options: all six boys (including Bunter) and Quelch himself fall into the sea and are torn to shreds by sharks; or Bunter alone is thrown into the sea and eaten. Apart from the unpleasantness of being tossed out of the balloon, it makes little difference to Bunter, who will die either way, but by throwing Bunter out, Quelch can save himself and the five other boys. So is he right to sacrifice Bunter? Does the end (saving several innocent lives) justify the means (taking one innocent life)?
An airliner carrying 120 passengers is hurtling out of control toward a densely populated area. There is no time to evacuate the area and the impact of the plane is certain to kill thousands. The only possible move is to shoot down the plane. Should you do it?
Conjoined (Siamese) twins are both certain to die within months unless they are surgically separated. The necessary operation offers excellent prospects of one twin living a reasonably healthy and fulfilled life but will result in the death of the other twin. Do you proceed? (Do you do so even if the parents do not give their consent?)
Patient A is terminally ill and certain to die within a week. His heart and kidneys are a perfect match for patients B and C, who are certain to die before him if they do not get the transplants they need but who have good prospects of recovery if they do. No other donors are available. Do you kill patient A (with his permission, without his permission?) in order to save patients B and C?
A Gestapo officer rounds up 10 children and threatens to shoot them unless you reveal the identity and whereabouts of a spy. As it happens, you didn’t know that there was a spy, let alone his or her identity, but you are quite certain both that the officer won’t believe you if you plead ignorance and that he will carry out his threat. Do you name someone—anyone—to save the children? (How do you decide who?)
You, together with the other passengers and crew of a small airplane, survive a crash on a desolate mountainside. There is no food of any kind, no chance of escaping on foot, and no prospect of a rescue party reaching you for several weeks, by which time you will all have starved to death. The meat from one passenger will sustain the others until help arrives. Do you kill and eat one of your companions? (How do you choose?)
An ethical divide Such decisions involving life and death are not, of course, merely the stuff of fiction. In real life, people sometimes find themselves in situations where it is necessary to allow one or a few innocent individuals to die, or in extreme cases even to kill them, in order to save several or many innocent lives. These are cases that test our intuitions to the limit, wrenching us sharply one way or the other—and sometimes in both directions at the same time.
This fundamental uncertainty is mirrored in the very different approaches that philosophers have taken in trying to explain such dilemmas. The various theories that have been proposed are often seen as sitting on one or other side of a major fault line in ethics—the line that separates duty-based (deontological) theories from consequence-based (consequentialist) ones.
“The end may justify the means so long as there is something that justifies the end.”
Leon Trotsky, 1936
Consequentialism and deontology One way of highlighting the differences between consequentialism and deontology is in terms of ends and means. A consequentialist proposes that the question of whether an action is right or wrong should be determined purely on the basis of its consequences; an action is regarded merely as a means to some desirable end, and its rightness or wrongness is a measure of how effective it is in achieving that end. The end itself is some state of affairs (such as a state of happiness) that results from, or is consequent upon, the various actions that contribute to it. In choosing between various available courses of action, consequentialists will merely weigh up the good and bad consequences in each case and make their decisions on that basis. In the Bunter case, for instance, they are likely to judge that the good outcome in terms of innocent lives saved is justification for the taking of one life.
In a trivial sense, a means can only ever be justified by an end, as the former is by definition a way of achieving the latter; so a means is justified (i.e. validated as a means) by the very fact of achieving its intended end. Problems can arise—and the maxim could be seen as sinister—when an inappropriate end is chosen and the choice is made in the light of ideology or dogma. If a political ideologue, for instance, or a religious zealot sets up a particular end as important to the exclusion of all others, it is a short step for their followers to conclude that it is morally acceptable to use any means whatsoever to achieve that end.
By contrast, in a deontological system actions are not seen merely as means to an end but as right or wrong in themselves. Actions are thought to have intrinsic value in their own right, not just instrumental value in contributing toward some desirable end. For instance, the deontologist may rule that killing innocent people is intrinsically wrong: the jettisoning of Bunter is wrong in itself and cannot be justified by any good consequences it is supposed to have.
The Billy Bunter case may seem far-fetched, but nasty dilemmas of this kind do sometimes arise in real life. All the cases in this chapter are similar, at least in the ethical questions they raise, to events that actually occurred and are certain to occur again.
The best-known consequentialist theory is utilitarianism (see The experience machine); the most influential deontological system is that developed by Kant (see The categorical imperative).
the condensed idea
The least bad option
| Timeline | |
|---|---|
| c.AD1260 | Acts and omissions Just war |
| 1739 | Hume’s guillotine |
| 1781 | The categorical imperative |
| 1785 | Ends and means |
| 1954 | Slippery slopes |
| 1974 | The experience machine |