/lit/ - Literature

OP, consider giving them trolley problem, having them play One Shot(preferably the old one) and give it again afterwards but with Nico plastered on the single dude
Then ask anyone if their choice changed and if so why, if not ask them if the choice was as easy as first time
Shit's easy, fast and good way of breaching the topic, it's even free with old version

>>16989878
1. I read books in my free time.
2. If you want to make wide-ranging statements about all philosophy, you should probably study philosophy.
3. These aren't unusual names. Millikan and Thomson might be, but I put Millikan in because she's a good example of someone who doesn't do ethics but rather hard philosophy of science. Certainly Anscombe is popular, and anyone who knows anything about ethics should have heard of Foot (Literally the patron saint of Pseudery due to her creation of the trolley problem). And Nussbaum does a lot of pop philosophy (although I've stuck to her real philosophy like Upheavals of Thought).

What is the difference between the Trolley Problem and the organ transplant?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l1-CpVVBa0

Is this guy right? I thought it was the doctrine of double effect or something like that, pic related

>>16835345
It's about whether the intention behind the word, thought, or deed was good and sincere. The trolley problem becomes a moot point then. Accidents and difficult encounters do happen in life, but it's about maintaining good intention, which is purifying in itself. However, one does have to sacrifice certain things in life for good purposes, but it's best to minimize the sacrifice to what is only essential while remaining sustainably minded. Sacrificing too much is bad. Life is about a balance of maintaining good intention and sacrifice.
>using impurity as a means for a pure end
It's impossible if one is physically fit and has good and honest intentions. It is logically impossible for someone with good intentions to sadistically harm another.
However, the question of sacrifice is more nuanced. For example, being in a situation where you have to hunt to feed your family requires sacrifice. So long as you hunt what is necessary, then it's fine.

>>16835327
How do you reconcile things like the trolley problem, or using impurity as a means for a pure end? Tough love?

>>16697155
the trolley problem is such a brainlet introduction to philosophy, the trick is in trying to logically solve a question that is meant to be solve on the emotional level, the solution is obviously the order of the importance of your loved ones to you and with what decision they'd be okay with after you consult with them

>>16697155
the solution to any trolley problem is very easy
simply. never go to a trolley or rail track ever
if fate puts you into one somehow then you just jump front of the track because your destiny has outgrown your free will and your life if but a rail leading to the unmovable outcome of your vehicular suicide

The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred - Greg Egan (2016)
This was unlike anything else by Egan that I've read. It's about politics and little else. The two primary issues are discrimination and refugees, though several other issues are are present to varying degrees. There are many indictments against the perceived failures of their government, which doesn't take much of a stretch to relate them to existing governments. There are also ethical dilemmas presented, though at this point the trolley problem doesn't mean much to me, but its inclusion seems to have affected others quite a bit. Personally, I think in this case it would have been better to destroy the metaphorical train and avoid the problem altogether, though that quite possibly present a far greater problem. The best option would have been for the train to never have been built, but that's far more difficult proposition.
Rating: 3.5/5, rounded down.

>>16656926
>>16656970
One must imagine the immortal trolley problem guy happy.

>>16620565
>Having an illusion of choice in politics between parties is part of how consent is manufactured in the media system

And by voting for the less shit option, Biden, you aren't really changing anything you are just pulling the lever on the trolley problem.

>The way it co-opts energy that should be used for greater goals

Almost like that's exactly what his fucking book is about.

>>16526026
Ship of Theseus could be more famous than the trolley problem i think.

>>16404628
>the FAT man trolley problem

>the trolley problem

>>16391533
You are (you). For the sale of this thought experiment you are a worker of equal value, as this is meant to mimic the Trolley Problem

>>16305348
It is impossible to know any relevant objective truth. And here already I come to my first contradiction, because that statement sounds like the assertion of an objective truth.

God may or may not exist, I can only say that one option might be more plausible than the other but I can not even come up with a probability distribution. I think that given my day to day experience and some arguments following propositional logic and first order logic, with the information that I have, God seems unlikely. For example some passages from the bible seem to contradict themselves, contraditions should mean that the thing can not exist (like a Turing Machine that solves the halting problem for Turing Machines) but God might be above such logic and the bible might be allegorical in some passages.
Even if a God exists, it doesn't seem likely that it must be the Christian God.

My morals mostly come down to utilitarianism, and I am aware of problems such as the trolley problem. I am not sure if there is a solution to this. My day to day morals are utilitarianism and protection of the weak, I also value the prevention of extreme sufferig higher than the achievement of extreme pleasure.

My understanding of politics is mostly game theory, many individuals and groups trying to acquire ressources through competition and cooperation.

The root of what a valuable ressource is, be it physical or mental, is rooted in evolutionary biology and psychology. People want food, sex, children and so on.

All of this doesn't mean that there is no room left wor wonder and awe. Even if I don't have an immortan soul, my mind is my mortal soul. When I meet a woman, I don't think about atoms coliding or flesh rubbing on flesh, I hope that we will experience something awesome that we might not even comprehend, although it might be an illusion in a sense.

I am also very afraid of death.

>>16116549
I'm not at all interested in a major or minor in philosophy, but I wanted to take an into class just to have a clear sense of direction with who to start with and what works of their to read.
But all of the first-year philosophy classes advertise themselves as teaching you how to discuss with a philisophical mindset against your braindead classmates, and introduce you to topics such as "do good and evil exist" and other trolley problem-tier quandries.
Philosophy in college and university is a complete joke, just read the books yourself and save the time and money otherwise wasted. There are better subjects to dip into for anyone looking for elective credits.
Which philosopher do I start with and which of their works?

>>16106259
Do we really need an entire board for le trolley problem?

>>16055287
In the classic American literature series Harry Potter, the word Voldemort is made into a literal "shibboleth" - a word so stigmatized that its use becomes something feared, lest consequences follow the usage. But in a genius twist characteristic of Rowling's brilliance in constructing Trolley-problem-esque philosophical issues, the word Voldemort actually is imbued with magickal power - letting the villain of the same name peer into the world of the speaker, and, if he so chooses, appear. In this way the word Voldemort and the threat Voldemort become one and the same, leading us to ponder: might censorship make some kind of sense, where the invocation itself is also a form of damage? One needs not stretch too far to apply this to case of the "n-word," the very use of which causes unbearable psychic pain to all who hear it...

>>15985088
>The reductio doesn't require that the sides of the square be one Planck unit in length.
You still have to be close enough to Planck length than measures uncertainties will be under Planck length. Given what we know about physics currently it's a very unlikely scenario, but even putting that aside, the principle of my objection holds.

> So the length of the sides of any square will likewise be some integer multiple of the Planck unit.
It just means there won't be any exact square, ie, anything we think is a square is only approximately square. This is already the case in all practical situations. The point is Pythagoras can be applied perfectly only to abstract construction, material constructions are bound to be imperfectly geometrical.

Btw
> the Planck unit is the minimal distance
is not true, see http://rantonels.github.io/is-the-planck-length-the-minimum-possible-length/ already posted earlier in the thread. But that's tangential to your argument I guess.

>>15984866
> philosophical mind experiments
>light from computer screens are produced by electronic devices
>brain signals are encoded with chemical reaction and electrical currents
All I said was remind you of some basic scientific facts.

>Me, brain and elections exist in the real physical world.
Your brain exist physically. You don't, you're just a set of patterns in your brain. Get brain damage and what you think of as "you' would become unrecognizable or disappear entirely. This is not an abstract experiment, just go visit anyone with a severe case of Alzheimer's.

> Infinity
Exists as a set of pattern in many human brain. Not only is it as real as (you), but it is actually more undying.

>>15984928
>again, if MATERIALISM is true, then the picture in our head is material, thus it is bound by the planck length
Planck length doesn't follow from materialism alone, it is a particular quantity bound to a modern theory that might be overturned in the next 30 years. You can have materialism without Planck length. Also Planck length isn't defined as "that which nothing can be smaller", it's just at scale at which things get very weird and hard to approach with current theories.

>therefore Phantasia can't even imagine a circle
This is actually true for all continuous lines, so not only a circle but a straight line, etc. And this is already the case, no human brain ever imagined a circle with perfect accuracy, we don't have infinite resolution of picture, not even in our minds.

>there are no real curves
You have never met a real curve once in your life, only dotted lines made of atoms.

>>15985085
What are the consequence of the Zeno paradox other than "dude infinite space lmao"? It didn't change physics, geometry, mathematics, not to mention other humans endeavors, it didn't even really change philosophy. It's just an interesting thought experiment, like that fucking trolley problem. Even on a purely speculative standpoint it's not that important.

What is the Kantian solution to the trolley problem?

>>15882794
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it either. You're right that it sounds like utilitarianism; it can even give the same answer to the trolley problem. Ethics of care is like letting the 5 people die because the 1 other person is your mom (lol).

On the other hand, if you used virtue ethics, then you could make the same argument for lying by saying that honesty is a golden mean between only telling lies and only telling the truth. You would still be acting virtuously if you lied about your friend

>>15882960
Whereas Kant here is understood to say that lying is always wrong, you could theoretically take the categorical imperative in a different direction to say that a lie said in specific circumstances where another person's life or dignity is at risk of being lost would only be a "white" lie compared to other kinds of lies; and, therefore, "white" lies can always be permissible but not other kinds of lies. But since this is a stringent definition I invite you to refute it

>>15801091
the trolley problem (standard and variation, ironic or not) is too unspecified to make a valid moral judgment and yet also not generalized enough to be a proper thought experiment, it's truly unsurprising that a w*man first presented us with this ""dilemma""

>>15601364
>Lived in Beijing for 2 years doing ESL shit job
>Teaching material brings up the trolley problem so I ask these high school kids what they would do
>Every single one says they wouldn't do anything
>Just walk away
>Even if their parents or family was on the track
>"not my problem"
>Baffled
>Turn on Tom and Jerry for the rest of the hour
>fuck these degenerates

Frank Dikotter has a good trilogy covering the revolution, great famine, and cultural revolution. Roughly 1945-1976. Really shows how the horrors of communism caused them to be so fucked.

>>15597197
Honestly ethics has always been the most fruitless part of philosophy for me. I find that ethics can only come from introspection into one's own desires and beliefs, and that any discussion comes down to a difference in pre-verbal feelings and actions. This is why abortion debates are always so boring. This is why the trolley problem is even a problem.
How do you have productive conversations about ethics? How do you even compare ethical systems without using another pre-rational ethical system? With metaphysics you can argue and refute, and while it may be in the abstract and unprovable, things can still be right and wrong if you subscribe to basic logic.