Michael Sandel
If you like our blog series on moral dilemmas, you’ll like this video. It’s a bit long but really worth it. Some of the content:
Part 1 – The Moral Side of Murder: If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of five others and (2) doing nothing, even though you knew that five people would die right before your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do? What would be the right thing to do? That’s the hypothetical scenario called the Trolley problem Professor Michael Sandel uses to launch his course on moral reasoning. Sandel also discusses the case of forced organ donation.
Part 2 – The Case for Cannibalism: Sandel introduces the principles of utilitarian philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, with a famous nineteenth century law case involving a shipwrecked crew of four. After nineteen days lost at sea, the captain decides to kill the cabin boy, the weakest amongst them, so they can feed on his blood and body to survive.
This video was fascinating. It’s so cool that videos like this from Harvard are being made available now. The only thing about Murder & Cannibalism that I found upsetting is that I finished with questions still unanswered. But that’s philosophy for you!