Justice - 01 - Moral side of Murder
I have started a repeat of Harvard’s course Justice by Professor Michael J. Sandel. This course is about philosophy and discusses what is good and what is bad, and how these ideas have evolved over time. The course is especially important in today’s world as AI will soon be making decisions about WHO SHOULD LIVE AND WHO SHOULD DIE (being an IT specialist, I am interested in the patterns of falling into the first category, as you may guess ;-)
The first two lessons focus on the moral implications of murder:
- Lecture 1 presents a thought experiment where a trolley car driver must choose between hitting five workers on the tracks or turning the car onto a side track, killing only one worker. The audience votes on what the driver should do and most choose to turn the trolley car onto the side track.
- Lecture 2 covers various moral dilemmas, including trolley cars and organ transplantation. The class discusses consequentialist and categorical arguments and then moves on to utilitarianism, which emphasizes maximizing overall happiness. The famous Queen v. Dudley and Stephens case is used to test the principle of utility, discussing whether consent would make it morally permissible to kill and eat the cabin boy in a survival situation
Links:
Sharing my mind map with all the details as usual:
