In his lecturers, Harvard University Professor Michael Sandel provides teaching on ethics and morality in an episode one video arranged in part one and two. In this section, Sandel addresses theories of justice. Correctly, in part one, Sandel analyzed different experimental scenarios regarding moral reasoning to test the side and actions that every student would take. Different students picked a decision depending on personal perspective. Notably, moralities are analyzed based on reasoning, rights, and duties. Also, in the process of choosing right or wrong, utility comes in the light as that which maximizes pleasure to pain is considered worth picking. In the lectures, Sandel outlines various philosophers such as Aristotle, Kant, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and others. The episode one of Sandel’s lecture delves into utilitarianism and moral actions such as consequentialist and categorical moral reasoning.
Summary
To introduce his students to the topic, professor Sandel begins with thought-provoking experiments. In the trolley problem, he gave out an option of diverging the steer to kill one person or keeping track to kill five workers. The poll had a majority preferring to kill a single person while a minority would keep track and kill the other five workers. The second analogy is with use of trolley issue fat man variation. The dilemma here is to either push the fat man who would die but prevent the death of the remaining five workers or ignore the situation and let the five workers die. Considering the poll, the majority would not push the fat man and instead, let the trolley kill the five workers.
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Further, Professor Sandel diverts attention to the healthcare setting. First, he uses a doctor triage problem. In this scenario, six patients are involved in a grisly road accident; one is severely injured while the remaining five have moderate injuries. Dilemma herein is to either save five lives or single life. When polled, the majority of students would save five lives. In last analogy, he uses doctor transplant dilemma. Five patients urgently need an organ, and there is one person in the other room with safe organs. As a surgeon, you approach him for his organs, and he denies it. On the poll, majority students hinted that it is not morally permissible to go on with surgery.
In recap, part one of the episode one elicits two moral theories. First, consequentialist moral reasoning is that which detects ethics in the consequences of doing something. For example, in experiment one, students who voted that it is right to kill one person at the expense of five was morally right-they applied consequentialist moral reasoning. In the same token, the students who saw it wise to save five moderately injured patients in the doctor triage problem at the expense of a single one utilized the same principle. Notably, one primary example of consequentialism is utilitarianism theory-a doctrine accredited to Jeremy Bentham.
Second theory from Professor Sandel’s lecture is the categorical moral reasoning. It identifies ethics in particular duties and rights. Specifically, Emmanuel Kant is one crucial philosopher of this type of theory. In experiment two-trolley issue and fat man variation-the majority saw it wise not to push the fat man as it is morally incorrect. In short, one would not certainly do some things regardless of the consequence. Similarly, experiment four-doctor transplant problem-had the same basis as it is morally wrong to kill one man to save five people.
In the second part of episode 1, same video file, Professor Sandel picked up from the same point from last class and speaks about utilitarianism in details. Accredited to Jeremy Bentham, utilitarian moral theory delves into the right thing to do as that which maximizes utility (Harvard University, 2009). Utility can be defined as the dominance of pleasure to pain, or happiness to grief. Based on utilitarianism, people can decide on what is right to do. In the same token, causes and effects, wrong and right, are affixed to their command as they design the cause of action. In simple terms, people like pleasure over pain, therefore, it is right to act in a manner that maximizes happiness.
To illustrate the utilitarian moral theory, Sandel narrated a true story about the Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens’ litigation case. Dudley and Stephens ultimately were imprisoned for murdering Richard Parker in a bid to survive. The class discussed the morality of killing Parker; some nodded it was wrong, while some based their argument on lack of consent from the boy or lottery. In case consent was present, then this group would have approved the morality of the crew. Notably, others denoted that murder is wrong even if the approval was in place, to mean it is categorically unacceptable.
Reflective Opinion
The manner in which Professor Sandel introduced the topic is exciting and comprehensive. The use of four sets of experiments to lay the foundation on moral theories provides a solid background on categorical and consequentialist moral reasoning. It makes it easy to understand the principles. In the first experiment, it is morally right to act in a manner to save the majority. The consequence of behaving ethically is acceptable and saves many lives. As opposed to categorical moral reasoning, which delves on duty and right, it is not viable to push a fat man to save the majority five people. The flaw of this analogy is that it may all go wrong. Pushing the fat man may not necessarily act to stop the trolley car from hitting the five workers.
In the second part of his lectures, Professor Sandel delves much on utilitarianism. The action of a person herein depends on that thing that maximizes pleasure and reduces suffering. The manner in which Sandel used the Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens’s voyage lawsuit case is proper. Something of noteworthy, this kind of analogy elicited almost equal poll number as far as taking sides was concerned. Even the court finally convicted Dudley and Stephens for murdering Parker. In any sense, the manner of his explanation of the concept of the utilitarian moral theory is thorough and gives logical clarification on ethical reasoning. Significantly, he used examples and experimental tests in class to make people take a side, which was a practical technique for understanding the topic. It makes it easier for the students to understand the concept.
Conclusion
The episode one of Professor Sandel’s lecture has an in-depth introduction to the concepts of moral theories. So far, it delves into categorical and consequentialist moral theories. To make it practical, he used four different experiments named the trolley problem, the trolley issue fat man variation, doctor triage dilemma, and doctor transplant problem. The students took side according to moral reasoning; therefore, classifying each concept as either categorical or consequentialism. In part two, professor delves much on utilitarianism while giving a most thought-provoking true story about Dudley and Stephens voyage problem in which they had to kill parker to survive the hunger menace. In the final analysis, episode one, while acting as an introductory part of the course, dominated moral reasoning theories and utilitarianism theory.
References
Harvard University. (2009). Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "The Moral Side of Murder [Video File].” Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=kBdfcR-8hEY
