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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 3253702" data-attributes="member: 22424">Nope. If you act, you save five lives and take one. If you don't act... you do nothing. That five lives are lost is not your fault or your responsibility.Inaction, by it's nature, has no consequences. Unless a force is applied, events will proceed along their pre-existing path.I fail to see how this is comparable - in that situation, you are explicitly taking action, by firing the gun.Agreed. But the Good person simply cannot sacrifice the lesser good for the greater. Otherwise, real problems ensue.Since I'll be replying to Firelance's comments on the Laws of Robotics a bit further down, allow me to refer to them here:In the initial version, the three Laws of robotics are entirely benign, and lead to proper control of robots. However, as soon as you introduce the 0th Law, that robots cannot allow Humanity to come to harm, and allow that law to supercede all the others, you run into problems. Suddenly, it becomes entirely acceptable for the robots to enslave the human race, in the guise of keeping us safe and prosperous.Only if the value is finite. Mathematics with infinite values is a bit wonky.In any event, I believe that was my point entirely - ask the one whether the better consequence is him dying or not, and you'll get a very different answer from him than you would from the five.I would agree with that, but no human being has ever had an entirely objective viewpoint from which to judge these things.At this point, though, I'm beyond the question of accountability. Since you cannot properly judge the consequences of an action, how can you possibly hope to make moral judgements as to the suitability of the action? Saving five lives at the cost of one sounds like a good trade-off, but there are so many permutations of possible outcomes that you're basically playing a lottery, and that strikes me as a lousy basis for making such important calls.Indeed. And my answer is simple: your responsibility begins the moment you take action. Inaction doesn't count.The fun thing about that Law of Robotics in the example given of the runaway train, is that the robot finds itself trapped, unable to resolve the paradox caused by its programming. It cannot do nothing, or five people die, but it cannot act either, as that would cause one person to die.However, the crucial thing about the Law of Robotics, as you relate it to morality, is that I fundamentally disagree: allowing harm to come about through inaction is Neutral. It's still a lousy thing to (not) do, since we're not called to Neutrality but to be Good, but it remains Neutral.I think most people would say that you should, and be fairly horrified at those who don't. However, to say that not acting would be Evil is to exclude the middle ground. Acting to save the man would be a Good action, despite the lack of consequences, while not acting is Neutral. The Evil act would be to somehow make rescue harder, perhaps by walking away with the life preserver.IMO, this merely heightens what was already there: acting is clearly Good in this case, while not acting remains Neutral.This is trickier. However, here you are given a free hand by the fact that the enemy is specifically engaged in an Evil action, which you are permitted to oppose.A much harder question occurs where the guardian of the life preserver is not an enemy of the man, but merely someone who wishes to charge for the use of his resource (the life preserver). Here, the guardian is not engaged in Evil, but is rather Neutral, which means you are not free to simply defeat him and move on. In this case, you are contemplating an Evil action (an assault) and a Good action (the rescue) together.On balance, I would be inclined to side with the view that says you have to save the man. However, it is also a view that says the Evil action should then be punished accordingly, that justice can be restored. (In the same way, I would steal food to feed my starving family, but that then leaves an Evil action which should be appropriately punished for the sake of moral justice.)It has the benefit that anything is acceptable, as long as it turns out well. Or if the consequences aren't too bad. This strikes me as very slippery ground on which to stand. Pathways to Hell, and all that.</blockquote>

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