Friday, November 15, 2013
Continuation of today's class discussion...
We were discussing the effects of cost-benefit analysis applied to issues of morality. Our basis for discussion stems from Jeremy Bentham's principle of utilitarianism. Two issues discussed were from Professor Sandel's lecture - 1. dollar value on human life with the Ford Pinto and 2. Throwing Christians to the Lions in the coliseum.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
As I stated in class I totally agree with the utilitarian idea that, the needs of the many supersede the needs of the one. Regardless of the opinions of the minority the majority will always be the deciding force. Now for the second scenario I will only disagree because the truly senseless act of killing ONE person, is not justified by entertaining thousands of others. Going back to the placing of a dollar value on a human life I would like to say that the way Ford did this was to show a projection, a STATISTIC! There was no intent to actually value any individuals life. Though this is not how they meant this putting a price on an individual is also perfectly understandable. Those people in society that perform more important jobs than others are more important to society. Therefore in the event you had to remove one of these two citizens the logical decision would be to remove the less needed person over the more important and essential individual. This would in turn benefit the MAJORITY of society, which is what should always be the most important deciding factor. I would be extremely interested in hearing a logically sound way for both the minority and the majority to be treated equally in such dire situations as we have been discussing.
ReplyDeleteMilan Toljan
Okay first of all, placing a dollar value on a human life, even the statistic that it is, is horrible. Yes okay, so Ford is just going to continue production of a car, knowing that it obviously has some major issues and they're essentially estimating the numbers of deaths and injuries they have caused. In a way, they're also lying to the consumer. A car that is supposedly "built Ford tough" that can't endure a rear-ending without exploding probably isn't that durable of a car. Secondly, one person's life is no more valuable than another's. Who is to determine one person's role in society to be more important, therefore the other should simply be brought down? Shall we go around euthanizing everyone in society that is unable to work or isn't seen "important" enough in the eyes of the majority? If that is the case, then our society is a mechanical tyranny filled with immorality.
ReplyDeleteMaggie Rodrigue
I agree with Maggie. There is no way to accurately measure the price of the human life. In the Ford Pinto case they priced one death at 200,000 dollars. Although this may cover the cost of the hospital bills, funeral bills, and any other cost, no amount of money can repair the mental damage done to the family. The 200,000 dollars will eventually run out, but the sadness will not. They will have to carry that with them for the rest of their life. No amount of money can bring back their loved one, or give you more time with them. Therefore, even though one person may be dying the whole family, and friends are suffering, that is worth much more than 200,000 dollars. Ford was rightfully sued for knowingly putting families threw that experience. No family should have to suffer the loss of a family member, especially from something that could have been so simply avoided.
ReplyDelete-Lauren Chapski