The questions on the test discuss harm to bodies, to reputations, and to financial well-being. Thus, we are not discussing mere pain, but an actual, demonstrable lessening of ones quality and condition.
In this context, I think the disciplining of others in order to teach acceptable behavior and values could be disregarded. Rather, it is the case wherein another must be forcibly restrained or even hurt or killed with which we are concerned. Mr Spock's answer, of course, is "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." But does this hold universally true?
Consider: I am driving down the road at highway speeds (70mph or 110kph). A school bus is approaching me from the other direction, in its own lane. Suddenly, a car pulls out from behind the school bus to pass it. We are in a collision situation. I have no path of safety -- the shoulders of the road are heavily wooded. I can choose to strike the smaller vehicle head-on, very seriously endangering myself and the other driver; or I can choose to strike a tree head-on, seriously endangering myself; or I can choose to strike a glancing along the side of the bus, endangering many school children but possibly allowing all three vehicles to glance off of one another and avoid head-on collisions with anything. The needs of the many school-children would seem to dictate a head-on collision with either a tree or another car. But the greatest chance for the safety of all is to actually endanger everybody with the glancing collisions and rely on each driver to regain control of their vehicles in the split seconds before catastrophe strikes. What is the ethical choice? |
