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Title: Philosophy/Humor - Brain in a Vat Can bad men make good brains do bad things?
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Brain in a VatTissues in the Profession: CAN BAD MEN MAKE GOOD BRAINS DO BAD THINGS?Michael F. Patton, Jr.Syracuse University Consider the following case:On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley.There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of thefork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sightof derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, forthe brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to thetrolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolleywill take.On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones,who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right.If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for thesake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the livesof thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroya bridge that the orphans' bus will be crossing later that night). Oneof the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrantwho would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphanswould grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent thepop-top can.If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolleywill definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, "Leftie"and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (andwould) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital thatwill die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, andthe brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railmanon the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in factthe same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, "Leftie"will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he willinadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospitalfor transplantation. A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that thebusload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by "Leftie"are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of thetrolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and "Leftie"are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patientswill die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplantpatients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom willgrow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available,however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serveas an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decisionwill be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right sideof the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if thebrain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result.Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceivingthe brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is beingdeceived.QUESTION: What should the brain do?[ALTERNATIVE EXAMPLE: Same as above, except the brain has hada commisurotomy, and the left half of the brain is a consequentialist andthe right side is an absolutist.] Copyright, 1988 by the American Philosophical AssociationMost real philosophers will never be able to read this paragraph.Several of them have died of laughter-induced heart attacks. Other havetheir vision blurred by tears of laughter. If you can still read this,and are thinking to yourself "Sure, everyone else says this Pattonis a genius, but I don't see it," then you need to go to the Nonphilosopher'sExplanation Page! All the people who really appreciate this spentat least five years in philosophy graduate school. Most of their laughterwould be dismissed by mental health professionals as an hysterical symptomof some coping mechanism, one desperately trying to reconcile them to theirfates as professional philosophers. You, however, can go on withyour relatively normal life (I say relatively because you are surfingthe web instead of something less geeky) and still get some of thejokes in this article by reading the Nonphilosopher'sExplanation Page. It will be fun, enlightening, and it will foreverremove those nagging doubts you had about what they were doing in philosophyclass--they were ruining their lives.** Some people think that explaining a joke sucks all of the humor outof it. I suggest these people read Dr. Harry Johnson's 546 page manuscript(as yet unpublished) on the nature of humor. It is tentatively titled TheRoots of Humor in the Denial of the Obvious. Nonphilosopher'sExplanationTheHistory of an Idea Back to Patton'sArgument Clinic |
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