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Originally Posted by jdlongmire 
That the risk of driving the car and supporting the automobile industry is worth the benefits we receive.
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I've never heard that ethical theory. Why does that make this moral?
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You are making the hypothetical - make up a number and we can determine the risk v reward. Objective metrics help make the case.
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With you I was specifically talking about cars, a non-hypothetical. I used the hypothetical to draw out some initial responses.
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Sure - and your entire economy goes down the drain - you also potentially begin to starve the populace. Think about the quantity of ground transport of goods every day...they don't grow the groceries at the store...  |
Yeah, sometimes it's a tough road to toe to do the moral thing. What if an economy was built on raping and pillaging other countries. A moral refomer comes along and tells them to stop. They think the benefits worth the risk. But besides that, they tell the reformer, "Yeah, sure, and have our entire economy go down the drain." You're not giving a moral justification.
And, perhaps we can grow our own food. Sure, it'll be hard. But then, 75,000 lives will be saved. Maybe they'll have to go without brand new Nikes because our economy went down the drain, but hey, they'd be alive.
Or, say that we could go back in time. Knowing what we know now, why not lobby against gthe automobile? At that time the economy wasn't bad, and people didn't know about having a Supermarket so they'd not miss much. And, we could still build them, just drive back with horse and wagon?
Have all the alternatives been looked at? Or are we complacent? Do we not want the "inconvenience" of thinking through the issue?
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nope - you begin to invoke the law of diminishing returns - now if you could make it as safe to drive 300 as you can 65...then the metric is zero net.
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Maybe more lives would be saved. So say we save 10 people driving 65 while we lose 8. Driving 300 might make us loose 13 but we'd save 15. Have you done the math in order to charge me with violation of diminishing returns? And, how do you judge what was diminished in the 75,000 deaths vs. what we got by getting to go to the store &c.?
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not a bad idea - can you imagine the level of effort and cost to do that? again - balance the effort by the return - goes back to how valuable an individual life is...
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Cost vs. human lives? Are you putting a price on the 75,000? Seems like you keep appealing to more convenience to back up your desire to have convenience.
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Aren't we really saying that our convenience is more important that human lives? Get enough people to agree, and live with the side effects. Is this like the social contract theory of ethics?
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Basically what happens today...
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Why does the Christian morality say that The Social Contract theory is justified? Where does The Christian morality say that our convenience is more important that lives?