Have a Moral Dilemma? Start with Your Gut Reaction, but Don’t Stop There | Glenn Cohen | Big Think

Have a Moral Dilemma? Start with Your Gut Reaction, but Don’t Stop There

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Making ethical decisions is a process that starts in our gut, i.e with our automatic response. But it is essential to also think about moral dilemmas, says Harvard Law Professor Glenn Cohen.Helping someone in desperate need is an ethical choice, yet it is a choice we would all make without hesitating, i.e. thinking a single thought. The reason, according to Harvard Law Professor Glenn Cohen, is that ethical choices start in the gut. Our intuition, programmed my millions of years of evolution, instructs us what to do without needing rational deliberation. But at times, especially when making an ethical decision implies a sacrifice on our behalf, rational deliberation is necessary, and likely inescapable.

Because humans have given extensive thought to hypothetical and real-world ethical dilemmas, entire schools of ethical thought have developed. Perhaps the most well known of these schools are consequentialism and deontology, and within these, utilitarianism and Kantianism, respectively.

Glenn Cohen's book is Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics.
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PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL:

Prof. Glenn Cohen is one of the world's leading experts on the intersection of bioethics (sometimes also called "medical ethics") and the law, as well as health law. He also teaches civil procedure. From Seoul to Krakow to Vancouver, Professor Cohen has spoken at legal, medical, and industry conferences around the world and his work has appeared in or been covered on PBS, NPR, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Mother Jones, the New York Times, the New Republic, the Boston Globe, and several other media venues.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Glenn Cohen: When thinking about an ethical problem first of all you should start always with your gut intuition. What's my intuition about this case? You never stop there. You have to keep pushing yourself to say why do I think this. First thing to do I think is to think about cases that are somewhat similar and somewhat different. Sometimes it's varying one fact. So a great example from this classic one in philosophy is the trolley problem. There's a trolley coming at – you're the conductor of a trolley; it's coming at a branch in the road; you're heading towards five people but if you flip of the switch you can redirect it so that it kills only one person. What should you do is the problem.
Well, when you start with that case we then begin with variations: what if it's three people versus one person? What if in fact there are three tracks and not two and one of them would lead to your own death for example? What if in fact instead of having to just flip the switch you'd have to push a fat man off a bridge in the way of the trolley? So these are all variations in the case and you begin by thinking does my answer change by that variation? Why would my answer change in that variation? Can I derive a principle from this? So there are principles like action versus inaction. The greater versus the fewer. The question of how at proximity I am. Did I cause the problem to begin with or am I just coming on the scene at a time when I can help, for example? So you push yourself to derive principles. You then test those principles out in new cases that are alike and unalike again. That's one way of approaching the problem.

The other is a much more top or down way, which is to start thinking about big schools of thinking in ethics. And really the big schools are on the one hand consequentialism, of which utilitarianism is probably the most common, which says that which maximizes good is the right thing to do. So do that, which maximizes good and we aggregate across people. We think of individual as containers of utility in the classic utilitarianism. The second big school is deontology, would of which the most famous version is probably Kantianism. And here there is an idea that even if something would maximize good states and affairs would produce the most welfare, we sometimes have obligations to do something different. We have constraints in what we can do. And for Kant it was a question of whether the maxim behind your action could result in a universal law of nature. That was his test or one of his tests under the categorical imperative. So Kantians think about things like rights, they think about things like dignity and they think about it in a way that freestanding from welfare and utility.

[joshuadc]

That's the most objective introduction to ethics I've ever heard given the time of the monolog.

[unabortedshitwizard]

Glad we're discussing science and not politics on this channel

[thomassutherland]

Virtue is blinded by perspective. What is not of love is abuse. One of my guideposts. I write philosophy so I also developed morality through my own thinking.

[TheTarutau]

ya i dont do duality either. i go with virtue. duality is just so limiting. its taking real life situations and making them black and white when they should be the full spectrum of the rainbow. also it can be hijacked easily by special interests(ie religion, idealogy) on that note as far as real life dilemmas are concerned im of the opinion thats its better to have a very diverse group deal with such issues as opposed to a small non diverse group. that means diverse culturally, ethnically, etc. doing the best we can with what we have is impeccable. regardless of what future generations improve upon there is nothing we could have done better since we did the best we could with the information we have available.
since most of our actions can be considered reflex its easy to see why talking about ethics might not make one more ethical. sure it can give new information but virtue is acted upon and cultivated over time. its a habit that must be built over time. it will grow upon itself. just knowing something does not mean a person is changed by what they know. actually try to cultivate virtue though and it wont be long before it can be said that one has become virtuous. between the thought and the act lies a world of difference. its the same when someone calls out another on a lie most people will reflexively defend their lie to the detriment of their character. to act against that instinctive defense would require the cultivation of a habit that then interrupts the reflex of self defense. the more one acts against that instinct the easier it becomes the next time around. until eventually one utilizes lies less often by nature. now thats the utility of a habit.

[jacqueline]

How many times has "The Trolly Problem" been brought up on this channel?

[WhMe]

You go for the most casualties. Change only seems to happen after a major tragedy and not before to prevent. By more people getting injured you stand a better chance at change to happen to help prevent this damn trolley incident happen again.

[TheGamblermusic]

this is interesting and well explained

[beegum]

we act like where we're going is very obscure or something, but nominally it seems to swing back to near a previously established traditional point, one which is straw manned in the media and upon which deep discussions in large settings are normally not covered, ignored, or censored.

Every loophole has a lobby.

[puskajussi]

When humanity gets to the point where mathematics enter the equation, when you can straight up calculate the moral consiquenses of a situation, things ought to get intresting.
I don't fear or wish for that day particularily but assuming we don't blow ourselves up it is inevitable, if for no other reason becouse we need a way to explain these things to computers.

[cullidge]

This guy should sit on the Supreme Court

[JuliusUnique]

would change the word "ethical" to "rational empathic" in your speak

[rhaikh]

This clear discussion is fine and all, but I could really use more of Jim Gaffigan's unrehearsed rambling instead

[ShortlockHolmes]

Am I the only one who thinks he's dressed like Phoenix Wright.

[TarkusT]

I always find the attempt of the law professors to lecture the world about 'ethics' rather amusing since these are the same people that stand by the premise that 'their paradigm' must always be considered as paramount so if someone is found guilty by the system that it matters not whether there is justice but rather that the law was effectively provided. Against such a backdrop how can we consider the discussion of ethics by those of the law as anything more than a variant of apologetics proffered by those that salute "Lady Justice' on their way into the courthouse only to ignore the actual application in favour of their vocation as if it somehow has more validity than those who observe it.

If you want to watch this diametric in action go to a court session where a doctor is confronted by a lawyer as to who has the best interests of 'humanity'. The plume of self arrogance in absolute righteousness wafts brightly as you come to realize that you are witnessing the analogical battle of two unwed mothers each claiming the infant truth as their own all the while totally without concern that King Solomon ever approaches since all that matters is their side being proclaimed victorious.

The reality of this application lies in the weeds. You either understand that ethics are always present and as such 'justice' must supersede the 'law' or you are a fraud.

[ZakeBudek]

You cut the brakes and tied people to the tracks, sicko, don't question my morality.

[meandmymouth]

Crap ! The digital revolution and cell division biology teach us that the universe always resolves itself into one of the possible stable states either positive or negative, either male or female, either right or wrong, either left or right. The in between states are unstable by definition and embrace the unstable and the chaotic.