Moral Dilemma #128

[Digital Planets]

From Fyre's Anatomy of Criticism:

Such an outline would give a rational account of the structure of Western music from 1600 to 1900, and, in a qualified and more flexible but not essentially different form, of everything that the user of the book would be accustomed to call music... Someone might object that the system of equal temperament, in which C# and Db are the same note, is an arbitrary fiction. Another might object that a composer ought not to be tied down to so rigidly conventionalized a set of musical elements, and that the resources of expression in music ought to be as free as the air. A third might object that we are not talking about music at all: that while the Jupiter Symphony is in C major and Beethoven's Fifth is in C minor, explaining the difference between the two keys will give nobody any real notion of the difference between the two symphonies.
All these objectors could be quite safely ignored. Our handbook would not give the reader a complete musical education, nor would it give an account of music as it exists in the mind of God or the practice of angels but it would do for its purposes.

That is to say, much like the allegory of the cave, the situation is irrelevant and unlikely to ever legitimately occur and can be disregarded.

Hmm.

No, it must happen. I will kidnap coerce five random people to train tracks, tie them down then take someone I know and tie them down.

[Threlizdun]

I would kill the five to save a loved one. It wouldn't be the correct thing to do, but I'm a situation such as that I would not have time to think over ethics, and would go with the immediate reaction to save the one I loved and cared for. Even if I had infinite time to decide though, I doubt I would have the strength to do what was morally correct.

[Digital Planets]

I would kill the five to save a loved one. It wouldn't be the correct thing to do, but I'm a situation such as that I would not have time to think over ethics, and would go with the immediate reaction to save the one I loved and cared for. Even if I had infinite time to decide though, I doubt I would have the strength to do what was morally correct.

Sure it'd be the correct thing to do, you're killing people you don't know, so frankly, why bother with caring about them?

[Chestaan]

From Fyre's Anatomy of Criticism:

Such an outline would give a rational account of the structure of Western music from 1600 to 1900, and, in a qualified and more flexible but not essentially different form, of everything that the user of the book would be accustomed to call music... Someone might object that the system of equal temperament, in which C# and Db are the same note, is an arbitrary fiction. Another might object that a composer ought not to be tied down to so rigidly conventionalized a set of musical elements, and that the resources of expression in music ought to be as free as the air. A third might object that we are not talking about music at all: that while the Jupiter Symphony is in C major and Beethoven's Fifth is in C minor, explaining the difference between the two keys will give nobody any real notion of the difference between the two symphonies.
All these objectors could be quite safely ignored. Our handbook would not give the reader a complete musical education, nor would it give an account of music as it exists in the mind of God or the practice of angels but it would do for its purposes.

That is to say, much like the allegory of the cave, the situation is irrelevant and unlikely to ever legitimately occur and can be disregarded.

Examining hypothetical situations helps us to understand the nature of morality. In this case, we are testing if most people are utilitarians.

[Alyakia]

you're killing people you don't know, so frankly, why bother with caring about them?

i hate to go all godwin on you but

[Digital Planets]

you're killing people you don't know, so frankly, why bother with caring about them?

i hate to go all godwin on you but

If you're about to refer to Godwin's Law, this is the wrong thread.

[Espresso and Insanity]

I would kill the five to save a loved one. It wouldn't be the correct thing to do, but I'm a situation such as that I would not have time to think over ethics, and would go with the immediate reaction to save the one I loved and cared for. Even if I had infinite time to decide though, I doubt I would have the strength to do what was morally correct.

Sure it'd be the correct thing to do, you're killing people you don't know, so frankly, why bother with caring about them?

Jesus, that's morbid.

[Alyakia]

i hate to go all godwin on you but

If you're about to refer to Godwin's Law, this is the wrong thread.

i'm ust extending the moral principle of "why bother caring about killing people you don't know" to other scenarios (it ends badly, if you were wondering)

[Digital Planets]

Sure it'd be the correct thing to do, you're killing people you don't know, so frankly, why bother with caring about them?

Jesus, that's morbid.

There's nothing morbid about watching some people that you don't know die from a few hundred-tons train.

[Infected Mushroom]

Say you were in control of the direction that a train was going. A split in the track is coming up, and you have two choices. In one direction, 5 people that you don't know are tied down onto the track. In the other direction, a person you are extremely close with is tied down on that track.

Which direction do you choose?

If you chose to save the five people, what if the track you chose had two or three loved ones? If you chose to saved the loved one, what if the number of people that you had to run over in order to save him/her was 10 or 20?

****also no witty loopholes please, you cannot derail or stop the train to avoid the situation. You are in control of the direction, not the engine/track. Everyone is tied down in such a way that they will die if you choose their direction.

I have been considering this for a while and I'm having a tough time deciding.

Don't you mean "the track you didn't choose to save" in the middle part and not "the track you chose" in the first part of the bolded part?

[Infected Mushroom]

I'm saving the track with my loved ones regardless of how many others have to die.

Like Jaime Lannister, I would do anything to save the ones I love. The same doesn't apply to everyone else.

For me this is really straightforward. My brother and mother will not go down for a few dozen strangers.

[Digital Planets]

I'm saving the track with my loved ones regardless of how many others have to die.

Like Jaime Lannister Digital Planets, I would do anything to save the ones I love. The same doesn't apply to everyone else.

For me this is really straightforward. My brother and mother will not go down for a few dozen strangers.

Fixed that for you.

[Infected Mushroom]

You watched the morality of murder discussions didn't you?

I forgot where I got this from, but it's from something recent.

So are we like Spiderman and the train is like Green Goblin?

[Neutraligon]

In all honestly would probably not act in time due to trying to make the choice, thus the train would kill whichever person/people where on the tract the train was already on.

I have one if I may.

Say you are in charge of a hospital in the middle of a disaster zone. You have 600 staff and 200 critically ill people you are taking care of.
Monday morning, the electricity and water goes off, the temperatures rise to 100 F
Tuesday, the sewage system backs up, and the few helicopters that were getting patients out stop coming.
Wednesday, the backup generators that kicked in Monday go out. So now you have no running water, no electricity. The elevators don't move and stairwells are black. You managed to get 100 critically ill patients out, but you still have 100 critically ill people in your care. But still you make it through Wednesday
Thursday you begin to hear gunfire outside the hospital, and the city sheriffs and state police tell you you have to have the hospital evacuated by the end of the day. There is no way to get all the 100 people out of the hospital.

How long should healthcare workers stay with their patients?
Which patients should receive limited supplies?
Which patients should be saved?
What will you do with the patients you leave behind, patients who are in pain?

[The Rich Port]

Well... Considering who are my loved ones... I would save the five people and hope they were in the mood to be my friends afterwards; I did just save their lives, after all.

Then again, if it was my girlfriend, I would absolutely save her over five people I don't know.

[Degenerate Heart of HetRio]

Choose the person, obvi. People die everyday, everybody has their time.

[Othelos]

I would kill the five to save a loved one. It wouldn't be the correct thing to do, but I'm a situation such as that I would not have time to think over ethics, and would go with the immediate reaction to save the one I loved and cared for. Even if I had infinite time to decide though, I doubt I would have the strength to do what was morally correct.

this is probably the most realistically put answer, so far.

[The Orson Empire]

This is honestly a lose-lose scenario- you don't win either way.

As for what I would do, I wouldn't choose at all. I would just let the train take its course.

[Infected Mushroom]

In all honestly would probably not act in time due to trying to make the choice, thus the train would kill whichever person/people where on the tract the train was already on.

I have one if I may.

Say you are in charge of a hospital in the middle of a disaster zone. You have 600 staff and 200 critically ill people you are taking care of.
Monday morning, the electricity and water goes off, the temperatures rise to 100 F
Tuesday, the sewage system backs up, and the few helicopters that were getting patients out stop coming.
Wednesday, the backup generators that kicked in Monday go out. So now you have no running water, no electricity. The elevators don't move and stairwells are black. You managed to get 100 critically ill patients out, but you still have 100 critically ill people in your care. But still you make it through Wednesday
Thursday you begin to hear gunfire outside the hospital, and the city sheriffs and state police tell you you have to have the hospital evacuated by the end of the day. There is no way to get all the 100 people out of the hospital.

How long should healthcare workers stay with their patients?
Which patients should receive limited supplies?
Which patients should be saved?
What will you do with the patients you leave behind, patients who are in pain?

Somehow (especially if this is set in America)... I really think the hospital is going to get sued no matter what it does.

You might as well assign the supplies and evacuate based on a mechanism of chance (assign a random number to each and every patient and then use a random number generator to generate an ordered list). Those near the top of the list are given priority for supplies and evacuation, the others are abandoned. Morally, that's about the best you can do.

You're going to end up in court no matter what you do if they have that sort of thing.

[The United Regions]

This is honestly a lose-lose scenario- you don't win either way.

As for what I would do, I wouldn't choose at all. I would just let the train take its course.

perfect choice

[Neutraligon]

In all honestly would probably not act in time due to trying to make the choice, thus the train would kill whichever person/people where on the tract the train was already on.

I have one if I may.

Say you are in charge of a hospital in the middle of a disaster zone. You have 600 staff and 200 critically ill people you are taking care of.
Monday morning, the electricity and water goes off, the temperatures rise to 100 F
Tuesday, the sewage system backs up, and the few helicopters that were getting patients out stop coming.
Wednesday, the backup generators that kicked in Monday go out. So now you have no running water, no electricity. The elevators don't move and stairwells are black. You managed to get 100 critically ill patients out, but you still have 100 critically ill people in your care. But still you make it through Wednesday
Thursday you begin to hear gunfire outside the hospital, and the city sheriffs and state police tell you you have to have the hospital evacuated by the end of the day. There is no way to get all the 100 people out of the hospital.

How long should healthcare workers stay with their patients?
Which patients should receive limited supplies?
Which patients should be saved?
What will you do with the patients you leave behind, patients who are in pain?

Somehow (especially if this is set in America)... I really think the hospital is going to get sued no matter what it does.

You might as well assign the supplies and evacuate based on a mechanism of chance (assign a random number to each and every patient and then use a random number generator to generate an ordered list). Those near the top of the list are given priority for supplies and evacuation, the others are abandoned. Morally, that's about the best you can do.

You're going to end up in court no matter what you do if they have that sort of thing.

So you aren't going to choose based on who is most likely to survive, or on the age of the person, or on any other thing? You would just choose randomly somehow (how would you get the random number generator considering no electricity?)

[Shaggai]

Save the five.

[Othelos]

This is honestly a lose-lose scenario- you don't win either way.

As for what I would do, I wouldn't choose at all. I would just let the train take its course.

no cop-outs, you have to choose.

[Prezelly]

Those five people mean nothing to me, but my friends/family are most important to me so I would save the 1.

[The United Regions]

Somehow (especially if this is set in America)... I really think the hospital is going to get sued no matter what it does.

You might as well assign the supplies and evacuate based on a mechanism of chance (assign a random number to each and every patient and then use a random number generator to generate an ordered list). Those near the top of the list are given priority for supplies and evacuation, the others are abandoned. Morally, that's about the best you can do.

You're going to end up in court no matter what you do if they have that sort of thing.

So you aren't going to choose based on who is most likely to survive, or on the age of the person, or on any other thing? You would just choose randomly somehow (how would you get the random number generator considering no electricity?)

old hat and paper trick never works, I would defiantly stay with the patients, trying to send out people for help. I would provide those in critical condition [but a chance to live with the best care] I would comfort and treat the children. I would try to evacuate the remaining patients as well, fighting if necessary