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Old 03-27-2007, 04:50 PM   #21
Kilroy_x
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by GuidoHunter View Post
It's the consideration of who they are that's the issue. If you think, "Oh, well, they're bad people, so they should go," you're taking the law into your own hands and executing them because of their past.
I wouldn't be able to think this because I wouldn't know anything about the people in the issue outlined.

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If you throw the switch and doom the one guy, it's because you think, "I'm sorry, but I'm trying to save five people, here," you're weighing the consequences and trying to do the most good.
Human beings aren't capital to be exchanged in commerce, whatever your pretensions are.

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Vigilante justice is illegal. Killing a guy just because he was really bad and the law hadn't yet gotten him is still murder.
Killing a guy by legal means or by vigilante justice are essentially the same thing. There is no such thing as legitimate murder, and since pretensions to such are driven by the kind of cost benefit analysis made use of in this thread it doesn't really matter whether they're done by someone in a suit or someone in a mask. This is just a summary execution done by an individual who didn't need to make sure his ignorance was in step with the ignorance of society before acting on his instincts.

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The issue here is with saving lives. If you're only consideration is doing the most good, your actions aren't morally reprehensible. If, however, you consider who those people are, personally deem them worthy to die, and then let that happen, you're no longer trying to do the most good; you're trying to do the least evil. You're taking it upon yourself to kill someone instead of save them, and that's committing an evil act.
You still don't get it. It doesn't matter what my thought process is, it isn't until I take an action and commit myself to effecting reality in some way that I can be held accountable by that measure. I'm not killing anyone, I'm just letting the natural state of things persist. I'm letting them die.

The question is do I let some poeple die and another person live, or by taking action do I make one person die to buy the lives of a few others? The type of question that has been asked in this thread is in and of itself morally repugnant because it assumes first of all that human beings can be weighed in terms of value and secondly it suggests both in error and in extreme arrogance that you or I or anyone who is being asked the question is capable of making such calculations.


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So why did you suggest that you'd entertain doing just that were you given the choice?

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I didn't. Reread what I said.

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Old 03-27-2007, 05:02 PM   #22
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

I personally think most people in this world should die. Most people are undeserving of life (not trying to go Jigsaw on you) and this world would be a much better place with less people and less sin. I believe that this planet is not just ours, but should also belong to the billions of animals too. Right now this is a one race planet, and we're bastards for making it that way.

I'd probably let the people die, if I didn't know them.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:03 PM   #23
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

no **** it's repugnant, but you still have to make it. That's the whole point of the scenario. You must decide between the lives of 5 and the life of 1. You WILL be held responsible in either case, by the arbitrary nature of the scenario itself.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:06 PM   #24
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by tha Guardians View Post
I personally think most people in this world should die. Most people are undeserving of life (not trying to go Jigsaw on you) and this world would be a much better place with less people and less sin. I believe that this planet is not just ours, but should also belong to the billions of animals too. Right now this is a one race planet, and we're bastards for making it that way.

I'd probably let the people die, if I didn't know them.

That's pretty sadistic of you, and also highly questionable, but you're entitled to your thoughts and your thoughts do not make you guilty for the state of reality if you don't choose to act on them and effect it.

You wouldn't be guilty of anything except perhaps madness, something you are allowed.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:07 PM   #25
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by talisman View Post
no **** it's repugnant, but you still have to make it. That's the whole point of the scenario. You must decide between the lives of 5 and the life of 1. You WILL be held responsible in either case, by the arbitrary nature of the scenario itself.
Why do I have to make it? Why am I held responsible?

Ability to control does not neccessitate taking an action to control.

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Old 03-27-2007, 05:15 PM   #26
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by Kilroy_x View Post
Why do I have to make it? Why am I held responsible?

Ability to control does not neccessitate taking an action to control.
With great power comes great responsibility, to quote an OWDG (old white dead guy)
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:17 PM   #27
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

Consider a modified scenario.

You have a nuclear bomb. You can either drop it on a bustling city, or on a lonely hermit's hut. You're going to kill less people if you make the latter choice. You must drop the bomb. You can't say "Oh I'm not going to drop the bomb." Because the rules, which are absolute in this hypothetical universe, dictate that you must make the decision to drop the bomb somewhere. The bomb won't go off on it's own if you do nothing, and you're the only one who will be doing the deciding. There is literally no way for you not to choose the hermit or thousands of city denizens to die. It is completely inescapable, because I declare that it's completely inescapable, and I am creating the scenario and am an absolute authority. Now, where do you choose to drop it?
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:21 PM   #28
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by Kilroy_x View Post
How the hell did you come to that conclusion? By NOT taking any action I'm not responsible for the outcome of the situation either way. By Flipping the switch I'm responsible for PERSONALLY MURDERING ONE PERSON.
But you are also personally responsible for saving 4.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:27 PM   #29
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

talisman: I see what you did there. You're trying to force the people who previously argued against the common response to go with it in this exaggerated situation.

But that's what it is. An exaggerated situation. Sometimes quantitative changes can change responses.

I wonder if we are going to find anyone who wants to drop the bomb on the city instead of the hut.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:40 PM   #30
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by Chrissi View Post
With great power comes great responsibility, to quote an OWDG (old white dead guy)
The type of reasoning found in the quote is precisely what I take issue with. Why is it my responsibility? It certainly isn't simply because I have power, and it definitely isn't because what I'm doing is right.

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Originally Posted by talisman View Post
Consider a modified scenario.

You have a nuclear bomb. You can either drop it on a bustling city, or on a lonely hermit's hut. You're going to kill less people if you make the latter choice. You must drop the bomb. You can't say "Oh I'm not going to drop the bomb." Because the rules, which are absolute in this hypothetical universe, dictate that you must make the decision to drop the bomb somewhere. The bomb won't go off on it's own if you do nothing, and you're the only one who will be doing the deciding. There is literally no way for you not to choose the hermit or thousands of city denizens to die. It is completely inescapable, because I declare that it's completely inescapable, and I am creating the scenario and am an absolute authority. Now, where do you choose to drop it?
In this hypothetical scenario I am ontologically determined in such a way that makes my actions morally wrong no matter what. Because of this, this hypothetical scenario has absolutely no bearing on reality. Of course I would choose the hermit in such a situation, but I question whether the being that made this decision would actually resemble me in any measurable fashion.

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But you are also personally responsible for saving 4.
You can't just subtract one person from another as if it means anything. We aren't dealing with bars of gold or grains of rice, we're dealing with human beings, who are a good deal more complicated and who are entitled to individual sovereignty, and part of that implies not treating them as objects and not treating them all as just means to an end.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:41 PM   #31
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

no I just removed the inaction vs action "loophole" as it were.

the point of these kind of one vs many scenarios are to exist as a reference point for people's responses to other scenarios that involve different forms of decision making. The theory goes that it's relatively easy to choose one person to die rather than five, but relatively difficult to choose to become personally involved, say by pushing a really fat guy in the way of the train to stop it before it hit the five people.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:43 PM   #32
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

kilroy, these scenarios aren't supposed to have any bearings on reality. They exist as little tests psychologists and researchers interested in forms of decision making give to participants.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:44 PM   #33
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

I understand that, but people's responses in this type of scenario are driven by raw emotion rather than reason, and the questions themselves are phrased in a way that is very unreasonable. I would choose the "loophole", as you call it, because to attempt to act on the thought processes that these questions test would be absolutely and fundamentally incoherent.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:46 PM   #34
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

Well less emotion in the kind we've been discussing and more reason. It's a pretty clear cut rational choice to see that 1 < 5. Emotion comes into play in variants where you have to sacrifice, say, yourself, your children, your mother, whatever.
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:54 PM   #35
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

Not at all, because 1 isn't neccessarily greater than 5 when these numbers reference non-identical units of a property or set of properties. You have no clue what you're measuring, you're just relying on emotion to tell you of its existence and then patching in fallacious reasoning to take over from there. Hidden beneath the straightforward arithmatic is the assumption that human beings have some set of properties which when present in this world are "good", and it is these in turn firstly that we cannot measure, and secondly that we cannot weigh in the type of calculations that are being discussed.

It's also worth noting that any action in these scenarios violates the categorical imperative.


Anyways, I'm off to class. I'll pick this up later.

Last edited by Kilroy_x; 03-27-2007 at 05:58 PM.. Reason: Off to class
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Old 03-27-2007, 05:59 PM   #36
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

I'm with Kilroy 100% on this one, I don't think I would do anything either, because...darn it its too late to think, I need my beauty sleep.

Basically I would take no action because it would be the only thing I could do that would not be morally wrong. If I push the lever, I am in effect, killing somebody, however if I do nothing, I am just letting the natural order of things occur
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Old 03-27-2007, 06:42 PM   #37
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

i wouldnt pull the lever and i would shoot the guy alone on the platform ^_^ so then they are all dead and it wouldnt matter anyway
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Old 03-27-2007, 10:00 PM   #38
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Originally Posted by Kilroy_x View Post
You can't just subtract one person from another as if it means anything. We aren't dealing with bars of gold or grains of rice, we're dealing with human beings, who are a good deal more complicated and who are entitled to individual sovereignty, and part of that implies not treating them as objects and not treating them all as just means to an end.
Havnt you ever learned about any past wars. Even the war in iraq. Men are always treated as objects. People are just tools in the tens of thousands. We lost so and so thousand in this war and thousands in that war. Were those men ever recognized individually? What about that one guy that got shot in the head instantly as he steped off the boat on D-day.
It might sound a little sadistic but its true.
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Old 03-27-2007, 10:02 PM   #39
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

Deaths become simple statistics when the number killed cannot be either imagined or be personal to the person hearing about it. To a family who had a soldier killed, they care about all the deaths, but to the general population, it is just another death.

Hope that makes sense.
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Old 03-27-2007, 10:57 PM   #40
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Default Re: Immiment Death Question

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Havnt you ever learned about any past wars. Even the war in iraq. Men are always treated as objects. People are just tools in the tens of thousands. We lost so and so thousand in this war and thousands in that war. Were those men ever recognized individually? What about that one guy that got shot in the head instantly as he steped off the boat on D-day.
It might sound a little sadistic but its true.

What is done and what should be done, or even what is justifiably done or what makes sense to do, are all things very much dissassociated from one another. War is just one of many things that people do because they think in a perfunctory manner and trust their instincts to make up for their lack of understanding.
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