耶鲁大学开放课程—哲学：死亡.26.Open.Yale.course—Philosophy：Death.DivX-YYeTs人人影视

毋庸置疑This is, unsurprisingly,
不同道德理论对此存在争议something that different moral theories disagree about.
但至少有一个要素或特征 是所有But there's at least one factor or one feature that all,
作用有多大in terms of giving us our moral theory,
我们难道不应认为 从结果来看don't we have to say in terms of consequences,
或者说考虑到结果or with regard to consequences,
自杀是不道德的suicide is immoral?
学习过这个问题what does the badness of death consist in.
平常情况下Typical cases are ones in which
死亡剥夺了人们the person's dying robs them of a chunk of life
本来会有的幸福生活that would've been good for them overall,
就会立即死亡would end up dead,"
一般情况下你一定会同意you would normally take that to be a pretty compelling argument
不能按开关against flipping the switch.
为什么呢 因为结果是坏的Why? Because the result would be bad.
但先别急But not so !
尽管死亡通常是坏事Even though it's true that normally death is a bad thing,
但并非总是坏事it's not always a bad thing.
我们在讨论死亡的主要坏处时This is the sort of thing that we've learned by thinking about
但我们至少能讲清楚but I think we can at least say enough
一些基本的道德准则about a couple of basic approaches to the contents of morality,
或是基本的道德尺度or the basic moral rules,
为什么呢 因为一千个人会死去Why? Because a thousand people would end up dead.
也许一个人死亡的坏处Well, one person ending up dead
并不比一千个人死亡的坏处更大isn't as bad as a thousand people ending up dead,
只把行为的后果当作道德评判的标准think that consequences are the only things that are morally relevant
来考察行为是否道德when we think about the morality of your action,
但行为造成的后果but surely it is one thing that's morally relevant--
最好选择死亡They're better off dying.
也就是说And that means, of course,
死亡对他们来说不是坏事而是好事that dying isn't bad for them, but rather good for them,
因此他们死亡造成的结果不是坏的and so their death is not a bad consequence,
而是好的but rather a good consequence.
假设你愿意相信有这种情况Provided that you're prepared to accept the possibility of cases
某些人早死比晚死in which somebody would be better off if their life ended sooner
我认为公平地讲I suppose it would have been fairer to say
它们其实都是神学观点that they were really theological arguments,
或者说是某种程度上采用了神学前提的or they were moral arguments that used, in part,
如果我们想仔细研究and if we're going to make a more careful argument
自杀的道德问题about the morality of suicide,
我们需要一些更系统化的we need to turn to a more systematic view
那么 受自杀行为影响最大的人Now, the person who, of course, is most affected by suicide is,
当然就是自杀者自己of course, the person who is killing themselves.
似乎我们的第一印象很清楚And at first glance it might seem pretty clear
或者说大部分道德理论所接受的or almost all, moral theories agree about.
那就是行为造成的后果很关键And that is that the consequences of your action matter.
我们或许可以 或许不可以That is, we might or might not
自杀对其本人是不好的that the consequences of suicide are bad for that person.
毕竟这个人之前活着而现在死了After all, the person was alive and now they're dead,
我们通常将死亡造成的结果看做坏的and we normally would take death to be a bad result.
也许并非一直是坏的although perhaps not negative through and through--
但总的来说是坏的is negative on balance.
总和是负数It's negative on balance;
他们最好不要再活下去they're not better off continuing to live.
肯定是其中一个标准what are the consequences of your action going to be.
因此 下面我们从后果的角度So, let's think about the morality of suicide
来思考自杀的道德问题with an eye towards consequences,
我们现在讨论那些自杀是否符合道德and we're now asking whether or not it's morally acceptable--
在那些例子里 至少在那些in those sorts of cases, at least the kind of paradigm examples
但即便如此but for all that
我们不是仍然可以说结果是坏的吗shouldn't we still say it's a bad consequence?
由此我们不是可以说And as a result of that, shouldn't we say that
无论结果在道德评判中的however far appeal to consequences goes
因为我们讨论的是道德问题bearing in mind that since we're talking about a moral point of view
所以我们要考虑we need to take into account
行为的后果对所有人造成的影响the consequences as they affect everybody.
因此死亡对他们来说是坏事and because of that dying then is bad for them.
但在我们后来的例子里But in the kinds of cases that we're thinking about,
有理由自杀的那些例子里cases where suicide would be rationally acceptable,
假如我告诉你If I were to tell you,
墙上有个开关"Oh, here's a switch on the wall.
只要你按动开关If you were to flip the switch,
一千个活着的人a thousand people who would otherwise be alive
会更好rather than later,
我们便可得出结论we're led to the conclusion that--