Now for me this is the same problem with the trolly example or any issue of justice. We simply cannot predict the future, in fact i think most people would agree that many things happen when we least expect them. But back to the trolly. If we do not flip the switch to save the five people for the one person, how is it that we don't know that if we had flipped the switch, it would not in fact derail the train and save everyone on the tracks, (also without injuring anyone on the trolly).The answer as Dr.J pointed out, is that we are constantly attempting predicting the future. Otherwise we would be paralyzed.
Now, I think, at lest for my own part, that when i predict the future it is many times involuntary, EX: i reach for a glass because i think it will still exist when my fingers touch it. But, this brings a question of how far into the "future" is considered the future. Surely everyone would agree that tomorrow is the future. But what about a mintiue from now? I think most people would agree on that as well, but what about 30 seconds? what about 15? 10? 5? 1/2? Surely now you see my point. What is the "future" and in a way is acting in the present simultaneously an act of predicting the future? I think that while if we were to try to live by this statement everyone would agree that we would wind up as Dr.J says "paralyzed in action". But i still think it is an interesting point to address and ponder. So the question is : If we act at all, are we not predicting the future and if yes, and our actions turn out to be correct, are we not disproving Kant's theory of not making judgements based on future predictions.
Of we course we attempt to "predict the future" in most everything we do. In class we talked about "consequentialism" in the context of Bentham's hedonic calculus: we try to anticipate consequences and make choices based on them.
ReplyDeleteKant says the rightness or wrongness of an action is judged on the basis of rational principle; we are able to anticipate consequences based on their perceived rationality. If you reach for a glass, it would be highly irrational to anticipate that it will not be there in the .08 seconds it took for your hand to travel the distance. You are acting in accordance with Kant's beliefs, not disproving him.
I Like your point with the glass. Hume talks a lot about this in another of his books (I'll post the book and passage when I find it), questioning causal necessity, or the belief that causes necessarily produce an effect. Hume argues that we can't be sure whether a cause actually produces an effect, or whether they are just two things occurring completely independently of one another that we just assume to be connected due to our observation that one follows the other. Because we can not fully know that a cause is necessarily linked to the effect that follows it, we end up just believing that certain causes produce certain affects, based on the frequency that a cause is followed by a particular effect. For the glass example, Hume might argue that the anticipation of touching the glass when we reach for it is something we expect to happen, but not necessarily what will happen. For example, unknown to every person, it could be the case that all glasses will turn into ducks on a certain day. Even though the glass turning into a duck would seem very irrational to us when it happens, the point might be that we don't have a good enough grasp on how the universe works, and cannot prove causal necessity, to be sure that we think is rational expectation actually is that way. Another case is that we can't be sure that in the next minute the glass could just simply disappear. We would also call this irrational and strange, but Hume would say this is an effect of believing in the necessary following of cause and effect without fully knowing whether this is so.
ReplyDeleteAs Lindsay said, we attempt to predict the future all the time. We make decisions based on the possible outcomes, and expect for certain things to happen, just like that glass being there when you reach for it. We all know that we can't accurately predict the future, but we can make assumptions that may or may not turn out to be true. However, this is not by any means disproving Kant's theory on consequences. Kant says that we cannot identify a sense of morality with our actions based on the potential consequences. We cannot say that it is "right" to flip the switch and save 5 because we can't possibly know that all 5 will die in a car accident on the way home. That's what Kant is getting to when he discusses consequences. Making a decision that turns out to be correct in the future happens by chance, and Kant would still argue that "rightness/wrongess" can't be labeled because at that moment you made the decision, there was no certainty about the outcome.
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