PART I
After reading the Why Does Truth Matter essay, spend a few minutes thinking through the following scenarios:
A. Trolley 1 – You are a switch-person for a trolley company, i.e., you are in control of switching trolleys from one track to another. On your monitor, you see a runaway trolley, with no one on board, heading toward a track with five people standing on Track X (who knows why). You see that you can switch the trolley to Track Y – but this track has a single person standing on it. You do not know any of the people. What should you do? Do nothing and five people will likely be killed or switch tracks and one person will be killed. What factors contributed to your decision?
B. Trolley 2 – This is the same as Trolley 1 Scenario, but you now realize that you know the person on Track Y. Does this affect your decision? Why or why not?
C. Hospital – You are a physician working in the emergency room of a hospital that specializes in transplants. A patient is brought in with minor injuries from a car accident. You realize that he matches the requirements for five patients who need transplants – one heart, one liver, two kidneys, and one bone marrow. [These five patients have little time remaining.] You can save five lives or one life. What do you choose? Explain.
Superficially, Trolley 1 and the Hospital Scenarios are similar in that you have the ability to save one life or five lives. Despite the similarities, there does seem to be very important differences. What are the morally relevant factors that make these cases different?
PART II
There are at least two kinds of relativity:
A. Metaphysical relativity is the position that all knowledge is relative. We distinguish two types here:
- Alice says, “I love cinnamon ice cream, it is good!” Bob says, “I hate cinnamon ice cream, it is bad!” This is innocuous – we all do have different tastes.
- Suppose Alice and Bob are standing on an elevated platform connected to a bungee cord. They are both wearing normal clothing and no jet-pack (or the like). What will happen when they jump? Alice says, “I will fall for the first few seconds.” Bob says, “That may be true for you, but it is not true for me.” Do you think Bob would take off the bungee cord and jump?
B. Moral/ethical relativism is the position that all moral principles are relative to a society. For example, Society A believes that adultery is immoral while Society B believes that it is morally permissible. Alice, from A, and Bob, from B have an adulterous affair. Can you think of some paradoxical moral consequences of the belief in the relativity of adultery? Can you think of one moral issue whose truth you doubt is relative to societies?
PART III
The Barber Paradox: “In a certain village the barber (a man) shaves all those, and only those, men who do not shave themselves.” Does the barber shave himself or does someone else shave him?
PART IV
Relativism maintains that knowledge is easy while skepticism claims that it is so difficult as to be impossible. A thorough-going skeptic believes that knowledge is unattainable. Professor Harris suggested that you can not live a life being skeptical about the existence of God. Is it possible to be such a skeptic and live your everyday life? Why or why not?
PART V
“I have a right to my opinion and you have a right to yours.” Does this say anything about truth? Does it suggest that truth is relative? Does it say, “I don’t care about truth!” What else could it mean?
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