Common sense is something which you
think you know to be true but that may not
actually be true.
A perfect example of how common sense can fail is by asking someone the question: "Which weighs more, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers?" Common sense tells you that a brick weighs more than a feather and can thus lead you to incorrectly say the ton of bricks weighs more. Most people realize this though and answer the question correctly. The realization that both are the same weight comes about by applying rational thought to the question, not common sense.
Common sense is in fact, our very entry into being a thinking thing. "Does this new idea I have, fit into the everyday world as I know it, and if not, why not".
Common sense is the equivalent of an introductory course to logic and reason. It does play a role in guiding an individual through everyday life but it isn't a legitimate substitute for rational or logical thought. An individual who considers common sense "good enough" has arrested their own development in the area of critical thinking. Instead of asking "Why not?" to the above question, such people answer, "Who cares?" Rather than thinking about the contradiction for the purpose resolving it, they simply choose to ignore it.
Common sense is often confused with
rational thought, being that people often believe common sense
must be true and act incredulously to rational or scientific ideals that contradict common sense.
It's 'common sense' to you that everyone would choose to sacrifice the life of one individual to save many but that's not rational. For example, if we flipped your example and made it a choice between allowing the train to kill a bus full of convicted felons or switch the track to intentionally murder one little girl skipping down the other line, it's likely your 'common sense' would no longer consider it "moral" to murder the one to save the many. Now common sense is telling you that it's "moral" to allow the many to die rather than murder the one. Am I wrong? Would you still choose to intentionally murder the one little girl to save the bus full of convicted felons?
Another example would be to place two buses on the tracks, a school bus filled with children and a prisoner transport bus filled with an equal number of convicts. If you do nothing, a tragic accident occurs and kills the children. If you change the tracks, you are choosing to intentionally murder the convicts. Which will you choose? I already know the answer: You'd choose to murder the convicts!
Common sense is telling you, via confirmation bias, that their lives are not as valuable as those of the school children. So how many convicts would you intentionally murder to save that one bus full of kids? A hundred? A thousand? A million? Is there any number of convicted felons great enough that you would choose to let the children die a horrible death? Given your "Common Sense - Morality", I don't believe you would ever choose to allow the children to die instead of intentionally murdering an infinite number of convicts...
That's what the new thread I posted is all about. Without even realizing it, you place your own subjective values on the lives and rights of other individuals. You value the lives of innocent poor people above the lives of convicted felons. My proposal of mass murder would not only save but greatly improve the lives of countless numbers of children and poor people. If you're willing to intentionally murder a potentially infinite number of felons to save the life of that one little girl, what possible "moral" objection could you have to intentionally murdering the nations felons to accomplish an even "greater good" than that of simply saving the life of a single child? None that I've seen or expect to see.
That's why it's called the Morality of Reason. It's the purposeful application of logic and reason to the concept of morality. Your "morality" rejects logic and reason as too inflexible, and it's true, they are inflexible, but that's precisely why they are the only means of establishing a morality that is free of contradictions. Your "morality" is replete with contradictions, it both
is and
is not moral to murder people is just one such example.
Such statements do more to support the Morality of Reason than your own. Reason requires thought, common sense does not. You look to emotions as a guide while I rely on rational thought. Whatever you
feel is the right course of action, you consider moral. As if your emotions can somehow impart a temporary omnipotence that allows you the ability to instinctively
know the difference between right and wrong -
without actually having to think about it.
Mine requires a great deal of rational and logical thought. Yours could not be any simpler, don't think... Just feel and let your emotions guide your actions. If you
feel you did the right thing, then tell yourself it was the right choice without ever actually thinking about it. When you can't simply ignore it, like when I ask you to explain it, you have no choice but to resort to the use of rational and/or logical fallacies (like using Rationalization, which, despite it's name, is not rational, it's the act of using fallacious reasoning to explain a contradiction).
Your examples rely on Rationalization, which means fallacious reasoning. The use of such fallacies does not and cannot prove that I'm incorrect, it only proves that you've abandoned reason and logic as the means by which you determine right from wrong.
The Morality of Reason is based on the application of reason and logic to the concept of morality, not "one short sentence from Ayn Rand". If there is "one short sentence" that serves as the root of morality, Rand didn't state it, Aristotle did: A is A - A thing is itself.
That's the law of identity, existence exists and the purpose of having a morality is so that individuals can act in accordance with reality. Failure to act in accordance with reality leads to bad results, consistently failing to act in accordance with reality will lead to death. We must deal with reality - as it exists - not as we
wish it existed, or
feel it should exist but as we
know it exists. This knowledge isn't automatic, it can't come from emotions or feelings, it isn't imparted to us by mystical means, it isn't instinctual, we have to earn it, which means we have to work to achieve it. Working to obtain knowledge means we have to use the inflexible rules of reason and logic to discover it - that is the only way to learn what is
true and
know it.