Lost your prefrontal lobe? Out of the boat!
From a Caltech press release: Study implies certain types of brain damage can improve utilitarian moral judgments
The study constrained itself to “utilitarian moral judgments” which were themselves limited to having only two allowed answers, so maybe people with damaged prefrontal cortexes (cortexen?) are just faster at choosing between two options. You should read the paper and let me know. I’m not going to bother :) Here’s an excerpt from the press release, though.
Quick response! What’s the best thing to do on a lifeboat with one too many people on board? Should one throw a mortally injured person overboard to ensure definite survival for everyone else, or refuse to act and ensure certain death for all individuals in the boat?
If you said “throw the injured person overboard”, science has concluded that you have brain damage.
[…] swooped down from the ethernet and shined (shone) the light of reason on it with his post: Lost your prefrontal lobe? Out of the boat! If you said “throw the injured person overboard”, science has concluded that you have brain […]
Dambed if you do, dambed if you don’t kind of question, don’t you think! Either answer would deem you have brain damage. Morally corrupt and they say you have brain damage. Rather sit around and die, arguably you have brain damage! Now I don’t feel so bad for saying ‘throw them out’……..;)
I was thinking: ‘Save him. Since we’re in a lifeboat with no rescue anytime soon. We might as well eat him when we need to…’
(free after some Monty Python sketch)
Now. Do I have brain damage or am I only thinking practical here?
Ah, but what if the brain damaged person is also the injured person?? My brain hurts just thinking about that.