Gibburt

Modern ethics has given us many theories on what is right and what is wrong. A crucial distinction between two major groups of these theories is based on the role of consequences in the theory. Where one group of theories focuses on the consequences of an action to determine whether this action is right or wrong, another group holds that certain actions are just inherently wrong, no matter the consequences. An important example of the first group would be so called utilitarianism and an example of the second group would be the theory proposed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant.

A good illustration of what both of these theories are trying to accomplish came to me when I was watching the Chinese movie Warlords or (Tau Ming Chong) last week. In it Jet Li is leading an army that needs to conquer a certain well fortified city. After a long siege he sends his lieutenant into the city to try to negotiate a surrender. The lieutenant succeeds and the defending army surrenders but only on the condition that their lifes will be spared. Now Jet Li has a major problem: he does not even have enough food to feed his own army, let alone to also feed the captive army. Furthermore letting them go would not be a smart idea because he does not want a hostile army at his back when he moves on. And finally Jet Li does not want to wait for help because he is convinced that, if he can conquer the next (and final) enemy city he will bring peace and prosperity to the country.

Let’s see now what the proponents from the two different groups of ethical theories would say of this situation. A proponent from the first group would only look at the consequences and say that the benefits of continuing, which would mean trying to bring peace to the country by conquering the next city, would outbalance anything happening here and as such it is justified to take drastic measures to guarantee success. In other words: execute them. A proponent of the second group of theories would think that certain actions are inherently bad, no matter what the consequences, and say that the promise not to kill them should be kept.

In the movie the first position was taken by the leader of the army, Jet Li, and the second position was – appropriately – taken by his lieutenant. Unfortunately however for the captive army, a military organization is not a democracy so Jet Li’s will prevailed: they were all executed.

So who was right? Hard to say, but the thing with consequences is, that you are never really sure about them until they happen. I will not spoil the movie by giving away its ending but I will say this: it was far from certain that the benefits paid for by the life of all those men were ever realized.

Filed under: Leisure, Science by Robert Nijssen | Social tagging: ethics > Immanuel Kant > Jet Li > utilitarianism