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[misko27]

2. I would flip the switch and accept whatever penalty is imposed for manslaughter. Utilitarianism is never a good idea in reality, but it always wins out in contrived examples such as this.

Never? It amazes me people are always so content to say "never" and "always". You call this situation contrived, but do you argue it could never happen in reality? Hell I've seen the reverse criticism more often: that Utilitarianism is always good in reality, but sucks in absurd hypotheticals (utopia powered by a forsaken child, the happiness monster, etc).

1. Are the titans from 'Attack on Titan' evil? (They lack free will, but actively seek and kill people).

As much as a gun or a lion is evil (maybe slightly more). Intrinsically there is not much in them that is wrong, but contextually their actions are reprehensible. Thus, we must regard them as evil in our own decisions (as in, preventing them from doing whatever as you might prevent a river from flooding), but if I were to pass judgement I couldn't say they were evil.

2. There is a train hurtling towards 40 people on tracks. You and you alone are within arms reach of a lever you can flip which will divert the train onto a different track, where one person is. Do you flip it?

More information is needed. My gut judgement tells me I'd decide based on arbitrary factors in the spur of the moment and justify it later. If I can have some information and some thinking time I'll come up with something more concrete.

[Frumple]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

[MagmaMcFry]

I don't have any axiomatic ethics or morality at all. My actions and intentions are purely hedonistic, but they may look like utilitarian because of the things that cause my happiness (mostly entertainment and empathy).

Consequentialism (expected outcome justifies means) is a thing that all people do, except in cases where their ethics take over, in which case the means themselves are "justified" by those ethics even if the ends were actually predictably bad. Hence ethics are nonsense and should be avoided as much as possible.

You might think now that I'm a horrible sociopath or something, but in reality I'm a pretty nice person just like you, a possible difference being that I have no delusions about my motives and motivations. People think they don't kill people because it's a Bad Thing, they have "Don't Kill People" written into their Big-Ass Book of Axiomatic Ethics. I don't have such a book, I don't need one. All those things that people think are axiomatic and need to be axiomatic are in reality just a really simple conclusion from comparing the values of their utility function at all expected results. Regular people believe: they wouldn't kill random people because killing people is a Bad Thing. I wouldn't kill random people because I expect to be much worse off after killing a person than after not killing the person.

[Xvareon]

'Evil' is all a matter of perception, just like 'Good'. Different kinds of people and societies all have their own ideas about morality. The Daleks from Doctor Who find hatred to be 'beautiful', like a thing of art, and are actually reluctant to kill anyone with 'pure' hatred, like the Doctor (and this is coming from a race of particle cannon-packing trash cans whose entire shtick is, literally, KILL, DESTROY, EXTERMINATE). The Liir from Sword of the Stars find any form of violence to be completely abhorrent, as they are all empathic creatures and feel the terrible storm of emotions and accompanying silence of someone's death. And so, in order to defend themselves from other races, some Liir have to voluntarily sever themselves from their society and become outcasts, since their high rate of PTSD from traumatic experiences in war would poison the whole collective. Also, rather amusingly, this race of peace-loving dolphin-like creatures are the most TERRIFYING race in SotS when it comes to biological warfare, as they see absolutely no problem with killing their enemies from a distance with wide-dispersal virus bombs on populated planets. Less emotional trauma than direct combat, that way.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

[ChairmanPoo]

I'm a philosophical zombie anyway, so I don't really care, but lets pretend for a moment I *do* care....

I'd probably go with railway tossing...

[Urist Arrhenius]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

I don't think we can understand ourselves as determined beings without sacrificing something essential about being human.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Agreed fellow Urist. For myself, I believe that humanity is not meant to be fully understood. People these days are so obsessed with knowing everything. However, I find that such broad and in-depth knowing is the death of adventure and essence of life in general.

[MagmaMcFry]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

I don't think we can understand ourselves as determined beings without sacrificing something essential about being human.

Tell me which essential thing is being sacrificed, then tell me why it is important that we not sacrifice that thing.

[Urist Arrhenius]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

I don't think we can understand ourselves as determined beings without sacrificing something essential about being human.

Tell me which essential thing is being sacrificed, then tell me why it is important that we not sacrifice that thing.

Responsibility. Because without any responsibility we've lost a defining feature of any meaningful conception of self.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

I don't think we can understand ourselves as determined beings without sacrificing something essential about being human.

Tell me which essential thing is being sacrificed, then tell me why it is important that we not sacrifice that thing.

It's called "something". It's literally there everyday. You know when "something is off" or you're "missing that special something". If it was so easy to describe and define then I would say that it would not be important enough to protect it.

EDIT: My take.

[MagmaMcFry]

... a complicated gearbox is still a gearbox. We're not some kind of ineffable black box of cognition -- we're biological machines and that's about it.

For what it's worth, we're also not the point we actually can fully quantify individual behavior, but the point we reach that level is not a question of possibility but time. Nor is that particularly required for the mechanical work of ethical consideration. Probably would be for the aesthetic aspect of it, but again, two different things. How and why a goal is desired is not the purview of ethics, just how to achieve it.

Well when that time comes, I will no longer want to live in this world.

I don't think we can understand ourselves as determined beings without sacrificing something essential about being human.

Tell me which essential thing is being sacrificed, then tell me why it is important that we not sacrifice that thing.

It's called "something". It's literally there everyday. You know when "something is off" or you're "missing that special something". If it was so easy to describe and define then I would say that it would not be important enough to protect it.

Let me get this straight: It's a thing, you can't tell me what it is or what it does or why it is important. So why do you believe that it is so important?

[Grek]

There's more to it than just philosophy. For example, while most people will tend to say they'd flip the lever, all you need is to alter the situation slightly - by making the person not throw the lever but instead be required to push a person on tracks (so that the train stops before hitting the larger group) - and the weight of a more personal involvement will make some of the people who would throw the lever change their minds.
You can go even further - what if you're a doctor, and there's a person in the waiting room for a routine check-up, whom you could put to sleep and harvest their organs to save 40 people that will otherwise die. Still the same ethical conundrum, but even more personal, end even less people would do it.
So while it sounds simply like a question of ethics, utilitarianism and so on, it seems more about taking responsibility, getting your hands dirty, distancing yourself from the deed and other issues closer to psychology than philosophy.

These aren't actually the same situation. The numbers are the same (kill one person to save forty others) but the situation makes them different in their consequences.

If we make an exception to the general rule that says, "Don't divert trains onto tracks where people are standing." then we create a fear in people that if they stand on a train track, they may be run over.
If we make an exception to the general rule that says, "Don't push people into the way of oncoming trains." then we create a fear in people that if they stand near other people at the train station, they may be thrown onto the tracks.
If we make an exception to the general rule that says, "Don't kill patients as a doctor to redistribute their organs." then we create a fear in people that if they go to the doctor, they will be drugged and murdered for their organs.

There's also the problem of human error: It is possible that the only way for you to prevent a train from crashing in time is to divert it onto another track. It is much less likely that the only way for you to prevent a train from crashing is to throw someone in the way. And it is very, very unlikely that you could kill a single person to provide organs to save the lives of forty other people. In the latter two cases, chances are much better that you are making some sort of horrible mistake than that your intended consequences are going to actually come through.

[XXXXYYYY]

PTW.

[andrea]

If we make an exception to the general rule that says, "Don't kill patients as a doctor to redistribute their organs." then we create a fear in people that if they go to the doctor, they will be drugged and murdered for their organs.

And this is likely going to cause far more deaths than the 40 or so you just saved by stealing organs.
medical profession requires a great deal of implicit trust between patient and doctor to work properly, since the patience is basically putting his/her life in the hands of the doctor. If that trust is largely broken, only people on the brink of death will accept being treated at an hospital.
There is a reason for the hippocratic oath.

Unless the population is composed by perfect utilitarians who are fine being killed for organs. But I don't think that is the case, at least in the foreseeable future.