Here is the scenario: There is a man in front of you. You do not know him at all. You are given a gun and told that if you kill him, millions of lives will be saved. This man has done nothing to you in any shape or form. He has never spoken to you, never been in contact with you in any way. With this in mind, he has also never done anything to wrong you or offend you. All you know is that killing him will save millions of people.
My question to you is this: If you were in this scenario, could you kill the man? Could you bring yourself to kill someone you don't know? Someone who has never done anything to wrong or offend you in the first place?
I think, knowing the stakes, that I could bring myself to pull the trigger. Although it may scar me immensely, knowing that I saved millions would comfort me enough to live with it.
EDIT: You all make a good point. Let's look at it from a different perspective as well. How would your decision change if the person you had to kill was a close friend or member of your family? Would you still be able to bring yourself to kill that one person to save millions?
EDIT (Again): I guess my scenario offset a good number of people. This question really boils down to: "Would you kill someone to save millions?", knowing for a fact that killing the man would save millions. I tried to implement a scenario to try to give the question some perspective, but it looks like that just blurred the real intention of my question. Sorry about the confusion.
My question to you is this: If you were in this scenario, could you kill the man? Could you bring yourself to kill someone you don't know? Someone who has never done anything to wrong or offend you in the first place?
I think, knowing the stakes, that I could bring myself to pull the trigger. Although it may scar me immensely, knowing that I saved millions would comfort me enough to live with it.
EDIT: You all make a good point. Let's look at it from a different perspective as well. How would your decision change if the person you had to kill was a close friend or member of your family? Would you still be able to bring yourself to kill that one person to save millions?
EDIT (Again): I guess my scenario offset a good number of people. This question really boils down to: "Would you kill someone to save millions?", knowing for a fact that killing the man would save millions. I tried to implement a scenario to try to give the question some perspective, but it looks like that just blurred the real intention of my question. Sorry about the confusion.