Making the Virtuous Decision
In order to explore the validity of utilitarianism, Bernard Williams created the example ofJim and the Indians. In this example, Jim becomes lost while on a botanical expedition. He happens upon a small South American town, where he sees twenty Indians tied upagainst a wall. A man informs him that the Indians engaged in several acts of protestagainst the government, and are going to be killed to serve as an example to the rest of thevillagers. The man tells Jim that since he is a guest, he can have the privilege of killing oneof the Indians if he wishes. If Jim does choose to kill one of the Indians, the remainingnineteen will go free. The Indians and some observers are begging Jim to kill one of theIndians. At this point, Jim has three options: 1) Kill one of the Indians, allowing for the lives of the other nineteen. However, Jim will have to live forever with the guilt of killing someone. 2) Kill no one, resulting in the deaths of all twenty Indians. However, Jim will not be directly responsible for murdering anyone. 3) Act as though he is going to kill one Indian, and then steal the man's gun, fighting valiantly to save all of the Indians. However, Jim knows for certain
This seems a plausible scenario, yet completely irrational,which is the second viewpoint. nsuccessful, and probably result in his own death as well. ) Roughly interpreted,Aristotle is saying that an individual becomes virtuous by doing virtuous things. One of these downfalls is addressed by Williams himself in the same article whichdescribes the Jim and the Indians dilemma. Foot has a differentapproach to discounting utilitarian theory. ", (Foot, 1985) which would indicate that any optioncould be plausible if appropriately justified. In fact, in her article she says, "we simply do not have a satisfactory theory ofmorality, and need to look for it. Unfortunately, I cannot conclude this paper by assuring that Jim made the"virtuous" decision, for only he can know what that decision might be. " (Williams, 1995) This statement could be better explained inan example. For example, if an individual gives money to charity andfeels happy to be sharing his welfare with others, he may do it again. Somemight say that he is acting bravely, yet it appears to me that he would be acting more outof selfish motive to become a hero. Jim could be wanting tosave the Indians out of his pure regard for human life, and therefore takes the gun andrisks killing himself in order to hopefully overthrow the mean man.
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