Poll: Kill one, save millions: A Question of Morals.

[Anticitizen_Two]

Yeah, I would be able to kill him. The guilt of ending one person's life is less than the guilt of ending a million peoples' lives.

 

[Eggsnham]

After deep regret and pre crime guilt, I would shoot him. But only if I had verification that millions would indeed die, and that these millions of people are not deserving of death.

 

[Hafnium]

Nope, the world is overpopulated enough.

 

[Rynozeros]

It is against my beliefs to kill anything. Except only in self defence or defence of another (and by that I mean from imminent danger and only as a last resort i.e. unable to incapacitate).

His rights as a human must be met too. If someone has gone through the trouble of capturing him and putting him in front of you, why not arrest him?

Why not hand him over to he police?

Why couldn't the captor kill him?

If the last one's answer about getting blood on his hands, how is ordering someone to kill someone any different?

What about the ramifications? Legal? Personal? Relationships with loved ones?

Too many variables. Not enough evidence to prove that he would be responsible for the death of millions. Plus I believe against it.

In short: No

 

[TheTurtleMan]

No, Never Compromise, Not Even In The Face of Armageddon. Murder is unjustifiable regardless of the reason or consequences.

In this sort of situation you would be responsible for whichever choice you made. That means that if you didn't kill him, you would bear the burden of a million unjustifiable murders.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

Well, I was intending this to be more of a question of morals then that of data and hard facts. I guess my scenario offset a few people due to lacking information. What I'm asking really boils down to a basic question: "Would you kill someone if it meant saving millions?" And this question implies that you know for a fact that his death would save millions.

I tried setting up a scenario just to give the question a perspective, but I guess it really just blurred the intention of my question in the first place. Sorry about that.

It is never that simple.
There will always be other circumstances than just er person telling you to kill someone or millions will die.
For instance: What lead up to this decision? Do I know any of the millions that will die (or even: will I know any of them?)? What mood am I in at that moment? etc.

Reality is never black and white and morals depend upon the situation and whatever leads up to it. (Morals are flexible anyone telling you otherwise have not lived long or learned how the world works).

 

[Tucker154]

it depends on what the case is.Even if i never had a past reason to kill him,his background may make me.Sayhe was someone does nothing but wrong,like rape,murder, or something like that.Or maybe he is someone who is trying to find a cure to something like a virus and is about to have a break through that mightt save millions.but im getting ahead of myself.If i didnt know anything bout the man,yes i would.

 

[Therumancer]

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.

The big question is "would you sacrifice a few to save a lot" and there is only one correct answer which is "yes".

Morality by the numbers is never a comfortable

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.

Well, to me the answer is "yes I would". But only if I was sure about what I was doing. Simply put morality by the numbers is never a comfortable thing, but sadly it's nessicary, and that's why those in serious positions of authority do not have easy jobs.

I'll even go so far as to say that I'd kill a heck of a lot more than 1 person under those circumstances.

To put things into perspective, let's take your typical horror movie "Zombie Outbreak" type scenario. If I'm in charge of an operation to stop something like that early, I might very well kill an entire town or city, including apparently non-infected survivors simply because the potential risks are too great.

Simply put being on the receiving end of such a scenario is going to blow chips (as movies have shown), but if your viewing it from the outside what choice do you have? Even a potentially healthy person could be a latent "typhoid mary" type carrier or other mutation. You cleanse the entire area, the risk is too great. This basically means that in many of these situations I'm saying the "bad guys" in the goverment "nobody trusts" are technically correct because I'd wind up doing the same bloody thing. I wouldn't like it, but I'd do it.

Interestinglg in the "Resident Evil: Apocolypse" movie they sort of concede this point where Alice is talking to a version of the super computer they shut down in the first movie which was trying to kill them. The point being that had it succeeded arguably it would have changed the course of events.

At any rate, when it comes to nailing one person who is "innocent" it comes down to how you have that knowlege. Hitler for example was a relatively normal guy for a long time. Concepts like "The Dead Zone" has asked questions like "would you kill Hitler when he was an innocent to prevent what he was going to do?". What's more when dealing with concepts like some kind of changable, but reliable, precognition, or time travel, the person you go after might just be the first domino in a chain, sort of altering things via a "Butterfly Effect" type result.

Of course one thing to consider though is that when it comes to "playing god" in that kind of situation is that all the effects could not be forseen. For example whacking Hitler might spare millions of lives by averting World War II. However whether you like it or not, you'd effectively be ending a unifying force that lead to the development of a LOT of science, beneficial economic theories, and other things. It's not comfortable to think about but consider that information gathered by guys like Doctor Mengele probably saved more lives than he took, and will continue to save even more. Not to mention the benefits of things like the rocketry programs and the like.

Sitting here right now, it's easy to say "sure, I'd whack Hitler and take the chances that those developments will still occur". However if your seperated from the occurance by a greater span of time (it's been less than a century) say the year 4000 or whatever, looking back on Hitler might very well see him as being a nessicary evil, or perhaps even an overall beneficial influance. Consider for a second that when dealing with various historical figures in Rome, Greece, Egypt, etc... it's very easy to divorce them from the realities of some of what they did, and rather admire them for their innovations. The amount of blood (especially for the world's population at the time) on the hands of some of those visionary Roman generals and such can be quite staggering especially if you put it into perspective.

Thus, the question again becomes "am I sure?", do I know how those dominos are going to land?

All you can do is act on what you know however, so of course *I* would probably kill a Hitler and roll the dice, doing the best I can with whatever knowlege I have. Do I doom billions in the long run by saving millions? Well, nobody can know that.

 

[ender214]

If it was a stranger, I'd kill him in cold blood, regardless of how accurate the information I was given may or may not be. It would be different if it was someone I knew personally. The life of a friend is worth that of millions of strangers.

 

[EeveeElectro]

It's the lesser of two, evils isn't it?
I'd have to ask someone else to do it. I'd still feel overwhelming guilt, especially if he had a family.
On the other hand, he would have died a hero.

 

[The Stonker]

I would shoot the man who told me to shoot him because he most be responsible for this game and if I kill him won't it decrease the chances of him dying?
Plus you know that man who commanded you is an asshole.

 

[Plurralbles]

well, what have the million done to me? Oh, that's right, nothing as well.


This is a poorly asked question. The million lives will always win out.

 

[Ninja Tank]

this is the idea of a perfect utopia where one suffers for everyone's elses benefit

 

[apelsz]

What if the guy who gave you the gun is lying, and if you shoot him you'll trigger something that would kill millions on it's own, and if you didn't shoot him everyone would be spared?

 

[Les Awesome]

DEPENDS thats the keyword.
what does he look like
what mood am I in
WHERE
HOW
WHO
WTF

 

[Palademon]

I totally would if I was being a real life Kira with a Death note and all and he was going to kill who I perceive as good people. But, then again, maybe the person is the Kira in this situation...but then maybe I wouldnt want him to die because I hate people and at least if it's Kira they'd probably spare me and kill everyone I hate.

 

[sindremaster]

that depends...
if the man is going to kill milliones yes
if someone says: "kill him or i'll kill milliones" no

 

[Prince Regent]

Imagine, hypotheticly, a world with no hypothetical scenarios...

 

[Palademon]

What if the guy who gave you the gun is lying, and if you shoot him you'll trigger something that would kill millions on it's own, and if you didn't shoot him everyone would be spared?

Hey Prinny, I'll let you be my servant if you agree not to kill ME. Aaaaaaaaaaaahahahahah!