Immiment Death Question

[jamuko]

Kilroy has made this discussion really interesting.

I have to bring up, though - while you're right that we can't quantify the value of each life, you can't deny that the group of five people is more likely to have more arbitrary "value" than the one. It's not 100% of course, but still likely that there would be more loved ones affected by the death of those five, more potential accomplishments lost, etc. than there would be for the one. No matter how you define the "value" of a life, the chance is good that in a higher quantity there will be more "value".

You could be killing Gandhi over five men who were about to die the next day anyway, but the chances of that are slim.

I think to be perfectly honest my instincts would lead me to keep my hands off, subconsciously for the reasons you said, but I'm pretty sure I would still feel horrible for watching five people die and not doing anything about it when it was easy to do so. I don't think the guilt of forcing a man to die in place of the others would outweigh the guilt of allowing the five people to die before my eyes.


Edit: Of course in the scenario where it's more difficult to kill the one over the five, such as pushing a man onto the train tracks, I wouldn't be able to do it. But that's because I'm a pansy.