Trading lives and innocence/guilt

  • Thread starter Dissident Dan
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In summary: In both cases, you would switch the tracks. It is morally acceptable to save as many people as possible by changing the tracks.
  • #1
Dissident Dan
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Let's say that there are innocent people who are going to die if you don't do anything. You can save them, but it requires the killing of an innocent person. Is this ethically good or acceptable?

Now let's say that there is a terrorist holding people captive. If you don't rescue them, they will die. You can rescue them, but it requires killing the terrorist. Is this ethically good or acceptable?

Would your answer be the same under the belief of "free will" and under the belief of determinism? If yes, what would be different?

(In the above, you can replace die/killing with suffer severely/cause severe suffering...would that change your answers?)
 
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  • #2
I can kill the terrorist without hesitation...sacrificing one innocent for several would be much more difficult.
 
  • #3
first of i would not kill an innocent to save others. I would try to figure a way so that the innocent can be spared even if trying to think of a way get the others killed. See you kill the innocent to save others still make you a killer. But not being able to save the other innocents just makes you a failure. A failure i can live with.

But i would hurt an innocent if it fit my plans to tricking the terrorist that I'm on his side so i can get close enough to stop them. But after it's over i would do great apologies to the person i hurt and hope they understand the reason of my attack and accept if they don't forgive me.
 
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  • #4
Dissident Dan, I assume that your questions are purely philosophical, in that the situation can only turn out one of the two ways that you allow for, right?

Under that assumption...

Originally posted by Dissident Dan
Let's say that there are innocent people who are going to die if you don't do anything. You can save them, but it requires the killing of an innocent person. Is this ethically good or acceptable?

It is not acceptable to me, but that is a matter of personal opinion. You see, allowing others to die is different from killing a person directly. As THANOS said, I can live with failure, but not with being a killer.

Now let's say that there is a terrorist holding people captive. If you don't rescue them, they will die. You can rescue them, but it requires killing the terrorist. Is this ethically good or acceptable?

Again, I would not kill a terrorist, or anyone else. The terrorist is not "innocent", therefore it can be said to be "ethically good" to kill him to save innocents, but I could not do it.

Would your answer be the same under the belief of "free will" and under the belief of determinism? If yes, what would be different?
[/qote]

Don't you mean "If no, what would be different?"?

Anyway, "ethical goodness" doesn't really exist, in a world that is deterministic. You see, ethics are limiting factors on what we could, otherwise freely, choose to do. Limiting factors do not exist in a deterministic world, as discussed in previous threads.

(In the above, you can replace die/killing with suffer severely/cause severe suffering...would that change your answers?)

You know, if you'd asked me before, I would have changed my answer completely, and said "yes" to injuring an innocent person or a guilty person, severely, for the purpose of saving others...and this can probably be considered ethically correct...however, I still cannot do it.

I guess it's a matter of personal belief systems.
 
  • #5
What about the distinction of innocence and guilt? It a deterministic world, does such a distinction make sense? Should it make a moral difference in one's actions?
 
  • #6
Well with something as black and white as your example, it's an obvious choice. As the terrorist would kill the innocents, you loose more lives through your inaction then by taking action.

As Mentat said, if you're talking about sparing innocents by sacrificing one innocent, then it becomes more gray, but ultimately the goal would be the most lives saved, unless you're talking about sacrificing somone very important to you.

This was dicussed a few months ago.
 
  • #7
"Ethical Dilemma" => This is value theory!
 
  • #8
There is a very famous version of this ethical dilema. Its known as the Box Car Scenario.

http://philosophy.arts.unsw.edu.au/students/resources/lecture_notes/PHIL1008/PHIL1008Lecture%20Fiv.pdf [Broken]

Basically it goes:

CASE 1
There is a box car traveling down some tracks towards a crowd of people who don't know the boxcar is coming (lets say they are all unconscious and laying on the tracks...they will all die). Between the boxcar and the crowd is a fork in the tracks, and you standing near the lever that operates it can change the tracks so that the car doesn't hurt anyone. DO you flick the switch?

CASE 2
Same scenario, but this time there is a lone person on the side track. If you do nothing, many people will die (lets say 10), if you do something, 1 person will die. What do you do?

CASE 3
Same scenario as 2, except this time the one person is your mother. If you do nothing, 10 people will die, if you act, you will kill your mother. What do you do?

CASE 4
This time your mother is on the main track, and the crowd is on the side track. Do you flick the switch to save your mother, and kill the crowd?



This scenario is very well known in the philosophy world: It is basically the root ethical dilema scenario, setting up people to rationalise out the one for the good of many decision, making people deal with ethical responsibility in terms of action and in terms of inaction. Does inaction remove your responsibility? If you don't flick the switch in scenario two, are you ethical responsible for killing 10 people? Are you responsible for killing 10 people if you don't flick the switch in scenario 1? It also bring into the picture the influence of knowing people vs nameless faces... This is an important human condition.
 
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  • #9
I will save the most people even if it changes my destination. But the reason why i save the most people isnot because it's best to save more lives then one. But i want to find out who the hell gave me this sadistic choice and get revenge for innocent lives or my mothers (not that she isn't innocent) hehe. And the most chances of finding out who did it would be to ask a group questions instead of just one person. Now the question is what would i do to the guy if i found him? Justice by law or by me?
 
  • #10
You wouldn't save your own mother? (if you don't like your mother, then change the scenario for your father, your partner or your child...whatever is most appropriate)

If it was me, put any arbitrary number of people on a train track and i'd let them die before I let my mother die.

Besides, this situation isn't set up by some evil genius. Its just a horrific accident about to happen, and youa re standing besides the track, able to avert it or alter it. No one is to be blamed.
 
  • #11
Then why the hell would my mother be sleeping on the train track. And a group of people on the other side. Don't get me wrong i love my mother. If there's no evil genius behind everything and for some strange reason those choices came to me. I would not kill.
CASE 1: flip the switch and i kill no one.
CASE 2: do nothing and 10 people die. still no killing
CASE 3: do nothing and 10 people die. still no killing
CASE 4: do nothing and my mother dies. Sad but still no killing.

All those choices are tragic accidents excluding CASE 1 and none are intentionly killing. If you are aware that lives would be lost if you press the switch then you intentionally ran over them.
 
  • #12
So having the opportunity to save 9 peoples lives means nothing to you?

If 9 people were on the track, and none on the side track, I assume you would flick the switch. So why then do you not care about those 9 lives when the choice is complicated a little?

Wouldn't allowing the train to go ahead and kill 10 people, actually imply that you have actually put more importance on your own feeling of guilt than the amount of importance that you have put on 10 peoples lives? Would u admit that your own sense of self-innocence is more important than 10 lives?
 
  • #13
It's like asking me to murder people if i had the physics ability to see if these people were serial killers. I would not go back in time and kill Hitler before he had done anything wrong and would try not to hurt him if he had done wrong. So it's not really my innocence I'm protecting it's merely just what's truly right and truly wrong. It's the same meaning if i had caught a bomb with 10 people around me and the only place to throw it so we don't die is at 1 person. I would not throw it at the person and force him to sacrifice himself. But in that situation it would be best to take most of the blast by jumping on it. But on something as a train you wouldn't really have any last minute options to sacrifice yourself.
 
  • #14
Originally posted by THANOS
So it's not really my innocence I'm protecting it's merely just what's truly right and truly wrong.
So in the Box Car scenario, it is truley right that you should let 10 people die instead of saving them at the cost of 1?
 
  • #15
There over six billion people in this world, why should i resort to murder just to save nine more? Who am i to judge that one person is not worthy of living and avert the track so that they other can live. For all i know one of those nine people turn out to be a serial killer. or that one person i refuse to murder turns out to save millions. But of course it could be the other way around too. So i am not to judge who is worthy of living and who isn't and i am not to move the track and murder just to save more. It just doesn't justify it for me.
 
  • #16
isn't your inaction basically juging those 10 people unworthy of life?
 
  • #17
Those 10 people would have died if i wasn't at the buttons reach. But by averting the track that one person who would not have died ends up dead because of that action. If i could rock the box car to go off track to spare all of them i would but i will not kill someone who would have survived if no one was there to switch. You can not blame me for those deaths. But only reason why this is a complicated discussion is because the scenario isn't really realistic.
How about thise choice. You were going to meet someone with your mother and that someone is a saviour of some sort which you look up to. He saves many lives and still does and plans to save many more. An earthquake takes him and your mother down in some crack. You end up with holding them both in each hand. You can only handle one of them and can not help them both. what do you do?

Choice 1: Let go the man who is yet to save countless amount of lives and you can save your mother.
Choice 2: Let go your mother and save the man is will save countless amount of lives.
Choice 3: Fall down with them both while attempting to spare both of their lives.

Because theirs always a choice 3. Like the box car scenario if the switch changes the track then maybe you could time and and press the switch while it's in between track 1 and track 2 and make the box car miss both tracks. But the live lost remains a question because you wouldn't know where it will crash.
 
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  • #18
The point of the scenario isn't to be real: It is to set up black and white ethical dillemas. You are in a hard position with ethical consequences. What do you choose to do, and why do you choose it? It doesn't have to be realistic, it achieves its aim.

I have no problem with your choices, I was just probing them a little hoping you would think about them some more and be certain that that is what you would actually choose given the situation. If you feel better about not touching the switch, then that's fine: your choice. But where you say that you would let your mother be killed...I have trouble believing that actually put into the situation anyone would allow their mother to be killed over 10 strangers.

Think of it this way: If I could have sacrificed my mother and stopped september the 11th from happening (ie: Saving several thousand lives.) I would not have done it. As terrible a tradgedy it was, I don't know any of the people affected, it didn't affect me, and so I can deal with it. If my mother died on the other hand, I would be devastated for years to come.
 
  • #19
I see your point but my values are definitely differnt then yours. I value life whether good or bad morals are within that life. I also value choice and i chose not to resort to killing to prevent the loss of more lives. You value your mother higher then you value the act of murder as wrong. I value my beliefs of murder as wrong more then i value life. Life which inclues my mother and myself. But as i said there usually is another choice and i would definately seek it if i were really in that situation. But it may be too late and ten people will have to die for my failure to find that choice and not because i choose to kill them.
 
  • #20
OK then. I think we have resolution, and the scenario served it purpose. We now know something about your ethical view of the world, and something of my ethical view of the world.

nothing more can really be said.
 
  • #21
I think this scenario deals with more than just ethics - world view is also a factor.

I may believe that one life is worth 10 (I do) but add some details and the answer changes.

Lets say the ten people are CHristian (my faith so I use it) and the one person is not. My world view tells me the ten will be received into glory and the one to torment - it then makes more scence to me to spare the one in hopes of him attaining salvation with the remainder of his life.

What's your take?
 
  • #22
I guess so, but in the scenario you wouldn't know their faiths.More importantly though, your first comment: How could youpossibly rationalise how 1 life could be worth 10 lives?

If 1 life = 10 lives, then you are basically saying that you have 10 lives on one track, and 100 on the other track. What are you going to save?
 
  • #23
I think you are misunderstanding me.

I was just saying how I would, in this scenario, save the ten not the one. (except for the situation I mentioned in my post of course)
 
  • #24
oh, got ya. Sorry
 
  • #25
I tend to agree with Thanos. I don't think that I have much of a right to decide who lives and who dies.

I don't have the view that inaction=action.

Case 2 or 3:
If the car goes along its path, and it kills the ten, then that's what was bound to happen. On the other hand, I would be causing the death of someone who would otherwise not die if I pull the switch.

And to me, a determinist, the attribution of innocence or guilt seems to have little relevance. The only possibly relevant criterion would be how one's prediction of how the guilty/innocent person would act in the future. When deciding my actions, I realize that everything is predetermined, but I don't know what the future will be, just that it will be inevitable. So, I don't know what my actions will be. I have to think about them, so I adopt the convention as myself being the only free-willed actor (even though I really lack free will just as much as everybody else).

Also, sometimes I doubt my position on this because I don't think that that death is the worst thing that can happen to someone (although I fear it the most). If you replaced death in these scenarios with lifelong torture, then it would be a much graver situation. I think that how grave of an occurence you consider death to be will affect your decision regarding these scenarios.
 

1. What is the concept of "trading lives and innocence/guilt"?

The concept of "trading lives and innocence/guilt" refers to the ethical dilemma of sacrificing one person's innocence or guilt for the benefit of another. This can involve making difficult decisions that involve trading one person's life for another's, or choosing to protect one person's innocence at the cost of another's guilt.

2. Why is "trading lives and innocence/guilt" a controversial topic in science?

"Trading lives and innocence/guilt" is a controversial topic in science because it raises ethical concerns about the value of human life and the potential consequences of manipulating innocence and guilt. It also brings up questions about the role of science in making such decisions and the potential for bias or unequal treatment.

3. Can "trading lives and innocence/guilt" ever be justified in the pursuit of scientific progress?

This is a complex and highly debated question. Some argue that the potential benefits to society may justify sacrifices of individual lives or manipulation of innocence and guilt. Others argue that ethical principles and human rights should always take precedence over scientific progress.

4. How does the concept of "trading lives and innocence/guilt" relate to real-life situations?

The concept of "trading lives and innocence/guilt" can be seen in various real-life situations, such as medical research involving human subjects, criminal justice systems, and military decision-making. In each of these contexts, there may be instances where the sacrifice of one person's life or the manipulation of innocence and guilt is considered for the benefit of others.

5. What are some potential ethical implications of "trading lives and innocence/guilt" in scientific research?

Some of the potential ethical implications of "trading lives and innocence/guilt" in scientific research include the violation of human rights, unequal treatment of individuals based on factors such as race or socio-economic status, and the potential for unforeseen consequences or harm to individuals involved. It also raises questions about the responsibility of scientists and the need for ethical guidelines and oversight in research.

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