ClearConscience

I recorded a response to Stefan's arguments against Nonviolent Communication, in hopes that many of you who were mislead by him would reconsider both its validity and usefulness. Take a listen and if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask in the comments below. Also, if you want to criticize the substance of my response, I would love to hear that as well. Please don't criticize my speech or delivery of information. I probably won't be very receptive to these types of comments. https://soundcloud.com/thosewhostayuofm/in-defense-of-nonviolent-communication

You might be on to something, but apparently you said you aren't going to provide further detail, which simply means you are going to make an assertion and not provide any justification for it. That's useless. Here's another example that might be more closely related to the trolley problem. Suppose all of the facts of the original trolley problem hold true, except there is a third track and an eighth person who is tied to the third track. So now, the trolley is heading toward a three way split where it will either collide with five people, or if you hit the switch, one person, or if you hit the switch again, a different single person. My justification for hitting the switch once still holds, but now the lever-operator is subjected to a choice between which one of two people will be allowed to die for the sake of the others. This thought experiment tests the same moral principle of the previous experiment I suggested. You, being the lever operator, have to make a choice. To leave the situation is a choice... but leaving may be immoral.

Assume they are sick because of bad luck. Believe it or not, and I do mean this... you may not believe me... but why they are sick doesn't matter. Suppose that each man had a birth defect that made each respective organ weaker and thus needing the transplant. If it helps, suppose the men needing transplants are actually 5 year-old children... because like I said, it actually doesn't matter. I'm not sure what you mean by "the current statist paradigm." The reason why it matters is because, if you can't rationally justify the idea that allowing five innocent children to die for the sake of one innocent man is moral, then there are all kinds of rights violations that are justified... including taxation. That's just one of many. Suppose nobody is willing to donate. Make that assumption now. That was the point. It is not always immoral to force something upon another person unwillingly. You can't simply say, "because it is against another person's will, it is immoral." That is flawed. Simply asserting that it is immoral to harvest the organs of a healthy man against his will is immoral is not an argument. It is immoral not to harvest an innocent man's organs for the sake of five innocent men. See, I can baselessly assert things too... and my baseless assertion at least falls on the moral side of accounting. 5>1 So according to your moral theory, locking up predatory psychopaths is immoral? I don't know about you, but that sounds like a flawed moral theory.

Therefore, prison is immoral.

I'd like to introduce a new thought experiment, if that's okay. Suppose there are 5 sick men who each need a distinct vital organ transplant in order to live. Is it immoral for a doctor to take an innocent man off the street, against his will, remove five of his vital organs, transplant each one into the respective sick man, thus trading one life for five?

I was frustrated. What you read as insults were an emotional reaction by me. I said inaction was immoral because the lever-operator has a moral obligation to pull it. You responded saying, "To say that inaction is immoral is to inflict an unchosen obligation upon somebody." What did I miss then? Help me understand your position and how it shows that my position is misguided.

Is this real? Could Stefan please step in and talk to these people! Because apparently rational thought can't get through to them. They need their celebrity to tell them what is true in order to accept it. I want to talk to him... not these people! Choosing to get up and walk away is a choice! When I said that you must choose... THAT'S A CHOICE! You either pull the lever or you walk away. What other option is there? To not pull the lever = walking away. I'm face palming right now! This is so simple. It takes no thought whatsoever. What is going on?! I thought the youtube comment section was bad. This is worse! When you talk about choosing to take "the risk" what risk are you referring to? The risk of pulling an arm muscle? I seriously have no idea what is going on. People are just rejecting what I'm saying on the basis of... "Property rights, the end". What is this? You may disagree with me on what I'm going to call a moral gradient, where things can be more good or less good, more bad or less bad, but you're wrong. As you copy-pasted, morality is a SYSTEM OF VALUES AND PRINCIPLES OF CONDUCT. You can value one thing more than another, right? RIGHT?! When you are trying different foods, it is possible to judge two foods to be good, but one to be better than the other right? It's not that difficult to understand. It's really not. Try to understand it for half a second. Think about it for 5 minutes. I never brought up a different scenario! I simply removed your irrational subjective bias. That's what the original position is used for. What I'm doing is philosophy. What you're doing is forming opinions based in dogmatic beliefs and emotional reactions. I changed nothing about the scenario. If you can take your frame of mind away from your individual perspective, and be OBJECTIVE, then you will see that pulling the lever is the only objectively moral option. The use of the original position is a tool to help you see it. It is only a tool. It is not changing the scenario AT ALL! You claim that utility does not determine morality... PROVE IT! I happen to agree with you, but I seriously don't think you understand what a baseless assertion is... nobody here seems to understand that simply asserting something is true is pointless. The last point that I made was an argument. You don't even know what an argument is. You don't disagree with proofs. The proof is either right or wrong, correct or incorrect. You don't know what a prior means in philosophy, so stop using it. We aren't talking about epistemology or justification for knowledge. We are talking about morality. That being said, if you mean to say that people's beliefs on whether to pull the lever change based on their subjective position within the experiment, then you are correct for most people... but most people are morally inept. That's like saying racism is moral if you're white, but immoral if you're black... because white people benefit from racism whereas black people are harmed by racism. If you're white, then you want racism to exist in the world. If you're black, you don't want racism to exist in the world. My position says that's retarded. If you go to the original position, where nobody knows what race they will be once they leave the original position, then they will all choose for there to be no racism. In this way, racism is universally unpreferable behavior... or simply the opposite of universally preferable behavior. The original position is a tool to help you understand these moral issues, and it's utilized by virtual every shcolar alive today who is involved with constructing theories of justice. You can disagree with it, but if you do, then you're wrong. To your last point, I don't even know what you're saying. I have never heard of a future possible thief. I don't know what that means. I have no clue what you're talking about.

Morality is analogue. <--[This is an assertion] You can do things that are immoral without violating property rights. Emotional abuse doesn't violate property rights. Emotional abuse is immoral. <--[This is justification of the assertion] Could you please stop wasting my time with baseless assertions? Thanks. "Hard-nosed concept of property rights" is how I would describe the irrational conclusion that all of morality is exclusive to property rights. I don't need to refute your idea of property rights = morality because you've never justified it... at all. I can call it dogmatic and discard it, just like atheists do with religion. There is no difference. You are correct in saying that moral obligation is an unchosen obligation. So what? You can choose to be immoral, but you cannot choose what is moral and what is immoral. That is objective. I'm not sure I see your point here. It certainly has nothing to do with the use of force. You really should do some more reading before you espouse fallacious logic. Maybe try to understand what I'm saying rather than immediately rejecting it simply because it challenges your previously held beliefs. I never contradicted what I said before. There is a moral gradient. Also, I don't believe in punishing people for acting immorally under extremely stressful circumstances. That's not a contradiction. I find your language to be accusatory rather than explanatory. Try to change that. Stop trying to defend your previously held beliefs and instead try to explain how they are better than the moral theory that I'm putting forth. Stop being combative. Start being instructive. Thanks. How do you voluntarily create morality? I don't think you even put forth 5 minutes to think about what you're saying, honestly. Maybe you just don't know the definition of moral obligation. It simply means that a person feels they must perform an action because it is prescribed for them by their set of values. Now if we assume moral objectivism, we can say that an action is prescribed by an objective set of values that are unchosen... just like the laws of physics are unchosen. Are the laws of physics immoral under your view?

I fully agree with this comment, assuming we hold the NAP as true. However, I've also demonstrated that this contradicts UPB. Isn't that a problem? Don't you have that sense of cognitive dissonance? It is universally preferable for the lever-operator to pull the lever. See my proof 2 posts above. It is a violation of the NAP to pull the lever. See the quote above. I propose that the NAP has exceptions. I propose that, when a person is acting immorally, in egregiously enough manner, it is moral to use force against that person, What's interesting is that the NAP already has an exception built into it from the outset, so it's not like I'm suggesting something completely radical. The NAP clearly states that you may use force against somebody who already initiated it, i.e. you may use force against somebody who is behaving immorally already. I would simply extend this beyond simply the use of force. Morality goes being merely force and coercion. Moral obligation exists.

I really don't understand your first point of contention at all. Everything you do, or do not do, in life is a choice and nobody can ever force you to make one choice over another. The only exception to this is, for instance, if somebody put you in a remote control robotic metal suit and was able to physically control your body, or conversely if somebody placed you in chains to restrain you from doing a particular action. In the case of the lever operator, there are no restraints, there is no metal remote controlled suit. There is only a person acting of his/her own free will. Your second point is an unsupported assertion. There is such a thing as a moral choice. The example that I provided, where the lever operator had to choose whether to do nothing, which resulted in 5 deaths, or pull the lever that would divert to a track that was clear, resulting in zero deaths, easily demonstrates that the option of doing nothing is less moral than the option of saving 5 people's lives. No, we can not both agree that there is no immoral choice. I don't look at it as black and white as you do... There is a most correct choice, and then there is a less correct choice. The less correct choice is to do nothing. I absolutely did not change what was happening. All I did was give people an objective reference frame of the situation. That is not changing the situation. Once the thought experiment begins, and everybody has their positions defined to them, what is the moral coarse of action? By removing people from their subjective positions, the original position - behind the veil of ignorance, allows you to easily see the correct choice to make. This whole talk of a life threatening illness is a red herring, but nonetheless, it is immoral for the person being poked refrain from allowing the sick person to poke him. The moral action of the person who is to be poked should be to offer their shoulder willingly without the sick even needing to ask. However, if the person who is to be poked behaves immorally, and withholds his shoulder, it is perfectly moral to poke the shoulder by force. This hard-nosed concept of property rights is dogmatic. It is just as dogmatic as any religion, and it leads to horrific consequences, specifically in the realm of political philosophy. But like I said, this is a red herring and it is taking us way off subject. I only agree with you last statement in reference to the people on the tracks. The fact of the matter is that we, as people, walk into moral dilemmas all the time. Nobody forced the lever operator into this situation, because as you already pointed out, the lever operator can walk away from the situation at any time. They absolutely are not forced to be in that situation, PERIOD. However, to walk away and run from the situation is immoral. It is immoral in the sense that it is the incorrect course of action, objectively. The fact that all would choose to pull the lever does make it moral. See, I can make baseless assertions too. The question has absolutely nothing to do with retributive justice. It is a red herring. We are not talking about what institutional policy should be enacted as a consequence for each respective decision. The question is, what action should the lever operator take. That is the question of morality. Your question is a question of justice. That being said, to answer your question regardless of its irrelevance, there should be no institutionally inflicted upon people for making decisions under stressful circumstances... ever... because when people are under extreme stress, duress, fear, anxiety, etc. they act irrational. This is all people. I don't care how moral, how intelligent, how wise, or how mentally tough you are. Furthermore, inflicting suffering on a person for their past actions fundamentally serves no one. It only serves as a deterrent, and like I said, when under the previously stated conditions, a deterrent is meaningless and rendered completely and utterly ineffective 100% of the time.

Although I don't know for sure whether Stefan would agree with this response, I do think it fits his moral framework as far as I understand it. I will also note that it is my own personal answer to the Troll Problem, so any criticism of my response can be levied directly at me if you feel compelled. Essentially, you are put in a position where you can either choose to watch helplessly as five people are run over by a train and killed, or you can choose to watch helplessly as one person is run over by a train and killed. That is your position. So which do you choose? Since we are denied all information about the quality of persons being executed, this is fundamentally a math problem. Five people dying is worse than one person dying. Because of this, you pull the lever and helplessly observe one person being run over by a train instead of helplessly watching such horrible things happen to five people. That being said, at no point can you consider the lever-puller to be morally responsible for the death of the one person, or through lack of action, the death of five people. Whoever is responsible for placing you, and the victims, in that situation is morally responsible for their fates. I mention this because it could be argued that NAP and UPB would yield a response where you cannot pull the lever, because then you are responsible for the death of one person, whereas by doing nothing, you remove yourself from all responsibility entirely. I disagree with this view; not the argument itself, but the idea that the combination of the NAP and UPB create a complete, tenable, moral framework. The NAP and UPB, as I understand them, make no comment on moral obligation. As a moral agent, I believe you are required, when all knowledge of quality and individual liberty are held constant, i.e. all of the people on the tracks are there against their will and none of them are mass murderers or the most righteous people ever (it's totally unknown), that you are required to make a decision of accounting. To demonstrate this point even further, suppose the train was heading toward five people on a track, and a lever would divert the train to a track that had zero people. Essentially, you could save five people's lives at no cost. According to UPB and the NAP, by letting the train plow into the helpless, innocent people, you have done nothing wrong. I disagree, because I believe there was a more virtuous, a more righteous, action that was open to you, that you refused. Although inaction may not be vial or evil, it isn't the most righteous action, which makes it the incorrect action. I completely disagree with what is written here. You may think that Yagami solved the question, but his answer would be to your own, and his own, detriment if you actually applied his solution to your life. Allow me to demonstrate. Suppose we approached the problem from a Rawlsian original position, behind a veil of ignorance. This will force you to choose principles impartially and rationally. There are 7 agents involved. #1-#5) tied to the left track #6) tied to the right track, and #7) who is positioned at the lever. Now suppose you and 6 other people, selected at random (likely total strangers), are in a room and presented this problem. You are told that each of you will be placed in one of the respective roles, at random, but you must choose what action the lever operator will take now, rather than once the roles are officially confirmed. That means nobody in the room knows what position they will have in this scenario, however they must define what the lever opporator will do prior to acquiring knowledge of their own personal position. In this regard, we are asking what the UNIVERSALLY PREFERABLE BEHAVIOR is of the lever operator. The correct answer for every individual involved in this experiment is to vote that the lever operator should pull the lever. If you think the lever operator shouldn't pull the lever, then your chances of survival, prior to the experiment being executed, is 2 out of 7. However, if you think the lever operator should pull the lever, then your chances of survival, prior to the experiment being executed, increases to 6 out of 7. It is a FACT that the universally preferable behavior, behind a veil of ignorance, is to pull the lever. So at the end of the day, the moral and rational thing to do is to pull the lever, and everybody would agree in a Rawlsian original position. To not pull the lever is an irrational decision based in fear of false accusations of moral blame. Pulling the lever does not make you responsible for the death of anyone.

Although this will not be a popular opinion on this forum. If you were to visit a local church, preferably protestant, you may find some people there that would be willing to help you far beyond any rational expectation. I'm not saying you have to believe in the doctrine. I'm just saying that, pragmatically, there are people who attend churches who willingly seeking for an excuse to help out someone who has experienced the kind of misfortune you have, in a very tangible way. There are people in this world who enjoy helping others that are willing to ask for it, and their payment is the gratification they receive from doing what they believe to be right. I wish you the best.