That the risk of driving the car and supporting the automobile industry is worth the benefits we receive.

You are making the hypothetical - make up a number and we can determine the risk v reward. Objective metrics help make the case.

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...


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.

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...

I dunno - I helped get the communication network up after Katrina - never thought about what that measured in terms of lives saved. I've also helped at the scene of several auto accidents...

To some degree - but you and I, as Christians, would drive the risk v reward metric based on our morality vs. the atheist that could only appeal to the statistics.

Basically what happens today...

__________________
-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

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*Some* deaths occur due to "just using" the machine itself, as well as the weather, and other factors

But, yes, the vast majority would be due to the "human factor."

__________________
Regards,

J.J.
PCA
Suffix

I'm in the middle of a class right now otherwise I'd love to jump in some more. But I think trying to analyze by analogizing to vaccines, Katrina, etc, is misplaced. Those fall into the category of either emergency or protection of life--same reason war can be justified. Not so for convenience. If you introduce emergency analysis into ethics as a general rule, it usually messes things up.

It boils down to convenience of the many trumps the life rights of the few--which is exactly the argument used by many in support of abortion.

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Not intimate with ethical theory - I'd say mine are Biblical ethics.

Is death intrinsically evil?

So where do you draw the line? How many 5 year olds benefit from being able to go to school in a bus?

Again - I first went with my "gut" - my default moral position is: preventable death is preferable to convenience - however, once I began to rationalize potential scenarios and began to quantify the hypothetical rewards associated with the "convenience", I began to realize that the risk-reward metric may be more complex than my knee-jerk reaction. It's all about context.

Depending upon the risk-reward situation - morality would be the default position - if the moral risk-reward is null or not applicable, then the determining factor could be several - return on investment, customer satisfaction, etc...

at the risk of being perceived as repetitive...It's all about context.

I've never heard that ethical theory. Why does that make this moral?

With you I was specifically talking about cars, a non-hypothetical. I used the hypothetical to draw out some initial responses.

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?

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.?

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.




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?

I know, but that was your question.

__________________
^Brian Lanier^
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Santa Maria, CA
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http://www.lanier-perspective.blogspot.com

Yah - I think where the analogy breaks here is that the "convenience machine" as Tom has defined it has much more potential benefit factors than just "convenience". We all know that the convenience factor of abortion is HIGH, while the benefit factor is LOW, thus driving a moral decision that the risk is much greater than the reward.

It was, but the context of this thread brought out that there was much more to it than that

I went ahead and voted "no", even knowing all the discussion gone on.

Why?
1) Honesty. I'm inherently conservative, and would likely be one of those who (having advance knowledge of a whopping hazard) would voluntarily avoid it as too risky. This would mean I also understood the word "vote" as a "personal choice" to involve myself or not in the risky behavior. But also, adding information (such as showing actual likelihood of 1 injury per X usages) would affect my perception of the risk, and lower my resistance to personal involvement.

2) The voting thing. The way the question was first framed, I'd have thought I was imposing an unwanted risk on those 75,000 people. However, if we find that the 75,000 are only a fraction of 7,500,000 voluntary participants, then "voting" on voluntary association still seems flawed to me. But if it is simply the affirmation of preexisting property rights, then I would change and vote "yes".

So, at heart, I do not place the "absolute value" of life ahead of "convenience", because the two are not predicable on a linear scale. The relationships between the concepts are multidimensional, and are subject to wild skewing of the data apart from other necessary concepts such as "liberty" and "property"

Okay... never read which chapter this was addressed in.



That's my belief.

How many familes benefit economically from their dead Grandmother's will. They could do so much good. Give millions to charity, but, alas, she's a tough old crone, and she's gonna hang on, in a delirious state, for the next 15 years.

And, you're not looking at all the altneratives. Why not home shcool? How many children are spiritually and mentally messed up from the education received in the American public school system?

The question isn't as easy as you're trying to make it.


I've only heard "just so" stories from you and vague appeals to "doing the math" but no hard data. Still seems like you're going with your gut - "It just can't be wrong to drive cars!"

Sounds Utilitarian. A main problem is when doing the math. No one has been able to compute or measure "risk-reward" or "pleasure-pain" scenarios. Do you have a device that does that? Show your work

the harm 75,000 human lives receive

vs.

the economic et al benefits millions receive

= ?

I think you are asking - "How does that make this morally acceptable?"

Honestly, what you are asking - if you are asking for a quantification - would take a significant effort to build a comprehensive decision matrix. What I am saying is that you and I - as Christians - have made the determination that driving an automobile is morally acceptable - that the benefits derived are greater to some factor than the morally objectionable factors.
Sure I am - "they" reject the moral implication, I don't - raping and pillaging are not morally acceptable.

Again, is death inherently evil?

so...now we are moving into the realm of alternate history? are you trying to collaborate on some historical fiction? (BTW - I reject the many world hypothesis and time travel.)

more than likely not, but there is the risk of "analysis paralysis" - that is a decision driver, too.

Probably, in some instances.

Again, probably, in some instances - you are speaking in sweeping generalities.

Again - you make sweeping generalities for a hypothetical situation. Quantify the factors some more and we can discuss the law of diminishing returns. We both know that at some point the objective only helps quantify while morality helps qualify.

So - are you saying no convenience, without exception, is worth even 1 human life? I'd agree if there is no other derivative than convenience as the determining factor.

For example - if it could be conclusively proven that lip balm would cause the death of one human being, I'd vote NAY, based on my moral understanding of benefit vs cost.



define convenience.

?

ethics = the study of values - good and bad, right and wrong

Am I misunderstanding? I'd say the Bible from front to back is an ethics guide.

Not mine - don't suppose you'd like to back that up with some Scripture? Seeking to understand...

...and our default moral guidance, as Christians, is "NAY". Who are we to judge the length of life or activities that "could be"?

And how many have come out just fine? How else will our children understand how to be "in the world, but not of the world" and "lights in the darkness"?

Not trying to make it easy - just dealing with the implications.

?? I think you are over-simplifying my position. I am proposing that today we both have made a tacit moral decision (and Tom , I am assuming you do travel by automobile in some capacity) to support the automobile industry - we vote with our feet, if you will.

If you are suggesting that there is some overwhelming moral rationale we have not considered, I am willing to work it out with you, but I am also saying that the risk-reward matrix will be VERY complex, since we are not just discussing convenience, but true benefit, as well.

hypothetically?

75k dead because of the technology vs 150k saved because of timely travel = net 75k benefit - a no brainer

I guess I wasn't thinking in terms of the voting thing but realized that there was some component here that was kind of tricking the mind into first considering against the idea until it weighted all the other factors.

I also wouldn't have phrased the idea simply by calling it a "convenience machine". If the only thing that the machine does is add convenience to an otherwise lazy person's day then any loss of life simply for the sake of convenience is illegitimate.

I started musing on this because I didn't want to get all fuzzy and indeterminate because I know Paul likes to ask a billion questions. I will say that ethics is a matter of prudence or wisdom and that it doesn't always have a quantitative measure.

What I immediately thought of, however, is the Law regarding Oxes and how you've got to destroy your ox if he gores another ox or gores another person and all the liabilities that the Law brings. Thus, from the general equity of the Law, we know that Oxes are not forbidden. It's not as if God is unaware of the dangers of using a large beast on the farm but he doesn't mollycoddle farmers and tell them they're just going to have to do it all by hand because Oxes sometimes kill people.

Oxes, then, aren't just a "convenience device" but they enhance productivity. If someone was only to approach the use of oxes in farming from the danger aspect then you would only focus on the number of children gored by oxes every year and ask the community to vote on whether or not it was worth allowing farmers to use oxes in farming anymore because the cost in human lives is too high. The question about zoning and what you allow in your community is a legitimate use of the vote or the power of the magistrate after all.

Of course, the magistrate would lack wisdom if he only approached the issue like the Sierra Club and saw every machine or animal used for productivity for the harm that it causes unintentionally at times. In fact, that's why the question immediately raises hackles in the poll because it presents the issue the way someone at PETA would like: "Would you torture an animal just for the convenience of a man...." When you peel back the layer a little you find they're talking about animal testing for new drugs to help in medicinal advances.

I guess I'm sensitive to these statistical discussions because my undergrad was in Nuclear Engineering and I've never been more shocked by the blind irrationalism of people when it comes to a technology. One could ask the question: Is it worth killing people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki just so we can power a lightbulb?

Of course that question would be a twisted way of discussing Nuclear Fission and whether or not it has any other uses. There is always going to be an unethical use of something like fissionable material but some people live in abject fear of Nuclear Energy and think that reactors are just like bombs and could devestate an entire community if somebody just slips up a little bit. They also think that any radiation is a bad thing.

One of my professors was lecturing to some New York state representatives about radiation one time. Before the presentation, he had purchased some ceramic plates that were very commonly sold on shelves. Most people don't know that the earth has a natural "background radiation" to it but marble and ceramic are typically more radioactive. Harmlessly so but don't tell that to an irrationally frightened person.

Anyhow, he first held up a vile with black "marble like" glass in it explaining that he was holding some sand that had been glassified by a Nuclear Weapons test a number of years ago. He placed a geiger counter next to it and it started clicking and the needle rose to the quarter mark based on the sensitivity set. Harmless but oh so scary to them. He asked if any would like to hold the bottle. They recoiled in horror. Let the weirdo hold that stuff right?

He then picked up one of the plates that a female State representative (a Democrat) had been eating from and held the geiger counter next to it. The counter went crazy and it pegged the needle. Still harmless but try telling that to the politicians in the room. One of them left the room to go throw up.

The point is that these kinds of questions can never be asked in a way that is not colored by someone's perceptions either rational or irrational. It's also not unrealistic to assume that the issue will be brought to a vote. If there is going to be a nuclear power plant built in a neighborhood you can be certain that a vote is going to be held no matter how "socialist" that sounds. The bottom line is that everyone uses electricity and some kind of plant is going to need to be built.

The interesting thing about human beings though is that they'd rather have a coal burning plant with mounds of coal that are eminating tons of Carbon 14 radiation naturally (and harmlessly) but you're always going to get the abject fear of a Nuclear Power plant that radiates virtually none.

From the standpoint of benefit to the environment, safety, and sustainability, the Nuclear Power plant would win out as the choice every single time but people prefer the things they know and want to die by their own hand rather than a mysterious technology. Because of this, they force power plants to do risk calculations to figure out the likelihood that 100,000 people would be killed by their plant. When the calculations are completed, the risk is akin to being killed by a meteor falling to the earth and hitting you but people say: "See, this thing can kill 100,000 people" because such risk calculations are never performed on the other things we use in daily life.

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Rich
Okinawa, Japan

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