Would be good if the different diagrams she talks about were on the screen for the video.

I need to listen to this all again. Just one question: say we changed the comparison from a trolley situation compared with a medical situation to cavemen, boulders, and a mountain situation compared with a medical situation. What changes, if anything, if we perform that little switcheroo?

@JagadguruSvamiVegananda

19 күн бұрын

MORAL DILEMMAS: Moral dilemmas are thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas, such as whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number of persons (as in the case of the so-called “trolley problem”) or whether to save one particular human over another human (as in the case of a burning house, or a similar scenario). Therefore, moral dilemmas pertain chiefly to the field of NORMATIVE ethics. As repeatedly asserted in this chapter, every action committed by a human or animal with moral agency, is OBJECTIVELY either moral, amoral, or immoral, when viewed from an absolutely impartial, “God’s Eye” standpoint. Unfortunately, because there is no such Ultimate Authority in regard to applied ethics, the most moral solutions in the opinion of the current World Teacher, Jagadguru Svāmī Vegānanda, are as follows: In the former case, if one was to divert a trolley in the direction of a single person, in order to save numerous others from harm, it may be morally-acceptable, though it is not ideal, because one is making the deliberate decision to condemn an innocent to death. One ought to be accountable for one’s own actions and NOT for the actions of a third party. The fact that the trolley may have killed the handful of persons on the railway track, is not the fault of the actor, but of some unknown third party (probably an employee of the railway line in question, or else a technical issue of some kind). However, since normative judgements are necessarily dependent on the specific case at hand, there would usually be a large range of extrinsic factors involved in the judgement made. For example, if the single person in the trolley dilemma was a close relation of the actor in question, it would be fully understandable for the actor to NOT divert the trolley in the direction of the loved-one. In the latter case, let us assume there are four persons trapped in a burning house: a mother, her thirteen-year-old son, her five-year-old daughter, and her baby son. The rule in this case (and similar moral dilemmas involving several individuals) is that the most senior person in the hierarchy of society is the most morally-valuable. To make this point exceedingly clear to even the most morally-depraved persons, if one had to choose between saving the life of an Avatāra (such as Lords Jesus Christ or Gautama Buddha) over the life of a common shoemaker or a butcher, one should choose to save the life of the Divine Incarnation, since human society cannot perdure without an authentic spiritual guide in place, whilst almost anybody can learn how to make and mend shoes, and even without shoes, one can live a worthwhile life. And of course, in the case of a butcher, he is a full-time criminal! So, in the aforementioned scenario, the adult male (the thirteen-year-old son) should be rescued first, the mother second, the five-year-old girl third, and the baby boy last. After all, the mother can always give birth to more children, yet the baby cannot adequately survive without his parents. The intuition of many (if not MOST) persons would be to first save the baby, but this hunch is misguided purely (or at least, mainly) by emotional forces, rather than by rational deduction, established upon dharma (the law). This explains the reason why, in the case of an emergency, flight attendants (otherwise known as airline cabin crew) instruct their adult passengers to first fasten their own oxygen masks to their faces, before attempting to assist others, particularly their own children. Similarly, just as there is a definite hierarchy in human society, there is an unambiguous hierarchy of non-human species (and it could apply to the plant kingdom as well - a redwood tree is more important than a blade of grass). Refer to the Glossary entry “speciesism”, in this regard. An extreme example of a moral dilemma would be the scenario where a despotic megalomaniac (most likely, the leader of a communist or a socialist country) threatens to murder a billion humans unless you kill a woman of his choosing (let us call her “Ruby”). If you were to kill Ruby in order to spare the lives of a billion persons, I would not too harshly judge you for that action. However, personally, I do not believe that I would make the same decision, because firstly, there is no guarantee that the potential mass-murderer will adhere to his threat, and secondly, whatever action he performs is entirely of his own culpability, NOT mine. One cannot be guilty of murder if one does not murder, obviously. The following scenario is rarely (if ever) discussed in relation to the topic of moral dilemmas, though it seems to be one: Due to various factors, particularly to unfortunate childhood trauma, some persons enjoy being physically beaten, whipped, bonded, or clamped (that is, various mechanical devices being clamped to the erogenous zones of the body). It seems reasonable to assert that when a second person administers physical pain to the subject in question, that it would not count as an immoral act, as it is completely consensual. However, what if permanent injury ensues? Would it then be considered immoral? What if someone was so mentally-deranged, that he or she requested to be KILLED? Would it then be an evil deed? As with any human deed, each unique case ought to be judged according to the merits of the case. Obviously, a request to be killed should never be complied with, except, possibly in instances of euthanasia, and of course, only after careful consultation with the wisest authorities available (normally, a priest, especially if he is a genuine prophet or the World Teacher). In summary, the solution to COMPLEX moral dilemmas, such as those above, according to metaethics and dharma, chiefly hinges on two rules: Firstly, in the case of trolley problems, especially elaborate scenarios that university professors enjoy contriving, there is a huge disparity between diverting a train that is destined to run-over a person(s), and deliberately killing a person(s) who would otherwise not be harmed. Secondly, in the case of “burning-building” and similar dilemmas, the individuals ought to be saved according to societal superiority, as noted. Those ignorant, deluded, foolish egalitarians who claim that every human life is of equal moral worth, invariably approve of the murder of poor, innocent, defenceless, unborn human beings, yet would rarely agree that their own lives are of similar value to that of a mass murderer. Such is the mentality of the typical duplicitous, hypocritical leftist (“adharma vādin”, in Sanskrit). Equality is non-existent in this macro sphere.

The trolly prroblem as moral conundrum? Does this not serve as an excuse--as Jesus's sacrifice (all but burned in the mind) impairs even a hint of moving towards meaningful risk? Yes? No? Perhaps?

@JagadguruSvamiVegananda

19 күн бұрын

It's amazing that the administrator of this channel has banned my other KZread account, yet has permitted YOUR inane drivel to appear in the comment section. 😬

@user-lr2ib1cv4d

19 күн бұрын

@@JagadguruSvamiVegananda Actually, that drivel is typically shadow banned by duplicitous manipulators that twist everything, so my unimportant drivil that's said to be allowed by you has a dubious viewership.