For this discussion, I will be imagining myself in a moral dilemma shown in “The Dark Knight”. Two boats, full of civilians and prisoners, respectively, are rigged with explosives (Youtube, 2010). The passengers have the choice of blowing the other boat up to save themselves. If I were a passenger on a boat full of innocent civilians, there are a number of things I would find necessary to do. First, assessing the state of the crowd is necessary in order to calm the people down and have an organized discussion. Then, I think I must work on ascertaining my own safety and try using my mobile phone to call someone in the city. Lastly, I would start considering my own perspective on the situation and the morality of exploding other people for survival.
I think that if a person blew up the boat with prisoners, it could tell different things about their character. They might be susceptible to panic or have clouded judgment regarding the consequences of their actions. From another perspective, one could say that their desire to live and the need for personal gain is stronger than empathy towards others. In such a case, the person could also probably be described as having an especially black-and-white system of morals, prone to mischaracterizing others or looking down on those that are seen as “in the wrong”. If the decision to push the button was made through calculated effort on that individual’s part, they can also be seen as an emotionally strong person since most people would find it hard to kill others. In regards to pushing the button and morality, it is hard to find the answer for sure. Morality as a concept is influenced by culture and worldviews, and understanding it as a monolith is practically impossible. However, many moral frameworks consider taking another’s life to be a wrong act, one that should be avoided at all costs. In this case, the action of pressing the button cannot be considered self-defense, as the prisoners on the other boat are in no way responsible for what is happening (Dowling, 1998). Therefore, there is also no way to apply the standards of morally justified self-defense to the boat scenario.
References
Dowling, K. (1998). A moral justification for killing in self-defense. South African Journal of Philosophy, 17(3), 262-274. Web.
Youtube. (2010). Joker’s Social Experiment [Video]. YouTube. Web.