A Hypothetical
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Shaper
Member # 73
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written Monday, November 8 2004 12:26
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Okay, Stug. Let's say you were around when Hitler was campaigning to take over Germany. You have a gun, and you are standing next to Hitler. Somehow, you know that if he lives, millions of innocent people will die. Could you honestly walk away guilt-free if you didn't kill him, knowing that walking away means the deaths of millions of innocent people? I simply do not understand your logic. Oh, and no to both hypothetical situations. [ Monday, November 08, 2004 12:27: Message edited by: The Almighty Doer of Stuff ] -------------------- The Lyceum - The Headquarters of the Blades designing community The Louvre - The Blades of Avernum graphics database Alexandria - The Blades of Exile Scenario database BoE Webring - Self explanatory Polaris - Free porn here Odd Todd - Fun for the unemployed (and everyone else too) Famous Last Words - A local pop-punk band They Might Be Giants - Four websites for one of the greatest bands in existance -------------------- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Posts: 2957 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Monday, November 8 2004 12:28
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Let's work with the assumption that one doubles one's net worth or gets an indeterminately large but significant chunk of money, whichever is greater. I think I'd do it. I'm misanthropic enough to believe that the person who dies probably wasn't all that significant anyway and I'm not exactly going to be wracked by guilt if I have no idea who died because of me. I would try to do worthwhile things with the money I got, but in the end, it's still a selfish decision. However, as Thuryl points out, every time we have a good meal, we could instead be having a meal that leaves us hungry and donating a few dollars or just cents to starving people. I don't know about you, but I don't do that. Rationally, I'd say that it's probably a hard-wired biological imperative to get ahead at the expense of others to propagate one's genes, but it doesn't really matter why, does it? [Edit: Upon further reflection, I'm no longer sure. It may well be part of my hatred of all humankind that makes me think that I could cheerfully do away with a stranger, but I don't know. If someone actually made the offer, I'm not so sure I could actually take it.] —Alorael, who considers this part of his misanthropy. He has a strong feeling that he'd dislike himself a lot if he had to look at himself from an outside perspective. Maybe not as much as he dislikes some people, but he'd definitely fail to make his own mensch list. [ Monday, November 08, 2004 12:31: Message edited by: Akashic Correction Fluid ] Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 3521
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written Monday, November 8 2004 13:05
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ADoS, the classic "kill one person to save a thousand people" moral quandary includes the statement that all those involved in the situation are innocent. If a man planned to kill a thousand people and would do so unless his life was ended, I would certainly be willing to kill that man. In situations involving the need to sacrifice one innocent human for a thousand others, however, I would refuse to kill. Believing that a thousand innocent lives are worth more than a single one is tantamount to equating human lives with apples, or two-by-fours. It's faulty, dangerous thinking. [ Monday, November 08, 2004 13:06: Message edited by: A Cool Half Million ] -------------------- Stughalf "Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed."- The Bhagavad Gita. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
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Infiltrator
Member # 3040
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written Monday, November 8 2004 13:12
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From The Third Man: quote:I think I'd have to erase the dots -- If I never know them personally, or the consequences of their deaths, what does it matter to me? Everyone lives and dies. All I see directly is that I benefit personally. -------------------- 5.0.1.0.0.0.0.1.0... Posts: 508 | Registered: Thursday, May 29 2003 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2476
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written Monday, November 8 2004 13:29
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quote:I'm relatively sure that you couldn't, Alorael. You wouldn't like the feeling. Nor would I. -------------------- Polaris Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Monday, November 8 2004 17:11
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I would be cold-blooded enough to do either, if I thought that it was the right thing to do, or at least that there was nothing wrong with it. But I don't, so I wouldn't. I'd kill Hitler. I don't think I would kill an innocent man to save a hundred others. Depends. I would, however, allow myself to be killed to save them. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4942
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written Monday, November 8 2004 17:42
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Here is something interesting I thought when reading this thread. Stug, I am assuming you are Indian, Ghandi, not Sitting Bull (like myself). Judging not only from your pictures, but from your signature, which quotes the Bhagavad Gita, the "lecture" (for lack of a better word) Krishna gave to Arjuna before the battle with the Kurus. (If anyone is wondering, this is all from the Mahabharata [sp?]) Arjuna was torn inside because he was about to wage war with his cousins. All 100 of them. He thought to himself, "how can I kill my own cousins? Isn't that a cruel and mean, to kill your own kin?" Krishna proceeded to explain that if he didn't fight the Kurus, the kingdom would fall into further chaos and ruin. He told Arjuna that this battle was inevitable, and all other options had failed. He explained that he must kill - but without any emotion. Without hate, or regret, or hesitation, or even glee and happiness. He would just kill - that's it. Accept everything for what it was, and let his cousins' deaths come and go. This can loosely be applied to this topic. I thought it was interesting when Stug's sig caught my eye. As for myself, I don't think I could take a bunch of money, and enhance my wealth knowing that doing so would directly kill some stranger. I really agree with Alo, I couldn't have the guts to kill a stranger, even if I was high on Skribbane and sniping from a dark building. -------------------- Wham Bam Shizam Posts: 247 | Registered: Monday, September 6 2004 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2476
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written Monday, November 8 2004 21:04
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Sorry, but this is not, what the Gita is about. Your 'cousin and kin' is everything you feel attached to, that is binding you to the egoic self, bonding and trapping you to its limitations. Love cannot flow unhindered, as long as you feel attached, because Love is free from need, is Self-sufficient and Self-fulfilling and does not cling to anything. The definition of 'Love' and 'Self' is different here from what you are used to, though it comes close to Christ's message, when he says, that you should 'leave father and mother' and follow 'Him'. -------------------- Polaris Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Monday, November 8 2004 21:27
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I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2476
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written Monday, November 8 2004 22:11
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quote:Oppenheimer's quote? It is not Arjuna, it is Vishnu, the Lord of Life himself who says that while taking on the appropiate multi-armed form. It's what I used to call 'God's dark face' when I was young, wondering why Christianity had blended it out and split from it. Birth and death are truly the two sides of one coin, or isn't the 'birth' of the toddler the 'death' of the babe? But we are not Lord of Life, and if we try to be, destruction will more often be the outcome than not. -------------------- Polaris Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Monday, November 8 2004 23:10
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You know, to me the most interesting thing about this topic is that more people answered "yes" to my second question than to my first. Does that prove that we're all just self-interested cowards who will do just about anything as long as the blood doesn't end up on our own hands? -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 3310
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written Monday, November 8 2004 23:43
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Stug: You fail at math if you think one life is worth no less than a thousand lives. Why couldn't lives be compared to apples? Anything can be compared, as long as you have the same stuff on both sides of the scale. Apples, souls, whatever. You are responsible for what you don't do, as well as for what you do. Would you really lower your gun and kill a thousand? It would be your fault, make no mistake. One could take the scenario to the extrem. What if you could, by killing one innocent man, save all other humans on Earth from instant death (no, lets make that slow, painful death just to test the limits of your ethics). Would you still hesitate? It all about numbers, why don't you all realize it? Screw values and ethical choices, in the end it all comes down to cold facts and logical reasoning. Mathematics. You would all kill innocent people with your bare hands, if that would be required. -------------------- ahhahaha i rule u droool Posts: 756 | Registered: Monday, August 4 2003 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2476
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 00:16
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It is observable, Weedy, that if you value yourself - and mind, I speak of value here, not of greedy and needy desires -, so if you value yourself, truly value what you are, you also value others. That is easily explainable, as whatever you are conscious of within yourself, you will also recognize in others. -------------------- Polaris Posts: 1828 | Registered: Saturday, January 11 2003 08:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 3870
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 01:06
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You cannot mathematically define the value of one life as "1", and the value of a thousand lives as "1000". Once you compare the value of people, you will also fall into the trap of evaluating the persons involved. Now, earlier, it was said that it would be right to kill Hitler, to save thousands of people. I know there are still thousands of people who think like Hitler, who would go on to do the same were they given the opportunity. Now imagine there is one person, a person who might cure cancer (just to make it more extreme), whose death would prevent the death of one neo-Nazi. Is his life worth more than the other's? If the answer is yes, it can become a slippery slope - eg. the life of one Christian vs. one Muslim, one Fundamentalist vs. one Atheist, one pro-choicer vs. one pro-lifer, one Republican vs. one Democrat. Once you discriminate between these, the system has obviously failed. So where do you draw the line between objective value, and subjective value? -------------------- "Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it." ---Thomas Paine Posts: 156 | Registered: Thursday, January 8 2004 08:00 |
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Lifecrafter
Member # 3310
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 01:28
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mef: I don't quite understand what you're talking about. Puppet Account: As Stughalf ( and I) said, we are talking about totally equal people. Would you kill 1 innocent person to save 1000 just as innocent ones? The point is that they are all equal, in every way. Hypotethical of course, but that's what this is all about. -------------------- ahhahaha i rule u droool Posts: 756 | Registered: Monday, August 4 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 04:01
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I think the argument is that the fallacy lies in assuming that a life can be assigned a value at all; that in a sense saying that a life has a value rather than saying that it has value devalues life. Alternatively, one could say that life has infinite value and that since 1000 times infinity isn't a bigger number than infinity itself, there's no reason to prefer the 1000 over the one. On the other hand, one could also reject your bald assertion that right behaviour is a matter of calculation, and counter that it involves adhering to a set of principles -- and that to not murder is a more important principle, in and of itself, than to preserve life. Not that I necessarily agree with any of these positions, of course. [ Tuesday, November 09, 2004 04:05: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 04:19
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Not that I care in the slightest about ethics, but how about this: You use a time machine (which will magically erase the paradox of using it- let's disregard the space-time continuum for a bit) to show up when Gorzax, a dictator who has already killed 99.5% of the world population and will come after you and your family within the week, is rising to power. Instead, you wind up in his nursery. If you let Gorzax live, you and your family as well as the rest of the world will all die. Kill him or not? -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 3870
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 06:05
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How about waiting in the past for perhaps a couple of years so you'll be less queasy about it? :P Of course that applies only if this Gorzax fellow isn't highly guarded all the time and this isn't your only chance. Otherwise, in the time machine case, I'd say yes. You know what's going to happen, you've seen it. Under any other circumstances (ie if you're just guessing what will happen in the future), no. Well, this is saying that it'd be right to do so; not that I'd personally be able to. -------------------- "Toleration is not the opposite of intoleration, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, and the other of granting it." ---Thomas Paine Posts: 156 | Registered: Thursday, January 8 2004 08:00 |
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This Side Towards Enemy
Member # 3098
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 09:03
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Moral calculus is inherently dodgy, since you can't give the value of a life exactly. I don't believe that assigning life an arbitrary value demeans it however. As far as I'm concerned, it's a collection of organic cells. It may achieve great things as this bundle of organic cells, but that does not change what it essentially is. I can't sympathise with Stug's statement that whilst he would kill a man who planned to killed a thousand others, he would not kill one innocent man if it saved a thousand. To me the death of 1000 through inaction is no better, it may even be worse, than the death of 1000 due to action. I'd kill him in a blink of an eye. One can argue that that man might cure cancer. Sure. He might. So might any of that thousand who would live thanks to your action. It's hard to tell. Yes, I might be more dubious if the one man was a Nobel prize-winning biologist and his research on cancer was reaching a crucial stage, but he had somehow not got round to writing out his notes. But in general, since I can't know, I wouldn't worry. Puppet: I know it makes me immoral, but I'm quite prepared to discriminate between people based on their views. I don't believe I'm right to do so and I don't believe people deserve to die as a result of their beliefs. But as a private citizen, if I had the choice of killing one of two people, functionally identical except that one holds views I think hateful and the other views I have a lot of time for, I know who I'd choose to kill. Then again, I have no moral objection to murder if one can be almost certain it will do more good than harm. (Since it's a complicated issue working the above out, I'd have difficulty justifying killing on a large scale, because one simply cannot tell. Even if it seems the results would be good, killing millions tends to have a detrimental affect on the society in which they resided.) The only things that stop me killing for the betterment of humanity are a remnant of my previous liberal morality and a hefty dose of cowardice. Gorzax will still grow up to kill, whether he is a young adult or a toddler (disregarding the nature of causality and the like.) Toddlers are less well guarded and easier to kill than firebrand extremist political leader. Just because it's small, doesn't mean you should let irrational sympathy swamp reason. [ Tuesday, November 09, 2004 09:05: Message edited by: Love the Sin, Hate the Sinner ] -------------------- Voice of Reasonable Morality Posts: 961 | Registered: Thursday, June 12 2003 07:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 22
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 10:10
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As I see it, the only way that you can not judge the value of life is by saying that two lives are superior to one. You can say one of three things about this - one life is superior to two lives, two lives are superior to one life, or two lives are equal to one life. If you go with the latter, as I tend to think that Stuggie would, you are therefore saying that one of the lives in the two life bracket is half the value of the second one life. Also, on the cure for cancer argument, we can only rely on statistics to answer this. While the life you end may come up with the cure for cancer, the lives that you are damning through inaction are one thousand times more likely to come up with the cure for cancer. To me, there's no dilemma. A more interesting example would be, do you kill one good person to save a thousand evil people? Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
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By Committee
Member # 4233
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 10:46
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But what is evil? It's all relative to the mores of your society. Posts: 2242 | Registered: Saturday, April 10 2004 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 3521
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 11:39
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The idea of judging the value of a man's life based on his views, or even his contributions to society, is something I find rather abhorrent. My opposition to the concept of judging value of life by utility to society is also my reasoning for supporting animal rights. Once a man becomes a danger to the lives of those around him, thus expressing his disrespect for the sanctity of life, I support immediate incarceration, but not capital punishment. In cases where capturing the dangerous individual is an impossibility, I would condone murder. Killing in self-defense is also permissible. In the case of Gorzax the future dictator, I would not hesitate to kill. I'm no sentimental waste of air; I just have a great respect for life, which I count as being a fundamentally good attribute. As for Morgan's argument, I still cannot agree. I think Thuryl articulated my argument best when he mentioned the fallacy in assigning a finite value to life. Life has infinite value in my mind. There's no need to "judge." -------------------- Stughalf "Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed."- The Bhagavad Gita. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 12:51
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I'm laughing not at the responses, but merely at Gorzax 'cuz Gorzax is an obnoxious name. Sorry. ¬_¬ Saunders: this scenario assumes that you get hurled back to your time after ~10 seconds. Now let's assume also that Gorzax has a step-brother named Joe in clear shooting range. He's 5 years old, and is eventually executed for being too nice. He's an angel. Unfortunately, the gunshot from killing Gorzax startled Joe into stumbling backwards towards a giant, conveniently placed "blow up 10% of world" button. The child won't be able to avoid the button in his own power, but a bullet would certainly take him out of the way... (Keep in mind- the 10% of the world destroyed may include you!) -------------------- 人 た ち を 燃 え る た め に 俺 は か れ ら に 火 を 上 げ る か ら 死 ん だ Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 3521
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 13:17
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No. I wouldn't do it. -------------------- Stughalf "Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed."- The Bhagavad Gita. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 2984
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written Tuesday, November 9 2004 13:27
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That's a trickier one. But I assume that, while the objective earlier was such that you *had* to kill Gorzax, in this case you only have to throw him out of the way or fell the guy somehow. Unless what you're shooting with is a grenade launcher, you could always shoot him in the foot or whatever. He'll be lame, but he and 10% of the world will survive. If shooting him in the foot won't stop him from falling onto the button, I doubt killing him will. He doesn't dissolve when he's dead, so he'll still hit the button. Unless of course you meant that "angel" bit literally, in which killing him won't be that bad, seeing as he's probably immortal. -------------------- The Encyclopaedia Ermariana <-- Now a Wiki! "Polaris leers down from the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey." --- HP Lovecraft. "I single Aran out due to his nasty temperament, and his superior intellect." --- SupaNik Posts: 8752 | Registered: Wednesday, May 14 2003 07:00 |