[charles1948]

I agree that most of us don't want to be sacrificed.

And there we have the essence of morality: it's the majority answer to the test questions. A person who answers "yes" to both questions is regarded as (1) deviant and (2) immoral.

Doesn't it depend on whether the person who answers the questions is a civilian, or a member of the Armed Forces.


 

[alancalverd]

I've never met a soldier who wants to be sacrificed, or who particularly relishes the prospect of killing others. Nor a miner who wants to contract lung disease or make more dust than necessary. But everyone (except some Republicans) balances risk against reward.

[charles1948]

I've never met a soldier who wants to be sacrificed, or who particularly relishes the prospect of killing others. Nor a miner who wants to contract lung disease or make more dust than necessary. But everyone (except some Republicans) balances risk against reward.

You really think that people who join the Army, don't do it because they relish the prospect of being able to shoot people dead without getting sent to prison for it?

 I mean, come on! 

[alancalverd]

If your pseudonym hints at your age, you probably saw "Alice's Restaurant", in which Arlo Guthrie is called up for duty in Vietnam and is turned down as mentally unfit because he says he really, really wants to kill people, but would like a choice of sides. Only politicians think like that, and get away with it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I've never met a soldier who wants to be sacrificed, or who particularly relishes the prospect of killing others. Nor a miner who wants to contract lung disease or make more dust than necessary. But everyone (except some Republicans) balances risk against reward.

It doesn't mean that they don't exist. The existence of Kamikaze pilots, either by aeroplanes or torpedos is well documented. Many ISIS fighters were willing to sacrifice themselves. On the western side, may be you can watch the movie Danger Close about Australian soldiers in Vietnam war.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

I agree that most of us don't want to be sacrificed.

And there we have the essence of morality: it's the majority answer to the test questions. A person who answers "yes" to both questions is regarded as (1) deviant and (2) immoral. 

How do you distinguish between them? Is it possible that there are 3rd option?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here are some logical fallacies we need to avoid in a debate. The examples can help us identify those fallacies more easily when we encounter one.

[charles1948]

If your pseudonym hints at your age, you probably saw "Alice's Restaurant", in which Arlo Guthrie is called up for duty in Vietnam and is turned down as mentally unfit because he says he really, really wants to kill people, but would like a choice of sides. Only politicians think like that, and get away with it.

I haven't seen the movie. But Arlo's stratagem seems a brilliant way of avoiding the draft.  Or of avoiding any job you don't want to do. When interviewed for the job, just exhibit a disturbingly excessive enthusiasm for it.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Here is another example where a subjective preference can be against norms.
A doctor get an emergency patient from a terrible accident. He is unconscious, and his arms are severely damaged.
The doctor assessed that the patient's life can only be saved by amputation. Personally, he would rather die than to live as a disabled. Should he save the patient?

[alancalverd]

Dealing with unconscious patients is easy. You ask yourself the standard two questions, because in the absence of any other information that is the best estimate you have of an average person's wishes and values. Above all, save life if you can, because that gives the patient more options than death.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Dealing with unconscious patients is easy. You ask yourself the standard two questions, because in the absence of any other information that is the best estimate you have of an average person's wishes and values. Above all, save life if you can, because that gives the patient more options than death.

Now you've found one more patch to the golden rule.

[alancalverd]

No patch. If I was injured and unconscious I'd most likely be grateful to anyone who saved my life, so test 1 is satisfied, and I'd certainly do whatever I could to save the life of my nearest and dearest. Test 2 satisfied.

On recovering, I might well decide I'd rather be dead, but it's better to have the option and make one's own decision. That's where the law fails on both moral counts, by denying suicide to those who can't do it unaided.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

No patch. If I was injured and unconscious I'd most likely be grateful to anyone who saved my life, so test 1 is satisfied, and I'd certainly do whatever I could to save the life of my nearest and dearest. Test 2 satisfied.

On recovering, I might well decide I'd rather be dead, but it's better to have the option and make one's own decision. That's where the law fails on both moral counts, by denying suicide to those who can't do it unaided.

It's about what the doctor do to the patient vs what the doctor wants to be done to him if he were the patient. If they are the different,, whatever it is, the golden rule is being violated.

[alancalverd]

In the absence of any other evidence, your best bet is to assume that your unconscious patient would want the same as you. The law will not allow you to kill him, so that option is not a moral choice, though oddly it is a requirement if the patient is any other species, conscious or not, and in your professional opinion would be "better off dead."

The really crazy problem is where soldiers have been court-martialled for "finishing off" a seriously wounded enemy. War is not rugby.

[charles1948]

The really crazy problem is where soldiers have been court-martialled for "finishing off" a seriously wounded enemy.

:
This is military logic:
 If an enemy soldier is standing up, you get a medal for shooting him.
 But if the enemy soldier has already fallen down onto the ground, you get court-martialled for shooting him.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

In the absence of any other evidence, your best bet is to assume that your unconscious patient would want the same as you. The law will not allow you to kill him, so that option is not a moral choice, though oddly it is a requirement if the patient is any other species, conscious or not, and in your professional opinion would be "better off dead."

It's still a moral choice, i.e. between obeying the law or obeying his moral principle. Each options have their own consequences.
Let's say that the law with its reward and punishment system has tipped the balance toward saving the patient's life by amputating his arms. We can add to the scenario to tip the balance to the other direction. The doctor has experienced many similar cases previously. He saved all of previous patients, which then complaint that they would face terrible life they don't want to live. They prefer to die peacefully before regaining consciousness. Most of them get depressed and committed suicide.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

This is military logic:
 If an enemy soldier is standing up, you get a medal for shooting him.
 But if the enemy soldier has already fallen down onto the ground, you get court-martialled for shooting him.

IMO it's a long term strategy, which is meant to gain respect and credibility among their enemies, so that in the future they would be treated better in return, and the enemies won't fight as fierce as they would otherwise. It doesn't always work as intended though.

[alancalverd]

We can add to the scenario to tip the balance to the other direction. The doctor has experienced many similar cases previously. He saved all of previous patients, which then complaint that they would face terrible life they don't want to live. They prefer to die peacefully before regaining consciousness. Most of them get depressed and committed suicide.

Suicide has no moral repercussions.

If you don't like flying, don't become a pilot. If you don't like saving lives, the medical profession is not for you. But having chosen your profession and faced with a planeload of passengers or an unconscious patient, nobody will blame you for doing your job.

The law (at least in the UK)  does conflict with morality when a patient has asked to die, and I'm fairly certain that a degree of professional discretion is deployed from time to time. After all, Hippocrates goes on to say ".....nor strive officiously to prolong life" which is morally way ahead of anything a politician would dare to put his unworthy name to.

So here's the moral way to put things right. Propose a decent, watertight and explicit decriminalisation of assisting suicide. List all those who vote against it in Parliament, and keep them alive no matter what pain and indiginity they may suffer.

Back to the plot. Would you like it if I guessed on your behalf that you'd like to die? I think not. Would you be happy if I decided (without asking you) not to treat your nearest and dearest after an accident from which they could survive? I think not. So the tests are valid and in the case of the unconscious patient, the moral decision is to treat up to the Hippocratic limit.

Being left with no arms would indeed be a nasty surprise but https://www.grapplearts.com/jessica-cox-pilot some people start off that way and have a good life and  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0046035/bio having no legs doesn't stop one becoming a war hero. Death, on the other hand, is a bit final.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

We can add to the scenario to tip the balance to the other direction. The doctor has experienced many similar cases previously. He saved all of previous patients, which then complaint that they would face terrible life they don't want to live. They prefer to die peacefully before regaining consciousness. Most of them get depressed and committed suicide.

Suicide has no moral repercussions.

If you don't like flying, don't become a pilot. If you don't like saving lives, the medical profession is not for you. But having chosen your profession and faced with a planeload of passengers or an unconscious patient, nobody will blame you for doing your job.

The law (at least in the UK)  does conflict with morality when a patient has asked to die, and I'm fairly certain that a degree of professional discretion is deployed from time to time. After all, Hippocrates goes on to say ".....nor strive officiously to prolong life" which is morally way ahead of anything a politician would dare to put his unworthy name to.

So here's the moral way to put things right. Propose a decent, watertight and explicit decriminalisation of assisting suicide. List all those who vote against it in Parliament, and keep them alive no matter what pain and indiginity they may suffer.

Back to the plot. Would you like it if I guessed on your behalf that you'd like to die? I think not. Would you be happy if I decided (without asking you) not to treat your nearest and dearest after an accident from which they could survive? I think not. So the tests are valid and in the case of the unconscious patient, the moral decision is to treat up to the Hippocratic limit.

Being left with no arms would indeed be a nasty surprise but https://www.grapplearts.com/jessica-cox-pilot some people start off that way and have a good life and  https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0046035/bio having no legs doesn't stop one becoming a war hero. Death, on the other hand, is a bit final.

If someone commits suicide after other people spend their resources to save him to the point of neglecting others who are also in needing situation, then I think it is reasonable for the helpers to judge him as immoral. In the light of a universal terminal goal, his immorality comes from inefficiency due to wasted resources which could have been used elsewhere.
The difference is in the expectation. The doctor's previous experiences would influence his Bayesian inference. He should consider the consequences of each options available, and take the one with most desired results. The final decision would also be affected by the doctor's kowledge on current technological progress. Organ transplants have been done regularly. Regrowing limbs might come in not so distant future. Even death might be overcame, although the timeline can be a bit longer.

[alancalverd]

"Overcoming death" would be a disaster. The planet would rapidly become overcrowded with old buggers like me saying "in my day...." and eating everything.

The guy who commits suicide after you have saved his life might be considered shortsighted and even ungrateful, but a gift once given becomes the absolute property of the recipient. If you consider slavery immoral (and it fails both tests) then you can't own another person's life, or have any moral right to criticise what he does with it.

Ars longa, vita brevis, unfortunately. You have to take medical decisions based on the knowledge and resources you have, not on what the Daily Mail thinks you might have next year.