Love (brain teaser)

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Mithrae
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Love (brain teaser)

Post #1

Post by Mithrae »

I assume we're all familiar with the trolley problem and variations on the theme. Now imagine two chaps whose daughters lives are at stake, needing transplants or on the tracks or whatever: Aaron loves his daughter very much, so much that he would sacrifice two or five or even ten people's lives depending on circumstances to save hers. Brandon also loves his daughter very much, but there's no circumstance in which he would sacrifice even two unwilling or unknowing people's lives to save hers.

Which if either of these guys loves his daughter more, and why?

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Re: Love (brain teaser)

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Post by Diogenes »

Mithrae wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:15 pm I assume we're all familiar with the trolley problem and variations on the theme. Now imagine two chaps whose daughters lives are at stake, needing transplants or on the tracks or whatever: Aaron loves his daughter very much, so much that he would sacrifice two or five or even ten people's lives depending on circumstances to save hers. Brandon also loves his daughter very much, but there's no circumstance in which he would sacrifice even two unwilling or unknowing people's lives to save hers.

Which if either of these guys loves his daughter more, and why?
Before considering the question, I find myself realizing that neither of my daughters would want me to kill others to save them. I would not want them to kill others to save me. So... I guess I don't get to the question... except for the 'why.' The reason is that I believe and I think they believe, it is wrong to kill for selfish reasons.

Now, if we change the scenario [cheat] and substitute a particularly loathsome U.S. politician who is a blight on humanity... :) I would quite seriously have no moral issue with dispatching him for any reason, let alone to save my children. I think they would make the same decision.
In this case, the motive is not selfish. It is altruistic. Ridding the world of a destructive influence and saving lives is a win - win.

Speaking of moral dilemmas, I'm 12 minutes before the end of 'Locke,' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locke_(film)
The protagonist faces a moral crisis. A woman from a one night affair, a woman he does not love, is about to give birth to his child. He is married. He is a good man. He has children and a very responsible job. Probably because of some issues concerning his own father, he risks his job, his family, everything in order to be present at the birth even tho' he does not love the woman... at least romantically. He feels a duty. I've had a strong feeling about the ending since the first 5 minutes of the film, but don't want to create a spoiler.
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Re: Love (brain teaser)

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Post by Tcg »

Mithrae wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:15 pm I assume we're all familiar with the trolley problem and variations on the theme. Now imagine two chaps whose daughters lives are at stake, needing transplants or on the tracks or whatever: Aaron loves his daughter very much, so much that he would sacrifice two or five or even ten people's lives depending on circumstances to save hers. Brandon also loves his daughter very much, but there's no circumstance in which he would sacrifice even two unwilling or unknowing people's lives to save hers.

Which if either of these guys loves his daughter more, and why?
I don't think we can evaluate that. Aaron and Brandon reach different conclusions about what would be the proper moral action in this situation. That doesn't mean that either loves his daughter more or less.

I've known Quakers who take it even further than Brandon. They would not harm an intruder who had entered their homes even if the intruder had murderous intent. They didn't necessarily love their family members less because they are committed to non-violence no matter the circumstances.


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Re: Love (brain teaser)

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Post by Tcg »

[Replying to Tcg in post #3]

Just to add a bit more to my post. I didn't always agree or even understand fully the approach these Quakers took. One of them however had been a bombardier during WW2. He watched the bombs he directed to be released blowing up fellow human beings. He decided it was wrong for him to ever again take the lives of fellow humans. How could I or anyone else argue with his commitment? Did he love less? Maybe he loved more.


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Re: Love (brain teaser)

Post #5

Post by Mithrae »

Diogenes wrote: Wed Aug 24, 2022 4:40 pm Before considering the question, I find myself realizing that neither of my daughters would want me to kill others to save them. I would not want them to kill others to save me. So... I guess I don't get to the question... except for the 'why.' The reason is that I believe and I think they believe, it is wrong to kill for selfish reasons.
Tcg wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 4:08 am I don't think we can evaluate that. Aaron and Brandon reach different conclusions about what would be the proper moral action in this situation. That doesn't mean that either loves his daughter more or less.

I've known Quakers who take it even further than Brandon. They would not harm an intruder who had entered their homes even if the intruder had murderous intent. They didn't necessarily love their family members less because they are committed to non-violence no matter the circumstances.
I suppose we could imagine various different reasons for Brandon to let his daughter die; for example there might be financial reasons (insurance claim), or vindictive reasons (she shouldn't have put herself in that situation to begin with!). In those cases I think most people would reasonably say that Brandon values money or some warped sense of 'justice' more than his daughter, and therefore doesn't love his daughter very much. Surely the same would be true in the case of moral reasons? What got me thinking along these brain teaser lines was exactly that, someone telling another person on a forum "You value your morals more than your daughter's life, whereas I value my daughter more"; I was wondering if there was a good logical argument against that.

For the sake of argument let's say that Brandon's daughter would want him to save her, but he still won't do so if it sacrifices two other lives.

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Re: Love (brain teaser)

Post #6

Post by Tcg »

Mithrae wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 11:19 am
For the sake of argument let's say that Brandon's daughter would want him to save her, but he still won't do so if it sacrifices two other lives.
That changes nothing. Brandon is still committed to his conclusion that taking any human life (the number is irrelevant) is wrong. Would his conclusion preclude him from loving his daughter? Of course not.

Another problem with this query is that we can't measure love. How could we? How much does love weigh? I don't know. More than a feather but less than an elephant. Well, maybe the same as a small elephant or a really big feather.


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Re: Love (brain teaser)

Post #7

Post by Mithrae »

My answer to the brain teaser is that by refusing to sacrifice even two other lives to save his daughter's, Brandon demonstrates that he most likely loves his daughter more than Aaron, who would sacrifice others to save his daughter. I based this conclusion on three observations/assumptions:

A > Not everyone has an equal capacity for love; sociopaths and narcissists would be fairly obvious examples of people with a very low capacity to love others.
B > As with our capacities for strength, critical thinking, knowledge, emotional stability, communication and so on, our capacity for love (or the extent to which we utilize a hypothetical 'innate' capacity) can change, being increased by use and atrophied by disuse.
C > Comparatively 'unconditional' love is greater than more conditional love; if love is conditional on various circumstances, those circumstances are greater than the love, whereas if love isn't conditional on those circumstances the love is greater than the circumstances, and therefore greater than the more conditional love.

Aaron most likely wouldn't sacrifice two of his own daughters to save a third, but by sacrificing two strangers' lives to save his daughter he is showing that what's important to him is the relationship between him and his daughter, the condition which happens to connect them. If the exact same person were not his daughter, and one of the strangers was, he would reverse his decision and sacrifice the person who in the original scenario he seemingly valued so highly. His love is not first and foremost for the person, but for the relationship to himself.

By contrast it seems likely that Brandon is practicing an unconditional valuation of those involved. To be fair, there are undoubtedly moral frameworks in which that decision has nothing to do with love for either his daughter or the strangers. But even in those cases it's a fair bet that someone who has adopted such a moral framework is more likely to practice compassion or empathy for strangers than someone who hasn't. Practicing a comparatively unconditional respect or love for others could mean that Brandon simply has developed a greater capacity for love than Aaron; not only loving his daughter more than Aaron does, but potentially even loving strangers more than Aaron loves his daughter!

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Re: Love (brain teaser)

Post #8

Post by Mithrae »

Tcg wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 11:35 am That changes nothing. Brandon is still committed to his conclusion that taking any human life (the number is irrelevant) is wrong. Would his conclusion preclude him from loving his daughter? Of course not.
If it's a one for one that could be relevant depending on the scenario. I imagine many people would refuse to ask for a healthy person killed to harvest organs for their daughter, even if it were legal, whereas many of those same people might actively flip the switch on a runaway train to kill one stranger rather than their daughter (but wouldn't do so if it was two strangers). All else being equal, one for one, other distinctions such as level of active involvement and degree of closeness to the subjects can count for a lot in tipping the balance; for example, in the latter case it's the train which kills and was always going to kill someone, not you, even though you're actively deciding which person is killed.
Tcg wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 11:35 am Another problem with this query is that we can't measure love. How could we? How much does love weigh? I don't know. More than a feather but less than an elephant. Well, maybe the same as a small elephant or a really big feather.
It probably can't be precisely quantified but that doesn't mean it can't be compared, as in my post above. Is the possessive/obsessive love of a narcissist, focusing all their attention and devotion on one person, greater or less than the love someone would receive from say a monk or a charity worker practicing universal compassion?

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Re: Love (brain teaser)

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Post by Purple Knight »

Mithrae wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 12:28 pm[Aaron's] love is not first and foremost for the person, but for the relationship to himself.
That's a very thought-provoking answer and I think I agree with you.

Part I'm thinking most about highlighted.

Let's up the ante and add Darren, who would throw his daughter in front of the train to save the stranger. Whose love is greatest now? And if it's still Brandon which I imagine it will be, does it matter what Darren's reason is? Suppose Darren says to you, "Well, though I've tried to instruct my daughter in morality, she is often mean and nasty to others, saying disgusting things like she'd throw her own father in front of a train to save a stranger, and I find that it is fundamentally her personality, which I estimate to be well deep in the bottom 50%. I've tried to tell her this is wrong, you don't value people like that, but since she can't seem to understand, she is clearly of less value than some rando who probably does understand."

You may find this a bit mirror-mirror heavy. It's intended. Because I'm trying to draw out how one is supposed to love. Everyone equally?

Or can we evaluate the person? Would it be okay for me to do the sacrifice if Hitler is standing down there and I crush him to get organs to save my child?

Because if not, then I come to the conclusion that I ought to decide not to make the sacrifice, even if the sacrifice... is a mango. Being able to sacrifice a mango requires this evaluation, this weighing, exactly that Darren is doing.

The human, Darren thinks, is more valuable than the mango, because of some traits the human has. A mango that had a human shell and was braindead could be sacrificed, even one that moved like a person, because what matters, you see, is what's going on inside. And if what's going on inside is decidedly rotten, such as "Kill the Jews!" then splat you go and save the better things. (Get it? He's still a hypocrite.)

But there's still this problem where if Darren is wrong and all things are equal, if we can't weigh the things at all, we ought to give a mango the consideration due to a person.

Would you sacrifice the mango for the parrot? If so you're just like Darren, weighing things, determining that because of the traits of the things, some of the things have greater value than others, and loving those high-value things more.

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Re: Love (brain teaser)

Post #10

Post by Mithrae »

Purple Knight wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 10:56 pm
Mithrae wrote: Thu Aug 25, 2022 12:28 pm[Aaron's] love is not first and foremost for the person, but for the relationship to himself.
That's a very thought-provoking answer and I think I agree with you.

Part I'm thinking most about highlighted.

Let's up the ante and add Darren, who would throw his daughter in front of the train to save the stranger. Whose love is greatest now? And if it's still Brandon which I imagine it will be, does it matter what Darren's reason is? Suppose Darren says to you, "Well, though I've tried to instruct my daughter in morality, she is often mean and nasty to others, saying disgusting things like she'd throw her own father in front of a train to save a stranger, and I find that it is fundamentally her personality, which I estimate to be well deep in the bottom 50%. I've tried to tell her this is wrong, you don't value people like that, but since she can't seem to understand, she is clearly of less value than some rando who probably does understand."

You may find this a bit mirror-mirror heavy. It's intended. Because I'm trying to draw out how one is supposed to love. Everyone equally?

Or can we evaluate the person? Would it be okay for me to do the sacrifice if Hitler is standing down there and I crush him to get organs to save my child?

Because if not, then I come to the conclusion that I ought to decide not to make the sacrifice, even if the sacrifice... is a mango. Being able to sacrifice a mango requires this evaluation, this weighing, exactly that Darren is doing.

The human, Darren thinks, is more valuable than the mango, because of some traits the human has. A mango that had a human shell and was braindead could be sacrificed, even one that moved like a person, because what matters, you see, is what's going on inside. And if what's going on inside is decidedly rotten, such as "Kill the Jews!" then splat you go and save the better things. (Get it? He's still a hypocrite.)

But there's still this problem where if Darren is wrong and all things are equal, if we can't weigh the things at all, we ought to give a mango the consideration due to a person.

Would you sacrifice the mango for the parrot? If so you're just like Darren, weighing things, determining that because of the traits of the things, some of the things have greater value than others, and loving those high-value things more.
I'm not sure you're still talking about love here? Who cares whether I love a mango? The point of the brain teaser and my answer to it is that 'love' even for those closest to you isn't an excuse for making moral exceptions, because making those exceptions really suggests the opposite, suggests a shallower and more selfish kind of love conditional on that relationship. But it doesn't follow from that that throwing your evil daughter in front of a train is equally or more loving; I think you're asking a purely moral question there. If anything, Darren has simply added other conditions to his love or his valuation of his daughter's life. You could say by comparison to a mango that humanity is a condition we all place on love, sure, but that's okay; I deliberately avoided the suggestion that love can be truly unconditional.

Morally of course we obviously do value some things more than others even within the realm of humanity; that's the whole point of morals. I think that two of the things we do or should value most are personhood (often assumed to be but not strictly synonymous with humanity) and sentience (in particular the capacity to suffer adverse effects from others' decisions). If a mango has no sentience, no suffering or adverse feeling from our decisions, it doesn't really figure into our moral calculations; whereas the same doesn't necessarily apply to someone in a coma, say, because they are still a person.

As for killing baby Hitler (or even 1910s Hitler for that matter, when he's presumably evil but not yet a clear and present danger) and similar questions, I wonder if any action can be moral if it's not merely illegal, but violates their fundamental/human rights? I imagine these as three tiers, with moral principles providing normative guidelines for (mostly) individual behaviour, fundamental rights providing normative rules for (mostly) societies and institutions, and between the two laws providing more formal and enforcible constraints, hopefully, on the most egregious violations by either societies or individuals, among other functions. People's fundamental rights - most notably to equal dignity, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and security of person, as in the US DoI and UN UDHR - are the closest to universal, objective normative principles we've got. So I'm not sure how it could be valid under a lesser/more subjective framework of morals to violate those more universal and objective rules.

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