After reading Elie's remarks, I summarized that his theory is basically to treat others how you would want to be treated. Elie said "it is our relationship to the other that determines our humanity" and "we are duty bound to feel more responsible for those in need".
He put this in the simplist of terms with real examples and justified them with his own experiences. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. His experiences in the death camps and later, the refugee camps, spoke volumes about who he was as a man and the importance of defending our rights and promoting harmony in the world.
One issue challenged Elie and I am perplexed by his thoughts: He said "When can/must we ask our leaders, our President, to intervene in places where we have no vital interest? When should we "send our boys" to risk their lives?" Meaning, am I being selfish if I don't want to send our soldiers to war for a country I know or care nothing about? However, after reading the Moral Instinct article, I had to think twice about it. The Trolley Problem may contradict that thought. In that scenerio, a passerby is forced to make a decision when he sees a trolley car hurdling down the track headed toward 5 men working on the track. The passerby can flip the switch to divert the track headed for the 5 men, but in doing so, he has to kill another man on a different track. Is it better to sacrifice one to save 5? Can we send one soldier oversees and save the lives of hundreds?
This is all so difficult. As our President-elect takes office next week, I can only hope that he and his staff have the stomach for all of the tough decisions ahead.
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In theory, sacrificing one person to save multiple people makes sense, but what if the one person was a young man just beginning his career as a doctor and the five people were all over 70 and sick? Or the one person is a school teacher and the five are convicted felons? I'm using extremes, but my question is does the "value" a person puts on the lives in question influence their decision?
ReplyDeleteAnd what makes one person more valuable? How do we make that judgement?
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question. I don't know what makes one person more valuable than someone else. I don't think a price tag or value can be placed on someone's life--even though our justice system routinely does that very thing in personal injury/wrongful death cases.
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