In this week’s lecture Michael Sandel asks the broad question to what extent is Bentham’s utilitarianism a good way for a society or an individual or a company to make decisions. The tool he uses is “cost-analysis”, or the process of weighing the benefits against the detriments for decision making. The cost-analysis for a company is primarily financial while the cost-analysis for an individual is weighing what action will deliver the greater pleasure. Here, Sandel asks the audience to consider what is most pleasurable; for instance, the instant gratification of a low-brow comedy, or the thought-provoking words of Shakespeare. He then suggests that education is essential to cultivating the higher human faculties which make such a distinction possible. In the end, the “cost of a life” remains unsettled.
To open the discussion I will pose the question, “what is a life worth” to this audience. Who has the right to decide what a life should be a worth (i.e., a company, a government)? What factors should be considered for putting a price on life: how much the person contributed or has left to contribute to society, how many dependents does this person have, how rich or poor is this person, is this person’s life at risk due to personal choices or circumstances outside his/her control?
I’m interested to hear a doctor/future doctor’s take on this, as it seems highly likely similar decisions are made daily in hospitals across the world.
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I think there needs to be a distinction between a specific individual's life versus an average, unknown citizen. In the Ford Pinto example, the cost benefit analysis could not take into account such factors as societal contributions, dependents, wealth, etc. Perhaps it could do so in a minimal fashion since I'm sure the average Ford Pinto driver was different than the average American in many regards. But in making their decision, they could not predict which people would be affected, only some probability of how many would be. I don't think this is necessarily wrong. One girl in the video said no price could be put on a human life. In theory, no, it can't. However, for the purposes of an automotive company, you essentially have to. Let's take it to an extreme and say they determine one car had a faulty part in it that was certain to cause one person's death, but had no idea which car it was. Should they recall every single vehicle you've produced that year in order to find it? I don't think many would argue that they should. If you have that happen a couple times, you'd likely bankrupt the company and put tens of thousands out of work.
ReplyDeleteThis is not to say their cost benefit analysis was completely right. I would have to actually see what went in to their calculations to fully pass judgment on them. I'm only say that I think it's being overly idealistic to say no cost is too great to save a human life.
Back to the original question, I'm not sure we can summarize what factors might go into valuing an individual's life without greatly oversimplifying things and essentially "playing God." But you do raise an interesting point. If Brent were an emergency doctor and has to decide between saving the life of a criminal (crime undetermined, but we'll say minimally violent) and another law-obeying citizen, what is Brent's take? This isn' a new question, as I've seen multiple incarnations of this in books, television, film, etc. But I'm interested to hear his opinion on it.
On principle, I very much disagree with your first statement. Here's why:
ReplyDeleteWhereas, previous knowledge that one's actions will lead to another individual's death is 1st degree murder, and,
Whereas, if such a death were to take place due to the actions a person, the said person would be held both responsible and accountable, and,
Whereas, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad gave companies "person-hood", then,
it is my understanding that a company with any knowledge that a product they produce will kill at least one person, should be held to the same standards.
So in your example, I would hope a society that valued life would bankrupt a company if that company knowingly kept a product on the market that will kill someone. So, yes, in my opinion they should recall everything in that circumstance. Or, we need a corporate Robin Hood (like Omar on The Wire) that would settle the score for us without law enforcement.
Obviously, doctors and EMTs make similar decisions, but I believe the choices in an emergency circumstance are much different than CEOs saying our stockholders, workers, etc. are more important that an innocent life.
Jarrod makes an interesting and original point. It seems obvious, but if corporations are going to be afforded the rights of real persons, then it seems in the event of misconduct that corporations should face a just and equatable punishment. It isn't the case, obviously, and we can go into more details but briefly, corporations actually have more rights than people.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jarrod for the interesting article, I will make a more detailed response later today on the main points.
That is a good point. However, a few things need to be considered. First, in real life (as opposed to my example), there is typically no absolute knowledge of what will happen. There are only knowledge of what the problem is and some calculation of the probability that it will be problematic in any given car and from that, perhaps the probability that an accident will result and people will die in those accidents. Nothing is known for certain.
ReplyDeleteAlso, is there a precedent for a product being made by anybody in which they were personally held responsible for the action of the product in opposition to being charged with neglect or avoiding regulations or something along those lines?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in a murder trial there has to be intent to kill the victim specifically. Otherwise would it not be just manslaughter instead of murder? This may be just semantics, but I believe the punishment is typically much less for manslaughter than for murder.
Lastly, many products are currently made in which the company knows their product will kill people. How many people die every single year of accidental gun injuries or are shot to death intentionally? Gun manufacturers surely know that those numbers aren't going to drop to 0 immediately. Similarly people will die in car accidents every year, but car manufacturers can't be expected to be held accountable for those.
I agree very much that it's a good point that if corporations are afforded person-hood, they should have to follow the same rules, and I want to continue exploring this idea. However, I think in the scenario you would propose, a person would be convicted of murder for manufacturing an item to kill someone as well as placing it in the correct place to accomplish the feat.
To Bentham's Utilitarianism:
ReplyDeleteIf it's assumed that societies are progressive, then it naturally means that older and less skilled generations will be displaced by new technologies. It should be the role of government to aid in this transition, take from the winners of progress and give to the losers since their role, while no longer needed, spurred the success of the proceeding generation(s). The newly successful should have to pay benefit to the ones who made it possible (taxes etc). In this sense, life (or groups of lives rather) is/are given somewhat equal value.
Next, people are given a value every time they have a job. Their salary is the rental value of their time (to a large extent but not solely). In actuarial calculations, lives really aren't worth much, but the cost to prevent future misconduct is what is considerable. This is different than what a single life is worth, but does give some calculus into what a particular good/service/commodity/industry is worth to the society as a whole.