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I don't think I wrongfully put words in your mouth then. Regarding whether you would press the switch or not. I think and I have different intuitions here, that go along with utilitarianism, or negative utilitarianism. And I also think that a poll would reveal that most people would wish that you not press the switch.
If you were accusing me of wrongfully putting words in your mouth regarding the rape thing, but not the grinder thing... I wasn't saying you were saying that rape is moral. (Although I was jokingly saying you were saying that immoral means to paying rent was the way to go.) I was saying that rape, while still a grave sin, is less grave than murder.
I don't think I was wrong about your positions here. I don't think I represented you inaccurately.
And I also think that a poll would reveal that most people would wish that you not press the switch.
Fortunately morality is neither relative nor determined by the outcomes of polls.
I was saying that rape, while still a grave sin, is less grave than murder.
This was primarily what led me to think you were putting words in my mouth, because no, I would not claim and do not claim that rape is worse than murder. Rape pertains to the sixth commandment against adultery (although the principle against violence of the fifth is involved), whereas murder is an outright violation of the fifth commandment. Killing an innocent life is worse than non-lethal violence combined with sexual sin. That's why I would not say that the sexual depravity of our modern time is itself the worst of all our sins, but rather, abortion is, because of the sheer immensity of innocent lives being murdered without a second thought, without half the population even seeing anything wrong with it. Obviously sexual degeneracy is related to our abortion culture, and both are very serious sins, but the gravity of murder is paramount (among the common sins against our neighbour, anyway; the violations of the first three commandments in our society are of course even worse than this).
I don't think I was wrong about your positions here. I don't think I represented you inaccurately.
I wasn't meaning to accuse you of bad faith. I was just then, as now, correcting what I perceived to be an error in your analysis.
Is there a moral imperative for a person who was uninvolved in the initial accident to stop the machine if they happen across the scene?
I'd be inclined, if the machine is so devastating as to kill someone in 5 seconds, to think that the quality of life for a person removed from the machine after 2.5 seconds will be horrendous.
So, I wouldn't stop it.
Since I did not cause the fall, is it immoral not to save that person, if my end in not saving him/her would be to eliminate further pain and a life of suffering from deformation?
So, I wouldn't stop it.
This is the same argument put forward by people who say kids with down syndrome should be aborted.
You have to understand the importance of the fact that it is God who determines "the hour and the day" of each of our deaths, not any one of us. The importance of this is even explicitly Catholic.
Nothing unclean can enter heaven (). It is by temporal suffering that we are purified of our attachments to the temporal. This must take place either on Earth or in Purgatory. There is no evil that God permits to befall a man that is not for his greater good.
So we must acknowledge what we cannot ever possibilty by our own powers know; that the man falling into the machine is certainly a sinner, and that if God has permitted this particular accident at this particular time, and that he also willed that you be present and capable of preventing his death, then it very well may be that God permissively wills this man to become a cripple and live miserably for five or ten or twenty more years, and through that suffering be purified of his temporal attachments. It is through God's mercy that this was allowed to pass. To deny the man this fate would be to condemn him either to Purgatory, where he must suffer for much longer than a mere five or ten or twenty years, or to hell itself.
These decisions are not for us to make. They belong to God.
Furthermore, I would say you would scarcely have time in five seconds to determine how terrible the "quality" of this man's life will be, and that therefore he should die - rather, you would see a man in danger and move immediately to remove the danger. In this way, our conscience guides us to the right where our reason fails.
I said that you would say murder is worse than rape, not vice versa. You somehow read this wrong twice now.
Hm, so I did. Apologies. Still, the reasons you gave for this hierarchy, if you will, are not the same as I give, though you may have been joking in that part of your claim.
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Fortunately morality is neither relative nor determined by the outcomes of polls.
Not being relative or determined by polls...
...does not imply easily accessible answers.
In regard to the poll whether they would choose to be saved (for 15 minutes) or not, I do not think their answer is to weigh in on the moral issue, but I do think their answer does carry weight in the scenario, which I guess does weigh in on the moral issue.
That is, this moral issue involves them, so to that extent, their opinion weighs in on this moral issue.
In India at the time of Swami Vivekananda, there was a social issue of the day, about whether widow women were allowed to get remarried. Swami Vivekananda said something like, how about we ask them their opinion on this?
So there... It's not like widowed women are qualified moral experts. But since this moral issue involved them, perhaps some weight ought be given to their opinion.
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