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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    A rescuer may cut the rope connecting themselves to a vic... — Carmelics
    Home/Consequentialism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    A rescuer may cut the rope connecting themselves to a victim who is about to fall to their death, even though doing so accelerates the victim's death.

    Consequentialism
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Moral agency is not implicated in merely accelerating an evil that is about to happen anyway, as opposed to causing that evil by performing an act necessary for it to occur.
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    • 2.The victim is about to fall to their death regardless of the rescuer's action.
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    • 3.Cutting the rope accelerates the victim's death but is not the act that causes the death that would not otherwise occur.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.An agent who performs the act causally necessary for death — severing the lifeline — is the proximate cause of death, not a mere accelerant.
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    • 2.The victim's counterfactual death does not transfer moral responsibility for an act that is itself lethal and intentionally performed.
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    • 3.Foot's doctrine of doing and allowing requires the agent to be a bystander to the harmful sequence, not its active initiator, to escape culpability.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Kant's Formula of Humanity prohibits using another person merely as a means, and cutting the rope treats the victim's death as an acceptable cost of the rescuer's survival.
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    • 2.The supporting argument's distinction between 'accelerating' and 'causing' death collapses when the agent's act is the sufficient condition for death occurring at that moment.
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    Topics

    Consequentialism

    Related

    An agent who performs the act causally necessary for death — severing the lifeli...Cutting the rope accelerates the victim's death but is not the act that causes t...Failing to cut the rope would result in the rescuer also dying, dragged down by ...Foot's doctrine of doing and allowing requires the agent to be a bystander to th...
    +5 moreShow less
    Kant's Formula of Humanity prohibits using another person merely as a means, and...Moral agency is not implicated in merely accelerating an evil that is about to h...The supporting argument's distinction between 'accelerating' and 'causing' death...The victim is about to fall to their death regardless of the rescuer's action.The victim's counterfactual death does not transfer moral responsibility for an ...

    Similar

    Failing to cut the rope would result in the rescuer also dying, dragge...92%Cutting the rope accelerates the victim's death but is not the act tha...84%The victim is about to fall to their death regardless of the rescuer's...84%Choosing a bridge the pursuer expects raises the probability of death ...72%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-deontological
    View source passageHide passage
    Fifth, our agency is said not to be involved in mere accelerations of evils about to happen anyway, as opposed to causing such evils by doing acts necessary for such evils to occur (G. Williams 1961; Brody 1996). Thus, when a victim is about to fall to his death anyway, dragging a rescuer with him too, the rescuer may cut the rope connecting them. Rescuer is accelerating, but not causing, the death that was about to occur anyway.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit