0:00:13 > 0:00:19'My name is Michael Sandel and I teach Political Philosophy at Harvard University.'
0:00:26 > 0:00:32The lecture you're about to see is the first one I give in a course called Justice.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35I begin by posing some moral dilemmas about murder
0:00:35 > 0:00:42and I ask the students a question - is killing sometimes the right thing to do?
0:00:51 > 0:00:53APPLAUSE
0:00:55 > 0:00:59This is a course about justice and we begin with a story.
0:00:59 > 0:01:07Suppose you're the driver of a trolley car and it's hurtling down the track at 60 miles an hour.
0:01:07 > 0:01:12At the end of the track, you notice five workers working on the track.
0:01:12 > 0:01:16You try to stop, but you can't. Your brakes don't work.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21You feel desperate because you know that if you crash into these workers
0:01:21 > 0:01:26they will all die. Let's assume you know that for sure.
0:01:26 > 0:01:28And so you feel helpless
0:01:28 > 0:01:32until you notice that there is, off to the right,
0:01:32 > 0:01:37a side track. And at the end of that track
0:01:37 > 0:01:41there is one worker working on the track.
0:01:41 > 0:01:43Your steering wheel works.
0:01:43 > 0:01:50So you can turn the trolley car, if you want to, onto the side track.
0:01:50 > 0:01:54killing the one, but sparing the five.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57Here's our first question.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00What's the right thing to do?
0:02:00 > 0:02:02What would you do?
0:02:02 > 0:02:04Let's take a poll.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10How many would turn the trolley car onto the side track?
0:02:10 > 0:02:12Raise your hands.
0:02:14 > 0:02:18How many wouldn't? How many would go straight ahead?
0:02:20 > 0:02:24Keep your hands up, those of you who would go straight ahead.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30A handful of people would. The vast majority would turn.
0:02:30 > 0:02:37Now we need to begin to investigate the reasons why you think it's the right thing to do.
0:02:37 > 0:02:44Let's begin with those in the majority. Who would turn to go onto the side track?
0:02:44 > 0:02:51Why would you do it? What would be your reason? Who is willing to volunteer a reason?
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Go ahead. Stand up.
0:02:54 > 0:03:00Because it can't be right to kill five people when you can only kill one person instead.
0:03:02 > 0:03:07It wouldn't be right to kill five if you could kill one person instead.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13That's a good reason. That's a good reason.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19Who else? Does everybody agree with that reason?
0:03:21 > 0:03:23Go ahead.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26It was the same reason on 9/11.
0:03:26 > 0:03:32We regard the people who flew the plane into the Pennsylvania field as heroes
0:03:32 > 0:03:38because they chose to kill the people on the plane and not kill more people in big buildings.
0:03:38 > 0:03:44So the principle there was the same on 9/11. A tragic circumstance,
0:03:44 > 0:03:50but better to kill one so that five can live? Is that the reason most of you had, those who would turn?
0:03:50 > 0:03:52Yes?
0:03:52 > 0:03:54Let's hear now
0:03:54 > 0:04:00from those in the minority, those who wouldn't turn.
0:04:01 > 0:04:02Yes.
0:04:02 > 0:04:08Well, I think that's the same mentality that justifies genocide and totalitarianism.
0:04:08 > 0:04:12In order to save one type of race, you wipe out the other.
0:04:12 > 0:04:19So what would you do in this case? You would, to avoid the horrors of genocide,
0:04:19 > 0:04:23you would crash into the five and kill them?
0:04:26 > 0:04:30- Presumably, yes. - You would?- Yeah.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34OK. Who else? That's a brave answer. Thank you.
0:04:35 > 0:04:41Let's consider another trolley car case
0:04:42 > 0:04:45and see whether
0:04:46 > 0:04:49those of you in the majority
0:04:49 > 0:04:56want to adhere to the principle "better that one should die so that five should live".
0:04:56 > 0:05:00This time you're not the driver of the trolley car. You're an onlooker.
0:05:00 > 0:05:04You're standing on a bridge overlooking a trolley car track.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08And down the track comes a trolley car.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11At the end of the track are five workers.
0:05:11 > 0:05:18The brakes don't work, the trolley car is about to careen into the five and kill them,
0:05:18 > 0:05:22and now you're not the driver, you really feel helpless
0:05:22 > 0:05:26until you notice, standing next to you,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33leaning over the bridge is a very fat man.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37LAUGHTER
0:05:37 > 0:05:38And...
0:05:39 > 0:05:43you could give him a shove,
0:05:43 > 0:05:48he would fall over the bridge onto the track,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54right in the way of the trolley car.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58He would die, but he would spare the five.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00Now...
0:06:01 > 0:06:06How many would push the fat man over the bridge? Raise your hand.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09LAUGHTER
0:06:10 > 0:06:12How many wouldn't?
0:06:13 > 0:06:16Most people wouldn't.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20Here's the obvious question - what became of the principle...
0:06:22 > 0:06:26better to save five lives even if it means sacrificing one?
0:06:26 > 0:06:32What became of the principle that almost everyone endorsed in the first case?
0:06:32 > 0:06:36I need to hear from someone who was in the majority in both cases.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40How do you explain the difference between the two? Yes.
0:06:40 > 0:06:46The second one, I guess, involves an act of choice of pushing the person down.
0:06:46 > 0:06:52I guess that person himself would otherwise not have been involved in the situation at all
0:06:52 > 0:06:56and so to choose on his behalf, I guess, to...
0:06:56 > 0:07:04involve him in something he'd otherwise have escaped is, I guess,
0:07:04 > 0:07:10more than what you have in the first place where the three parties - the driver and two sets of workers -
0:07:10 > 0:07:16- are already, I guess, in the situation.- But the guy working on the track off to the side,
0:07:16 > 0:07:22he didn't choose to sacrifice his life any more than the fat man did. Did he?
0:07:24 > 0:07:29- That's true, but he was on the tracks... - This guy was on the bridge!
0:07:29 > 0:07:31LAUGHTER
0:07:32 > 0:07:35Go ahead. You can come back if you want.
0:07:35 > 0:07:41All right. It's a hard question. You did well, you did very well. It's a hard question.
0:07:41 > 0:07:45Who else can...find a way
0:07:45 > 0:07:51of reconciling...the reaction of the majority in these two cases?
0:07:51 > 0:07:52Yes?
0:07:52 > 0:07:57Well, I guess in the first case where you have the one worker and the five,
0:07:57 > 0:08:03it's a choice between those two and you have to make a choice. People will die because of the trolley car,
0:08:03 > 0:08:10not necessarily because of your direct actions. The trolley car is a runaway, it's a split-second choice,
0:08:10 > 0:08:14whereas pushing the fat man over is an act of murder on your part.
0:08:14 > 0:08:20You have control over that, whereas you may not have control over the trolley car.
0:08:20 > 0:08:26- I think it's a slightly different situation.- All right. Who has a reply? That's good.
0:08:26 > 0:08:32Who wants to reply? Is that a way out of this?
0:08:32 > 0:08:38I don't think that's a very good reason because you choose... Either way, you choose who dies -
0:08:38 > 0:08:42choose to turn and kill him, which is an act of conscious thought,
0:08:42 > 0:08:47or choose to push the fat man over, which is also an active, conscious action.
0:08:47 > 0:08:52- Either way, you're making a choice. - Do you want to reply?
0:08:52 > 0:08:59I'm not really sure that's the case. It still seems different - pushing someone over onto the tracks
0:08:59 > 0:09:05- and killing him. You are actually killing him yourself.- Pushing him with your own hands.- Pushing him.
0:09:05 > 0:09:11And that's different than steering something that is going to cause death into another...
0:09:11 > 0:09:16- It doesn't really sound right saying it now!- No, it's good.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20- What's your name?- Andrew. - Let me ask you this question.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23Suppose...
0:09:23 > 0:09:29standing on the bridge, next to the fat man, I didn't have to push him.
0:09:29 > 0:09:36Suppose he was standing over a trap door that I could open by turning a steering wheel like that?
0:09:36 > 0:09:38LAUGHTER
0:09:38 > 0:09:40Would you turn?
0:09:40 > 0:09:46- For some reason, that still just seems more wrong.- Right. - I mean...
0:09:46 > 0:09:51- Maybe if you accidentally leaned into the steering wheel... - LAUGHTER
0:09:51 > 0:09:58..but... Or say that the car is hurtling towards a switch that will drop the trap,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02- then...I could agree with that. - Fair enough.
0:10:02 > 0:10:08It still seems wrong in a way that it doesn't seem wrong in the first place to turn?
0:10:08 > 0:10:14And in the first situation, you're involved directly with it? In the second, you're an onlooker.
0:10:14 > 0:10:21- All right.- So you have the choice of becoming involved or not.- Let's forget for the moment this case.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23That's good.
0:10:23 > 0:10:29Let's imagine a different case. This time you're a doctor in an emergency room.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31And six patients come to you
0:10:33 > 0:10:37They've been in a terrible trolley car wreck.
0:10:37 > 0:10:39LAUGHTER
0:10:40 > 0:10:45Five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured.
0:10:45 > 0:10:51You could spend all day caring for the one severely injured victim, but in that time the five would die.
0:10:51 > 0:10:58Or you could look after the five, restore them to health, but the one severely injured person
0:10:58 > 0:11:03would die. How many would save the five now as the doctor?
0:11:03 > 0:11:05How many would save the one?
0:11:06 > 0:11:10Very few people. Just a handful of people.
0:11:11 > 0:11:15Same reason, I assume - one life versus five?
0:11:18 > 0:11:23Now consider another doctor case. This time you're a transplant surgeon.
0:11:24 > 0:11:31And you have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36One needs a heart, one a lung, one a kidney, one a liver
0:11:36 > 0:11:40and the fifth...a pancreas.
0:11:40 > 0:11:44And you have no organ donors.
0:11:44 > 0:11:48You are about to see them die.
0:11:49 > 0:11:57And then it occurs to you that in the next room there's a healthy guy who came in for a check-up.
0:11:57 > 0:11:59LAUGHTER
0:12:02 > 0:12:04And he's...
0:12:04 > 0:12:07You like that?
0:12:08 > 0:12:12And he's...he's taking a nap. LAUGHTER
0:12:15 > 0:12:17You could go in, very quietly,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20yank out the five organs,
0:12:20 > 0:12:23that person would die.
0:12:23 > 0:12:27But you could save the five. How many would do it?
0:12:29 > 0:12:31Anyone?
0:12:32 > 0:12:36How many? Put your hands up if you would do it.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42Anyone in the balcony?
0:12:42 > 0:12:44You would?
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Be careful - don't lean over too...!
0:12:48 > 0:12:50How many wouldn't?
0:12:51 > 0:12:57All right. What do you say? Speak up in the balcony, you who would yank out the organs.
0:12:57 > 0:13:01- Why?- I'd like to explore a slightly alternate possibility
0:13:01 > 0:13:05of just taking the one of the five who needs an organ who dies first
0:13:05 > 0:13:10and using their four healthy organs to save the other four.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14MILD APPLAUSE That's a pretty good idea.
0:13:16 > 0:13:18That's a great idea.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20LAUGHTER
0:13:20 > 0:13:22Except for the fact
0:13:22 > 0:13:27that you just wrecked the philosophical point. LAUGHTER
0:13:27 > 0:13:33Let's...let's step back from these stories and these arguments
0:13:33 > 0:13:39to notice a couple of things about the way the arguments have begun to unfold.
0:13:39 > 0:13:45Certain moral principles have already begun to emerge
0:13:45 > 0:13:48from the discussions we've had.
0:13:48 > 0:13:53And let's consider what those moral principles look like.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57The first moral principle that emerged in the discussion
0:13:57 > 0:14:01said the right thing to do, the moral thing to do,
0:14:01 > 0:14:06depends on the consequences that will result from your action.
0:14:08 > 0:14:13At the end of the day, better that five should live even if one must die.
0:14:14 > 0:14:19That's an example of consequentialist moral reasoning.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30The state of the world that will result from the thing you do.
0:14:30 > 0:14:35But then we went a little further when we considered those other cases
0:14:35 > 0:14:41and people weren't so sure about consequentialist moral reasoning
0:14:42 > 0:14:47when people hesitated to push the fat man over the bridge
0:14:48 > 0:14:52or to yank out the organs of the innocent patient.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55People gestured toward reasons
0:14:56 > 0:15:02having to do with the intrinsic quality of the act itself,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04consequences be what they may.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09People were reluctant, people thought it was just wrong,
0:15:09 > 0:15:11categorically wrong,
0:15:11 > 0:15:19to kill a person, an innocent person, even for the sake of saving five lives.
0:15:19 > 0:15:25At least people thought that in the second version of each story we considered.
0:15:26 > 0:15:29So this points to...
0:15:46 > 0:15:49That's regardless of the consequences.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53We're going to explore, in the days and weeks to come,
0:15:53 > 0:15:58the contrast between consequentialist and categorical moral principles.
0:15:59 > 0:16:05The most influential example of consequential moral reasoning is utilitarianism,
0:16:05 > 0:16:11a doctrine invented by Jeremy Bentham, the 18th-century English political philosopher.
0:16:13 > 0:16:19The most important philosopher of categorical moral reasoning
0:16:19 > 0:16:24is the 19th-century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant.
0:16:24 > 0:16:29So we will look a those two different modes of moral reasoning,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32assess them and also consider others.
0:16:32 > 0:16:34If you look at the syllabus,
0:16:34 > 0:16:38you'll notice that we read a number of great and famous books.
0:16:38 > 0:16:41Books by Aristotle, John Locke,
0:16:41 > 0:16:45Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and others.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50You'll notice, too, from the syllabus that we don't only read these books.
0:16:50 > 0:16:56We also take up contemporary political and legal controversies
0:16:56 > 0:16:59that raise philosophical questions.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04We will debate equality and inequality, affirmative action,
0:17:04 > 0:17:09free speech versus hate speech, same-sex marriage, military conscription.
0:17:09 > 0:17:17A range of practical questions. Why? Not just to enliven these abstract and distant books,
0:17:17 > 0:17:23but to make clear, to bring out what's at stake in our everyday lives, including our political lives,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27for philosophy.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31And so we will read these books and we will debate these issues
0:17:31 > 0:17:36and we'll see how each informs and illuminates the other.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40This may sound appealing enough,
0:17:40 > 0:17:43but here I have to issue a warning.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47And the warning is this -
0:17:47 > 0:17:49to read these books
0:17:51 > 0:17:53in this way,
0:17:53 > 0:17:56as an exercise in self-knowledge,
0:17:56 > 0:18:00to read them in this way carries certain risks.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04Risks that are both personal and political,
0:18:04 > 0:18:09risks that every student of political philosophy has known.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12These risks spring from the fact
0:18:12 > 0:18:17that philosophy teaches us and unsettles us
0:18:17 > 0:18:22by confronting us with what we already know.
0:18:23 > 0:18:25There's an irony.
0:18:25 > 0:18:32The difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know.
0:18:32 > 0:18:37It works by taking what we know from familiar, unquestioned settings
0:18:37 > 0:18:40and making it strange.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45That's how those examples worked,
0:18:45 > 0:18:51the hypotheticals with which we began, with their mix of playfulness and sobriety.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54It's also how these philosophical books work.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59Philosophy estranges us from the familiar
0:18:59 > 0:19:01not by supplying new information,
0:19:02 > 0:19:07but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing.
0:19:09 > 0:19:12But, and here's the risk,
0:19:12 > 0:19:18once the familiar turns strange, it's never quite the same again.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Self-knowledge is like lost innocence.
0:19:24 > 0:19:28However unsettling you find it,
0:19:28 > 0:19:33it can never be unthought or unknown.
0:19:35 > 0:19:38What makes this enterprise difficult
0:19:40 > 0:19:42but also riveting
0:19:42 > 0:19:46is that moral and political philosophy is a story
0:19:48 > 0:19:55and you don't know where the story will lead, but what you do know is that the story is about you.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01Those are the personal risks. Now what of the political risks?
0:20:01 > 0:20:05One way of introducing a course like this
0:20:05 > 0:20:10would be to promise you that by reading these books and debating these issues
0:20:10 > 0:20:17you will become a better, more responsible citizen. You will examine presuppositions of public policy,
0:20:17 > 0:20:23hone your political judgment, you will become a more effective participant in public affairs.
0:20:24 > 0:20:28But this would be a partial and misleading promise.
0:20:28 > 0:20:34Political philosophy, for the most part, hasn't worked that way.
0:20:34 > 0:20:40You have to allow for the possibility that political philosophy may make you a worse citizen,
0:20:40 > 0:20:43rather than a better one.
0:20:44 > 0:20:49Or at least a worse citizen before it makes you a better one.
0:20:50 > 0:20:58And that's because philosophy is a distancing and even debilitating activity.
0:20:58 > 0:21:04And you see this going back to Socrates. There's a dialogue, the Gorgias,
0:21:04 > 0:21:11in which one of Socrates' friends, Callicles, tries to talk him out of philosophising.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16Callicles tells Socrates, "Philosophy is a pretty toy,
0:21:16 > 0:21:20"if one indulges in it with moderation at the right time of life,
0:21:20 > 0:21:25"but if one pursues it further than one should, it is absolute ruin.
0:21:25 > 0:21:30"Take my advice," Callicles says. "Abandon argument.
0:21:30 > 0:21:35"Learn the accomplishments of active life. Take for your models
0:21:35 > 0:21:39"not those people who spend their time on these petty quibbles
0:21:39 > 0:21:45"but those who have a good livelihood and reputation and many other blessings."
0:21:45 > 0:21:49So Callicles is really saying to Socrates,
0:21:49 > 0:21:54"Quit philosophising. Get real. Go to business school."
0:21:54 > 0:21:57LAUGHTER
0:21:57 > 0:22:00And Callicles did have a point.
0:22:01 > 0:22:07He had a point because philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions
0:22:07 > 0:22:12and from settled beliefs. Those are the risks, personal and political,
0:22:12 > 0:22:16and in the face of these risks there is a characteristic evasion.
0:22:16 > 0:22:21The name of the evasion is scepticism. It's the idea,
0:22:21 > 0:22:24"We didn't resolve, once and for all,
0:22:25 > 0:22:30"either the cases or the principles we were arguing when we began."
0:22:31 > 0:22:39And if Aristotle and Locke and Kant and Mill haven't solved these questions after all of these years,
0:22:39 > 0:22:47who are we to think that we here in Sanders Theatre over the course of a semester can resolve them?
0:22:49 > 0:22:54And so maybe it's just a matter of each person having his or her own principles
0:22:54 > 0:22:58and there's nothing more to be said about it, no way of reasoning.
0:22:58 > 0:23:04That's the evasion, the evasion of scepticism, to which I would offer the following reply.
0:23:04 > 0:23:09It's true, these questions have been debated for a very long time,
0:23:09 > 0:23:13but the very fact that they have recurred and persisted
0:23:14 > 0:23:19may suggest that though they are impossible in one sense,
0:23:19 > 0:23:21they are unavoidable in another.
0:23:21 > 0:23:27And the reason they are unavoidable, the reason they are inescapable is
0:23:27 > 0:23:31that we live some answer to these questions every day.
0:23:31 > 0:23:36So scepticism, just throwing up your hands and giving up on moral reflection
0:23:37 > 0:23:39is no solution.
0:23:39 > 0:23:45Immanuel Kant described very well the problem with scepticism when he wrote,
0:23:45 > 0:23:51"Scepticism is a resting place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings,
0:23:51 > 0:23:55"but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement.
0:23:55 > 0:24:02"Simply to acquiesce in scepticism can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason."
0:24:05 > 0:24:09I've tried to suggest through these stories and arguments
0:24:09 > 0:24:14some sense of the risks and temptations, of the perils and possibilities.
0:24:14 > 0:24:20I would simply conclude by saying that the aim of this course
0:24:20 > 0:24:24is to awaken the restlessness of reason
0:24:24 > 0:24:28and to see where it might lead. Thank you very much.
0:24:28 > 0:24:30APPLAUSE
0:24:36 > 0:24:40To challenge your views and learn more about justice,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42go to:
0:24:45 > 0:24:49And follow the links to the Open University.
0:25:06 > 0:25:10Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk