Ethics HypotheticalFollow

Why so harsh?

Hold the phone - Joph, was this all just some elaborate ruse to get Gbaji to contradict himself? (ok not that you really need one)

I mean...

If you rewind time so it never happened it didn't leave marks, right?

At the moment you choose to punch someone in the face, that action is either in violation of your ethics, or it isn't. Period.

So your argument is that if you hold to an ethical code where intent of actions after the fact are irrelevant that it doesn't matter?

Christ, that's compelling. So, in Gbajidreamland, it's equally ethical to shove someone onto the ground in front of an oncoming truck as it is to shove someone out of the way of an oncoming truck. After all, it's the instant of the act that matters, right? A shove is a shove. What happens after you shove them is irrelevant.

Right, Corky?

Gbaji, since I'd wager that you believe in free will, there probably isn't any way to get you to see the difference. I'd guess you think that people are wholly independent of their environment in their actions, or you're too retarded to see why you'd HAVE to think that to make such an argument, but I guess it's really an "if A, then B" situation as far as that goes.

To put it plainly, in your example, the world is a different place. Different actions have transpired and as a result different consequences will be the yield, whether or not you can appreciate their significance. In Joph's example, nothing whatsoever has changed.

But to answer the original hypothetical, yes and no. Since you are essentially creating an alternate reality, it would be unethical within the reality that you did the wrong, but ethical within the reality that you created afterwards. I guess it becomes a question of how reality operates when time travel is thrown into the mix. Does it ever really happen or does the fact that it has been undone mean that it never happened? Is it a new reality or the only reality? If the former, then as I said before, it is unethical in the temporary reality only. If the latter, then it's probably unethical in neither reality.

It seems safe to assume though that it'd be the former, because if it really never happened, you wouldn't remember it so you'd do the exact same thing you did the last time. Unless of course, there is some other explanation for your ability to know what happened in the first reality.

Um. Except that's an example of the intent of the action before the fact. Not after. You shoved that person because you intended to save them from being hit by the truck (or to have them hit by the truck). The ethics of the shove is determined at the time you did it (based on the intent of the action, in case you're still confused).

Joph's hypothetical assumes that the ethics of an action is changed if some other thing occurs *after* that action. So an action that would otherwise be considered unethical can magically become ethical if after performing that action you take another action that cancels out the original action.


That's absurd. Sorry. It just is.

Edited, Aug 17th 2007 3:52:46pm by gbaji

Perhaps this is the core reason for disagreement then. Most of you are judging the action based on its consequences. But IMO, ethics is not about the resulting consequences. It's about the intent of an action. It's about the decision making process that leads up to that action. An action can be completely ethical but have a negative result. Similarly, an unethical action can have a positive result.

Judging the ethics of a decision/action based on the result of that action is flawed IMO. But that seems to be the basis of many people's position on this hypothetical situation. If the negative result of punching someone in the face is erased, then the action of punching that person in the face is no longer unethical.

You could counter by saying that the action is ethical because at the time you punched that person you already intended to erase it with your handy time machine, but I still say that's questionable ethics. If you know that the action is "wrong", such that you know you'll need to "make it right" by going back in time and changing the action, then why do it in the first place? The correct ethical decision would be to not punch that person. Punching that person with the intent of going back in time and then not punching that person would seem to be an attempt to have your cake and eat it to (get to do the "bad thing", but then not have to be a "bad person"). Um... Why would any ethical person have a motive to do that? By it's very nature that would be an unethical choice.


At least that's the way I see it.

OK....my 2cents.

After re-reading the original question.....

IF we are assuming a PERFECT rollback on the time-line, then ethical
behavior is IRRELLEVANT!!!! See, the morality, rightness, decency, etc, of your actions do not matter because when you are all rolled back...those actions NEVER HAPPENED. If nothing occurred, then there is absolutely no basis for any kind of judgement call.

On a side note, if we were to run with current theories on time-travel, then your behaviour WOULD be unethical, because although in YOUR timeline all is erased, your victim is now living in an alternate time line and is suffering.

You bully.

Seems to me that it's the difference between murdering a hooker and burying her in the woods, and... not doing that. In both cases there's no evidence of any wrongdoing, but in the first case you murdered a hooker and buried her in the woods.

Ok. Interesting points.



Just to be clear, I don't consider the time travellers intention to be pure in this case. If it was pure, he'd not have punched anyone in the first place. The very fact that you intend to go back and erase the act (for the specific purpose of erasing what would otherwise be an unethical action) shows that you know the act to be "wrong". Thus, the act itself must be in violation of your own ethics. Thus, it *must* be unethical.

I just find the whole "but I intended to erase that bad thing before I did it" a pretty weak ethical argument.




I'm not sure I'm following you. Intent simply means that it's something you desire. I suppose you could word that as a "goal", but I think that's misleading since it again results in confusion between the intent and the result. I'm talking about the act itself, not the ultimate result of that action. The reason it's important to separate those is highlighted in the example you give later (and I'll go over it then).



Which intention? The intention to punch someone in the face? How is that either noble or harmless? Remember. Presumably the entire point of this excersize is that you want (desire if you will) to punch someone in the face in a way that allows you to avoid any consequences of that act. The intent to erase the action is in this case secondary to the intent to perform the action in the first place. Otherwise, you'd never "desire" to do any of this, right?

Surely you aren't arguing that you start with the intention to erase an unethical action, and *then* come up with an unethical action to do? That's a bit... odd, don't you think? The intention to erase the act is a result of the initial intention to perform the act. And that intention is inherently unethical (see argument above for the reason). The fact that you've been empowered with a way to erase it after the fact does not erase the original intention to do harm to another person.



Reasonable examples. However, IMO you're mixing up the "means" and "ends" here. In the examples you just gave the ultimate end is to "give my child a good home" or "to end a bloody war". In both cases, that's the goal and we can judge the ethics of that action based on that goal. However, we also have to judge the means to obtain that end. We can debate that, but it's a bit different then the argument in this case. And "ends justifying the means" argument can only be valid if you start with an end that is "good". In the examples above, they are. So we can then progress to the next step of analysing said means to see if they are justified.


But in the case of the time traveling face-puncher, that's not the case. As I pointed out above, the "end" is to punch that person in the face. That is the core "desire" behind the entire hypothetical issue. If that desire/intention did not exist there would be no quandry, no ethical decision to make, and no point to the entire excersise. Since that end is "unethical" no justification for that end can ever make it ethical. There's simply no point in making an ends vs means argument in this case.




Hopefully, my position is a bit more clear now. My argument is that the action of punching in the face is itself the "goal/intent/desire" of the time traveller. Since that goal is unethical, any action taken to achieve that goal is *also* unethical. We can presume that the ability to travel back in time to erase the action is an "enabling factor" to the issue. It enables the person to do what he wants (punch someone in the face). Thus, it must also be unethical since it ultimately is taken in order to allow another unethical act to take place.

I would watch the lottery numbers, go back and buy a ticket.