DOTD - Debate of The Day #52

Postado por Rankkor

From a pragmatic point of view: No. It boils down to simple cold mathematics, 1 life < 10 lives. However, a mathematician's answer, is a cold response to what is basically forfeiting lives, in doing this, we more or less deny what makes us human in the first place.

Also Mytie, I'm compelled to remind you that God himself already did this, sacrificing the life of one (his own son) to save the souls of the many.

I'm SO glad I haven't been ever in a position to have to make this kind of call, because in the end, I don't think I can pull off the cold mathematician's response to this sort of thing.

But when a disaster occurs, say a giant typhoon hits the area, there is only 1 team there, to your left there is 1 man drowning, to your right there's 2 men drowning, they are compelled to go to the right. Save the most lives as possible.

Of course that example isn't the most accurate, we're not actually "killing" one to save 2, we're letting 1 die to save 2.

Morally, its wrong to kill someone, specially someone innocent who did nothing to deserve death in the first place, doesn't matter if killing this someone will save multiple lives, from a moral point of view, its still wrong to kill him/her. Sadly, people who are in a position to do this, have to look at things from a pragmatic point of view.

Garrus said it awesomely on Mass Effect 3, I'll try to find the quote somewhere.

Postado por Squishalot

@ MyTie (and others more generally)

1) Does it change things if the person is willing to be sacrificed?

2) If the answer to (1) is 'no', then is putting yourself in front of a bullet to save loved ones wrong then?

3) If the answer to (1) is 'yes', then how does the moral right or wrong change in your eyes?

Postado por MyTie

God himself already did this

God is right in all of His actions. I assumed that the question was directed at the answerer. It is never right for me to kill 1 person to save 10.@ MyTie (and others more generally)

1) Does it change things if the person is willing to be sacrificed?

2) If the answer to (1) is 'no', then is putting yourself in front of a bullet to save loved ones wrong then?

3) If the answer to (1) is 'yes', then how does the moral right or wrong change in your eyes?

1 No
2 In this case, the one who shoots the bullet is the one doing the killing, not the one getting in front of it. Jesus said no love is greater than he who gives his life for his friends.

Postado por Rankkor

I really REALLY hate it that I type a 7000+ character response, I post it, and then for some reasons wowhead gives me an error, and the post is lost.

I had a reply for this, but since its lost and I'm too lazy to write it again, I'll do so tomorrow.

I will write the last bit of the post and its this:

I think this particular debate would had been more interesting if it was "Is it wrong to let 1 die to save 10?"

Because lets be honest, realistically speaking, we don't have almost any situation were we actually have to KILL someone to save several more. Most of the time (specially for rescue teams like firefighters) the decision is to let a few die to save a much larger group. And that's not the same as killing, not in the least.

Also, "Kill 1 to save 10" falls neatly into Black&White morality, which makes one sorta biased towards one side. "Let 1 die to save 10" is more Gray&Gray and its harder to determine which one is wrong or not.

Postado por Squishalot

God is right in all of His actions. I assumed that the question was directed at the answerer. It is never right for me to kill 1 person to save 10.

Wouldn't you say that's... hypocritical, somewhat? That argument takes away any sort of relationship between 'what God / Jesus' does and 'what is right'. Jesus said X, Y and Z - does that mean it's right for him, but not necessarily right for us?

In this case, the one who shoots the bullet is the one doing the killing, not the one getting in front of it. Jesus said no love is greater than he who gives his life for his friends.

Suppose it wasn't an intentional killing. Say, it was a lightning strike that caused a tree to collapse, and you have the option of pushing your loved ones out of the way and sacrificing yourself. You have still taken an action that results in the death of a person. Suicide vs sacrifice? If someone doesn't have the physical capability of taking action themselves, but is still willing to be sacrificed, why should they be denied (re: question 1)?

Postado por Rankkor

and squish a good example that you're trying to use would be this (And yes, I know medically speaking its VERY VERY UNLIKELY that this happens)

Say there's 3 terminal patients that need a certain organ to survive (a hearth, a liver, a kidney, ect)

And there's this 1 patient that has all 3, and for whatever reason, this patient actually WANTS to die to save these 3 people. If the patient is willing, is it wrong to let him die so that his organs can save all 3 of the other patients?

To further twist the knife, the donor isn't suffering any disease, or terrible life-threatening injury, he's perfectly healthy, and will live perfectly ok if his request is denied.

Postado por MyTie

Wouldn't you say that's... hypocritical, somewhat? That argument takes away any sort of relationship between 'what God / Jesus' does and 'what is right'. Jesus said X, Y and Z - does that mean it's right for him, but not necessarily right for us? It would be hypocritical if God were just human, like us. However, God has omnipotence and omnipresence. He has the ability to judge everything from a perfect moral standpoint. I cannot. That is why God can make those decisions and I cannot. Similarly, we vote in elections but tell 4 year olds they can't. Why? Is that hypocritical.Suppose it wasn't an intentional killing. Say, it was a lightning strike that caused a tree to collapse, and you have the option of pushing your loved ones out of the way and sacrificing yourself. You have still taken an action that results in the death of a person. Suicide vs sacrifice? If someone doesn't have the physical capability of taking action themselves, but is still willing to be sacrificed, why should they be denied (re: question 1)?

I see. The act of taking another human life and taking your own life are not morally equivalent.

Postado por Squishalot

It would be hypocritical if God were just human, like us. However, God has omnipotence and omnipresence. He has the ability to judge everything from a perfect moral standpoint. I cannot. That is why God can make those decisions and I cannot.

I hear what you're saying, but my point is - doesn't that take away from our desire to emulate Jesus's good deeds, because we cannot know if they are actually morally right, or whether it's simply right for Him, and not for us?

Edit: I'm not sure where the whole WWJD (what would Jesus do?) thing came from, but presumably, if what Jesus does may not be morally right for us, surely that means that we can't use that as a guiding rule for our own actions.

I see. The act of taking another human life and taking your own life are not morally equivalent.

Even if they want to take their own life, and you would only be assisting in their desire? Not trying to argue, just ensuring I understand your position.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##Squishalot##DELIM##

Postado por MyTie

I hear what you're saying, but my point is - doesn't that take away from our desire to emulate Jesus's good deeds, because we cannot know if they are actually morally right, or whether it's simply right for Him, and not for us?Jesus was the human aspect of God. His actions are for us to emulate as closely as possible. God the Father is not.Even if they want to take their own life, and you would only be assisting in their desire? Not trying to argue, just ensuring I understand your position.

Assisting in the taking of a willing life may not be morally equivalent to flat out murder, but it still isn't right.

Postado por Interest

I swear I've heard a question like this before, but I think it varies by situation.

Postado por yukonjack

I swear I've heard a question like this before, but I think it varies by situation.

Does it ever!

For example is the one person to be killed Adolph Hitler and the ones to be saved all his innocent victims? Or is the one to be killed a newborn mere minutes after birth, and the ones to be saved murderers and molesters of children.

Postado por gamerunknown

I swear I've heard a question like this before, but I think it varies by situation.

The trolley problem and other ethical dilemmas frequently ask similar questions. The issue with them is their lack of ecological validity: they're subject to socially desirable answers (where you know what the right answer is, so you say you'll do something regardless of your intention) and other lack of applicability such as physical impossibility (a trolley that'd be stopped by one fat man - that one could lift - but not by four regular people).

I think this applies in this scenario. I'd love to say I'd willingly give my life to save another, but I've been in the situation where I could have risked my life to save someone who was potentially about to commit suicide and I didn't. I happened to be drunk, which increased the risk for both of us and I had no real way of being certain he was about to jump onto the tracks. Another guy grabbed the arm of the potentially suicidal man and they both walked back towards the wall of the platform.

A scenario where I have the option to kill (but not wound or otherwise hamper) someone with absolute certainty that people would die otherwise seems absolutely foreign to me - lack of ecological validity again. However, I have a moral system based on three precepts. The first is Utilitarianism: everyone should strive towards the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The second is consent: people should seek the consent of others, or we'd have issues like killing one healthy person for the organs of several unhealthy people. Since we operate on assumptions, we cannot state that such a society would be better for the preponderance of people. In fact, we can reasonably predict that a society based on such a principle would collapse. Finally, we have the social contract. We do not need to seek the consent of each individual person for taxation or imprisonment, for instance. In this scenario, killing someone would be in harmony with the first moral principle, but not the second. If it were generally true (there were a class of people that'd cause the deaths of ten others if not wiped out, leading to the extirpation of society), then it could be permissible to kill them under the social contract despite their lack of consent. As I said though, very little ecological validity, so no way of accurately predicting behaviour when confronted with a real event.

Postado por 164232

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Postado por 134377

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Postado por 164232

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Postado por FatalHeaven

#47: Does the death penalty work as intended?

To further my point so people understand: I do NOT mean does it work as intended in that those who are put on death row die. What I mean is, does it lower crime? Does the threat of being put to the death for extremely heinous crimes in fact lower crime rates?

Postado por 164232

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Postado por Squishalot

Postado por Orranis

History has shown otherwise. When considering crimes so serious they would involve the death penalty, or even any serious amount of prison time, the severity of the punishment will no longer work as a deterrent as the perpetrators assume that there only real option is not to get caught.

I also believe that the death penalty is immoral from my philosophical point of view, as well as counter-productive to how punishment is supposed to work psychologically.

Postado por woohaa

I do NOT mean does it work as intended in that those who are put on death row die.

Just a question on that note, albeit off-topic, why is it that people who put on death row aren't executed relatively speedily? Surely that's inhumane in some way, to have a death sentence hanging over your head with no knowledge of when it will occur?

On topic, I don't see the death penalty as being terribly different from life imprisonment.

to answer your question - inmates who are put on death row have 10 years to appeal their sentence. This is to ensure that all available resources or routes of appeal or even new evidence has been exhausted before the inmate is put to death. However, it doesn't mean the system is perfect. i'm sure there are innocent people in death row but that is the reasoning behind the time frame.

DOTD - Debate of The Day #52

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