Topics Ethics

Question There is a classic dilemma about a careening streetcar threatening to kill five people, but where you by operating a switch can force the streetcar onto a different track, saving the five, but killing one other person. The dilemma intends to illustrate the different positions taken by a consequentialist and a cathegorical kantian. How would a virtue ethicist act in this situation? It seems like utilitarians and deonthologists neatly split the moral world in true dichotomies, leaving little room for virtue ethics. But put in a situation like the dilemma, even the virtue ethicist has to act either way, and how does he argue then? Relying on a set of ever so noble virtues wouldn't help very much.

Accepted:
August 9, 2012

Comments

Thank you for these observations and the question of how virtue ethics comes into play with the streetcar thought experiment! The dilemma is, indeed, intended to force us to think about the moral status of action versus omission, and this goes to the heart of some utilitarian and Kantian matters. Utilitarians tend to treat an act and an omission on equal terms: so if you do not throw a switch in which case you would have saved five people at the cost of one, some utilitarians are prone to think that you would be responsible for the death of four people. Kantians or deontologists tend to think that what you do is not crucially dependent on consequences but in terms of treating persons as ends in themselves, and they think in terms of duties (come what may). In an interesting new two volume book, On What Matters, the philosopher D. Parfit argues that Kantianism and utilitarianism ultimately are compatible and should (on reflection) reach the same conclusion.

Your question was about virtue theory, though, and suggest that virtue theory would not help very much. Let me suggest that it can make a difference. One virtue that may be hard to define exactly is integrity. The rough idea is that a person of integrity has certain moral limits about allowing her or himself to become an instrument of harm or evil. I think you may be right that in the streetcar case, it might not be clear what a person of integrity would do. I can imagine a person honestly and sincerely believing that by throwing the switch she is saving four lives and this is good, and I can imagine her not throwing the switch on the grounds that this would implicate her in the killing of a person who might otherwise live. But let's go with a different example that was used by Bernard Williams against utilitarianism in the name of integrity.

Imagine that you come across a military general who has ten villagers whom he tells you he is about to kill. And yet he gives you a choice. Because he likes you (maybe he thinks you are the sort of person who would send in a question to AskPhilosophers and he thinks that is commendable), he gives you a choice. If you kill one of the villagers, he will let the other nine go. What would you do?

Note: for this thought experiment to work, we have to imagine that the above details are all that is known. In other words, as far as you know, the villagers are innocent and not baby-killing rapists, you are not James or Jane Bond or Jason Bourne or Spiderman and can free the captives through heroism, etc...

According to Williams (and I agree with this), a utilitarian would be inclined to kill the (presumed, but not known to be) innocent villager to save the nine, but a person of integrity has a reason not to. The reason is that by killing the villager you become an instrument of evil. You also become open to manipulation in a horrible slippery slope. Image you kill one villager, and the military general says "Good shot. Now, shoot one more and I will let the eight go. Sorry to change my mind, old chap, but, look, just shoot one more and you will rescue eight people!" And so on.

So, I agree that virtue theory will not always help break the dilemma between a utilitarian and Kantian, but I suggest that an appeal to the virtues like integrity can make a difference.