Jim & the Indians
...hat's right for me. Moral relativism says, "It's true for me, if I believe it." Moral Relativism is the denial of truth in ethical questions. A Moral Relativist accepts that his own moral system is meaningless. So from this perspective Jim would be taking a selfish way out if his belief is not killing anyone is the right decision for him, therefore I believe that the moral relativism perspective is wrong. Ethical egoism, this is the claim that individuals should always to act in their own best interest. If ethical egoism is true, that appears to imply that psychological egoism is false, there would be no point to saying that we ought to do what we must do by nature. In this case Ethical Egoism cannot be correct because it does not provide solutions for conflicts of interest. We can only justify treating people differently if we can show that there is some factual difference between them that is relevant to justifying the difference in treatment. Ethical egoism also obligates each person to prevent others from doing the right thing. So in Jim's case this would not be the correct decision. I know that the arguments for ethical egoism are that people are familiar with their own wants and needs, but Jim's decision would not be justified if he took this moral approach. Psychological egoism is the theory that holds all human actions when property understood can be seen to be motivated by selfish desires. More precisely, psychological egoism is the doctrine that the only thing anyone is capable of desiring or pursuing ultimately (as an end-in-itself) is his own self-interest. So in this case Jim would take the easy way out and just let the Indians die so he won't have to have that on his conscious. By doing this he would be a psychological egoist because he would be taking the easy way out and doing the selfish thing. Neither weak nor strong psychological egoism is a basis for morality. In its strong form, psychological egoism makes morality meaningless. If people must do what is best for them, we cannot hold them morally responsible for their actions. In its weak form, psychological egoism does not tell us anything about morality. If people can do something to help other people, how do they know when they should? Subjectivism is the idea that we cannot know everything, or even know anything for sure, that because everyone's mind is different everyone experiences events differently. This presents a problem from biological, personal, philosophical and (quantum) physics points of view. This theory is never held consistently. The effect of trying to hold it consistently would be a complete inability to interact with the world. One would just sit and wish for things to be "better", confused at why the world isn't doing its part. By taking this approach Jim is just letting his emotions do too much of the deciding. This approach doesn't even bring in the factor of right or wrong so this cannot be the right approach to take in making this decision. In this option Jim could chose to be a Kantian and just let all twenty of them die. Say Jim lets Pedro kill all twenty Indians, it may happen after Jim has left or at least Jim will be allowed to turn around and not look. From Jim's self-interested perspective, it may be easier to deal with twenty unseen deaths than with one visible death where he must see the face and feel the gun. People in general aren't comfortable with death and killing, and when a situation has some amount of killing as an inevitable result there's an understandable desire to shrivel up and sit in a corner and not have to be aware of it. Thousands of people die around the world every day, but we only really start to care if we're forced to see it. In this situation Jim would naturally find it easier to just sit back and act like nothing happened. This utilitarian approach to this dilemma is in my opinion the right thing to do. Say Jim does choose this option; even though he is not directly responsible for the twenty deaths he could have saved the lives of nineteen of them if he would have acted differently. Jim also knows by choosing this option he had the chance to save nineteen lives and has to live with that. Would a person be morally strong enough to take responsibility for all of those deaths, living with the fact that you know you could have saved them would be as hard as killing someone yourself in my opinion. This point of view states from Kant that you should not treat someone as a mean to an end. Taking this option would be the same as when the World Trade centers were falling down if all of the police and fire man would have just stayed outside and watched. I don't think that this would be the correct choice to make in this situation. If you have a chance to save innocent people then why not do it. I know that there is the point of you didn't have anything directly to do with the deaths but in a sense you really did. By Jim standing there and letting twenty people die when he could have saved nineteen in effect Jim did have something to do with it, not in a direct way but in an indirect way. In my opinion the correct option in this situation is the utilitarian option, killing one of the Indians while the other nineteen live. I know that it is a difficult task killing someone and having to live with the fact that you took someone's life. I think that would be easier than just sitting b...