The dilemma of “Jim and the Indians”

[Multicolored Lemur]

Jim and the Indians

I spent the last ten days reading and marking a large number of essays for a course I’m teaching on the „philosophy of morality“. One of th...

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but it seems pretty good


“Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform.

“A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protestors of the advantages of not protesting.

“However, since Jim is an honoured visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off.

“Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of the sort is going to work: any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself.

“The men against the wall, and the other villagers understand the situation, and are obviously begging him to accept. What should he do?”

— this hypothetical situation is presented by Bernard Williams in the above book​

— — — — —

To me, the part at the end is the key “poker read.” The Captain probably will keep his end of the bargain.

The intent —

Well, the intent is that this is an argument against utilitarianism. That it's making the point that something matters besides just the numbers, I mean for crying out loud! But the numbers are certainly part of what matters.

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

If the Indians themselves aren't begging him to do it, you've got to engage in “table talk” just like at poker.

Ask a surrounding villager —

“What in the world did these guys do?”

“How often do they [the Army] do this?”

 

[Multicolored Lemur]

Too big an ask?

Bernard Williams gets at this by talking about integrity. You have hopes and dreams and ongoing personal relationships. You can't put all this aside because a group of strangers need your help.

But sometimes you've got to. In fact, Idsay people are generally okay with risking your life for the sake of others. Much than they are with sacrificing your life.

And this set-up is about sacrificing your moral whole-ness. And this is what makes it a dilemma and a downer of a situation.