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As I said in my other reply, by saying Chauvin was responsible for his death, I am not necessarily saying that he acted wrongly. Prioritizing the safety of the innocent over that of the guilty can be the correct utilitarian choice in a fraught situation. But you're still responsible for pulling the trolley lever. Even if it wasn't you who tied the person you sacrifice to the trolley tracks, you still made that choice; you can justify your actions, but they are your actions.
The analogy doesn’t hold. In the trolley situation, the victim is exogenously tied to the tracks. In the criminal situation, the criminal tied himself to the tracks. It was in fact just desserts (ie do bad things and bad things are likely to happen to you)
I don't actually think it especially changes the trolley problem if the single person is a suicide attempt.
We disagree. The point of the trolley example is that you must make a choice of killing more or less. What messes with our intuition is that there is an obvious right answer (make sure fewer die) but it feels morally wrong to take action to kill an innocent.
It seems less morally wrong to take action to kill someone that created the situation whereby you must choose to kill more or less.
Perhaps, then, that's a part of why the ingroup vs. outgroup behaviors really evolved: if you have one ingroup and 5 outgroup tied to the track, you can sleep easy not pulling the lever specifically because they are your outgroup. Remember, humanity didn't even invent 'love your enemies'-style accountability, and even that's pretty vague in terms of what you're actually required to do there.
Most of the equivocation about this topic mostly comes down to the fact that in this situation, and in psychologically-normal human beings (the sociopaths are going to sleep easy regardless), a justification will be found to either pull or not pull the lever, because the decision must be made.
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Floyd was exuberantly resisting arrest and either lying about being unable to breathe or having a medical episode well before anybody laid a finger on him. Chauvin followed the department handbook (He could have attended to him earlier on the ground, sure, but he also likely didn't have a reasonable expectation of the guy overdosing) on how to restrain somebody resisting arrest. I don't mind a court finding him negligent for not checking Floyd but murder is an absolute miscarriage of justice
Oh, I agree. I'm just saying that "(partly) responsible for his death" is a much lower bar than "guilty of murder".
Coase made the point that any conflicts in rights are bilateral monopolies. That is, my factory is only a nuisance to your home because your home is there.
It is true that without the police Floyd may have lived that day (or may not have). But it’s also true that Floyd’s actions also caused his death. That is, there isn’t a single party responsible but multiple parties.
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