Poll: Moral Dilemma: Kill Which Father?

[TheDarkestDerp]

Ah, yes, I've played Mortal Kombat too. Seriously? The two men might beat each other retarded, but they're not going to kill each other going happy-slaps. Two drunk men going punchers over a girl, yes? *snofts* I've been privvy to enough drunken testosterone dripping bar fighters wailing away on each other with bottles, table legs, chairs, bricks, boot-knives even, bare hand deaths isn't the stuff of civilian-level fact, it's video-game grade fiction, Hollywood hype for fanboys. Pro boxers wail away at each other to ridiculous lengths and there have been HOW many recorded fatalities in the history of the sport? You never stated one was a green beret combat vet and the other a ninja and even if you did, sorry, not buyin' it.

Besides which, my entire point is this isn't morality, it's selective elitism. It's a tragic situation, yes, and it's easy to feel for wither man's position, but not a moral choice by any means. One's my "dad" one's my "father" neither give a snit about mom's feelings or mine, so who cares? They obviously don't.
It's not a "learning experience" to force people to choose by your rules in a situation which has such an open-end to it.

Exhibit A:

http://www.whptv.com/news/local/story/Man-who-choked-woman-to-death-to-serve-12-25-years/4VuiOSgRnkiPcIrg0HVlcQ.cspx

Exhibit B:

Daniel and Philip--battered, bloodied, and bruised--clawing at each others throats, ready to kill.

A real life occurrence that anyone can perform. Never once did my mind hearken back a one-on-one fist fighting event with shouriukens and fatalities. The fact that you didn't even consider this most basic and obvious of pure rage-induced killing methods in favor of what you only saw in fighting games says more about you and your video-game grade fiction than it does about me. And it's not even the half of it. Have you any idea of the amount of civilian-related assaults that result in the term "beaten to death" occur in everyday life? It's more than just possible. It happens. Unlike in fighting games, people don't stop after they've gotten a KO.

Also, if you didn't like my attempt to provoke deep thought, then that's you're own opinion. Can't say much else.

People often use the term "they stay crispy in milk" too, but my cereal still gets soggy.

And you can bring up whatever "obvious" newspaper article you want, but unless Phillip is a woman and Daniel is a bit ...confused... and has an accomplice... you didn't even pick a relevant article to support your point.

You're seriously still on this? And trying to accuse me of your magick-fiction logic no less? *chuckles* Sorry dude, but no. I care how angry your "fatal fighters" are, they're not killing anyone, and even if they could... *laughs* Not morality, you ain't getting what I'm saying, and my choice stands. Your "daddies" are jealous boys, fighting over who "gets the girl", little more, you're cheeking on "The Scarlet Letter" more than you are "The Walking Dead" and this entire falacy is just getting rude and pointless. You wanna be right, go be right, duder. Get down with your bad self...

*claps hands* I'm out.

 

[Vodes]

Kill Daniel. You don't kill your own blood.

 

[SubManCow]

I would take the gun, run inside and grab a jukebox. Then take it outside to where the two were fighting and play, on repeat, the Mortal Kombat theme. Once one of them beats the other into submission I would give the victor the gun and cry out in my best Emperor imitation, "Finish Him!"

Then revel in the moment...(and try to take the loser's soul)...

EDIT: The poll reply most falling inline with this is Apathy. So that is what I chose, just in case you were wondering.

 

[Biosophilogical]

Kill Philip

So wait, the only two real replies on the entire first page, and they are both the same as mine?

 

[misterrosy]

Neither... save the situation with the power of friendship.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Phillip without a moment's hesitation. Nice of Phillip to write and provide for the family, but, from your description, Daniel didn't "usurp" the father role (knocking someone up and sending some money doesn't make you a father), he was the ONLY father. Phillip came back demanding something that he never had and never earned and likely ruined a family over it. It was understandable selfishness, but still selfishness.

And for all of you people who think you're somehow clever because you've realised that there's some way to keep them both alive or because you know that "morality isn't just black and white", do you really think the OP doesn't realise this? The point of it is to choose, not to defeat the puzzle. You're not clever, you're not original, you're just annoying.

I could understand if you had a particularly interesting or entertaining way of ending the fight without killing anyone, but just saying "THIS IS UNFAIR. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE. MORALITY ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE" makes you sound like a nine-year-old who just discovered moral ambiguity.

It's really easy to "solve" a Rubik's cube if you just peel off the stickers and rearrange them, but that completely defeats the purpose of the puzzle. So, yes, you guys "solved" the problem here, but you learned nothing -- you just peeled off the stickers.

You accuse those of us who said the question was flawed and showed that there were a great many ways to solve this without killing anyone of doing it to think we're clever? If anything, the OP is the one who's trying to appear clever, and acting like a child going "it's not fair, the rules of my hypothetical situation don't allow for any other answer, you can't take a third option!" It's not trying to appear clever, it's stating what we believe to be the morally and logically correct answer to the situation.

Frankly, killing either one of them is morally black, and saving both of them is morally white; the morally gray area is killing one to save the other, except it's not really gray, because we've demonstrated quite a number of ways that both individuals could walk out of this alive. Who's the one with the 9 year old's understanding of moral ambiguity again?

 

[flim.geek.chic]

Fuck that, I'd let them sort it out for themselves.

 

[macfluffers]

I'd let them sort it out. By trying to shoot one, I might hit the other, undermining my intent. Even if I'm a crackshot, I'd be tried for manslaughter at best, and the survivor would be tried for attempted murder. No winners there. If either of them died, it would be awful for everyone, and since the only way for both of them to live is to hope that they don't kill each other, that's what I'd do.

Realistically, I'd shoot the gun into the ground to catch their attention, but I guess that's not the point of this exercise.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

People often use the term "they stay crispy in milk" too, but my cereal still gets soggy.

And you can bring up whatever "obvious" newspaper article you want, but unless Phillip is a woman and Daniel is a bit ...confused... and has an accomplice... you didn't even pick a relevant article to support your point.

You're seriously still on this? And trying to accuse me of your magick-fiction logic no less? *chuckles* Sorry dude, but no. I care how angry your "fatal fighters" are, they're not killing anyone, and even if they could... *laughs* Not morality, you ain't getting what I'm saying, and my choice stands. Your "daddies" are jealous boys, fighting over who "gets the girl", little more, you're cheeking on "The Scarlet Letter" more than you are "The Walking Dead" and this entire falacy is just getting rude and pointless. You wanna be right, go be right, duder. Get down with your bad self...

*claps hands* I'm out.

If that's the way you want it. Just wanted to clarify the commonplace of unarmed domestic disputes resulting in death. I'm still not sure why you're so offended by someone trying to provide a thought-provoking question. If you're choice was to not take it seriously, then that's just the way you perceived my question. If you can't take that, there's not much else I can do. Since you came to a conclusion anyway, I'd say it was a success. The fact you put that much time and thought into this is kind of the fuel of the thread, so glad you got something out of this.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Phillip without a moment's hesitation. Nice of Phillip to write and provide for the family, but, from your description, Daniel didn't "usurp" the father role (knocking someone up and sending some money doesn't make you a father), he was the ONLY father. Phillip came back demanding something that he never had and never earned and likely ruined a family over it. It was understandable selfishness, but still selfishness.

And for all of you people who think you're somehow clever because you've realised that there's some way to keep them both alive or because you know that "morality isn't just black and white", do you really think the OP doesn't realise this? The point of it is to choose, not to defeat the puzzle. You're not clever, you're not original, you're just annoying.

I could understand if you had a particularly interesting or entertaining way of ending the fight without killing anyone, but just saying "THIS IS UNFAIR. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE. MORALITY ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE" makes you sound like a nine-year-old who just discovered moral ambiguity.

It's really easy to "solve" a Rubik's cube if you just peel off the stickers and rearrange them, but that completely defeats the purpose of the puzzle. So, yes, you guys "solved" the problem here, but you learned nothing -- you just peeled off the stickers.

You accuse those of us who said the question was flawed and showed that there were a great many ways to solve this without killing anyone of doing it to think we're clever? If anything, the OP is the one who's trying to appear clever, and acting like a child going "it's not fair, the rules of my hypothetical situation don't allow for any other answer, you can't take a third option!" It's not trying to appear clever, it's stating what we believe to be the morally and logically correct answer to the situation.

Frankly, killing either one of them is morally black, and saving both of them is morally white; the morally gray area is killing one to save the other, except it's not really gray, because we've demonstrated quite a number of ways that both individuals could walk out of this alive. Who's the one with the 9 year old's understanding of moral ambiguity again?

The nine-year-old bit is about discovering grey morality and racing to apply it because you think it will make you sound like you're figured out some secret the OP didn't know about. The stupid part is in attacking the question. It's safe to assume that the OP knows that you would try to save both and that it would likely be possible. Assuming otherwise is just being a jackass. If this were a real life situation, obviously you would try to save them both. But it isn't. It's a hypothetical question and you gain nothing by attacking the question itself.

Put another way, it's like the OP asked "what do you think life would be like if people had three arms" and you responded "but they don't".

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Phillip without a moment's hesitation. Nice of Phillip to write and provide for the family, but, from your description, Daniel didn't "usurp" the father role (knocking someone up and sending some money doesn't make you a father), he was the ONLY father. Phillip came back demanding something that he never had and never earned and likely ruined a family over it. It was understandable selfishness, but still selfishness.

And for all of you people who think you're somehow clever because you've realised that there's some way to keep them both alive or because you know that "morality isn't just black and white", do you really think the OP doesn't realise this? The point of it is to choose, not to defeat the puzzle. You're not clever, you're not original, you're just annoying.

I could understand if you had a particularly interesting or entertaining way of ending the fight without killing anyone, but just saying "THIS IS UNFAIR. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE. MORALITY ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE" makes you sound like a nine-year-old who just discovered moral ambiguity.

It's really easy to "solve" a Rubik's cube if you just peel off the stickers and rearrange them, but that completely defeats the purpose of the puzzle. So, yes, you guys "solved" the problem here, but you learned nothing -- you just peeled off the stickers.

You accuse those of us who said the question was flawed and showed that there were a great many ways to solve this without killing anyone of doing it to think we're clever? If anything, the OP is the one who's trying to appear clever, and acting like a child going "it's not fair, the rules of my hypothetical situation don't allow for any other answer, you can't take a third option!" It's not trying to appear clever, it's stating what we believe to be the morally and logically correct answer to the situation.

Frankly, killing either one of them is morally black, and saving both of them is morally white; the morally gray area is killing one to save the other, except it's not really gray, because we've demonstrated quite a number of ways that both individuals could walk out of this alive. Who's the one with the 9 year old's understanding of moral ambiguity again?

The nine-year-old bit is about discovering grey morality and racing to apply it because you think it will make you sound like you're figured out some secret the OP didn't know about. The stupid part is in attacking the question. It's safe to assume that the OP knows that you would try to save both and that it would likely be possible. Assuming otherwise is just being a jackass. If this were a real life situation, obviously you would try to save them both. But it isn't. It's a hypothetical question and you gain nothing by attacking the question itself.

Put another way, it's like the OP asked "what do you think life would be like if people had three arms" and you responded "but they don't".

Not really. The OP gave us a real life situation in a real life context, and then asked us to apply a very artificial sense of morality. If he had worded it in such a way that, say, both were dying of a snake bite, you were in the wilderness, and you only had enough antivenin to save one of them, then he might have recieved better answers. Unfortunately, there's too many options with the question as worded.

Edit: I can't take credit for the hypothetical in my post. I remember reading it in a book called "The book of questions," which is an entire book devoted to exactly the sort of moral dilemmas the OP is talking about.

 

[macfluffers]

Not really. The OP gave us a real life situation in a real life context, and then asked us to apply a very artificial sense of morality. If he had worded it in such a way that, say, both were dying of a snake bite, you were in the wilderness, and you only had enough antivenin to save one of them, then he might have recieved better answers. Unfortunately, there's too many options with the question as worded.

Perhaps, but I think you're missing the point of the exercise. It's a multiple choice quiz, not an essay. Yeah, the venom idea might be better, but it doesn't mean that the OP's dilemma was bad.

 

[Chrishu]

I would kill the real father; being absentee makes one a provider, not a parent. Big different.

 

[floppylobster]

A gun is at your feet as you watch the horrifying spectacle. There is no way of knowing who brought the gun into play, with the intention of death.

You pick up the gun and point it. You have to make a decision. Without your intervention, they will kill each other. Kill one so that the other may live. The choice is yours.

You say there's no way to know who brought the gun in to play. But there's also no way of knowing they are definitely going to kill each other. And I would never kill someone on a hypothesis.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Phillip without a moment's hesitation. Nice of Phillip to write and provide for the family, but, from your description, Daniel didn't "usurp" the father role (knocking someone up and sending some money doesn't make you a father), he was the ONLY father. Phillip came back demanding something that he never had and never earned and likely ruined a family over it. It was understandable selfishness, but still selfishness.

And for all of you people who think you're somehow clever because you've realised that there's some way to keep them both alive or because you know that "morality isn't just black and white", do you really think the OP doesn't realise this? The point of it is to choose, not to defeat the puzzle. You're not clever, you're not original, you're just annoying.

I could understand if you had a particularly interesting or entertaining way of ending the fight without killing anyone, but just saying "THIS IS UNFAIR. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE. MORALITY ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE" makes you sound like a nine-year-old who just discovered moral ambiguity.

It's really easy to "solve" a Rubik's cube if you just peel off the stickers and rearrange them, but that completely defeats the purpose of the puzzle. So, yes, you guys "solved" the problem here, but you learned nothing -- you just peeled off the stickers.

You accuse those of us who said the question was flawed and showed that there were a great many ways to solve this without killing anyone of doing it to think we're clever? If anything, the OP is the one who's trying to appear clever, and acting like a child going "it's not fair, the rules of my hypothetical situation don't allow for any other answer, you can't take a third option!" It's not trying to appear clever, it's stating what we believe to be the morally and logically correct answer to the situation.

Frankly, killing either one of them is morally black, and saving both of them is morally white; the morally gray area is killing one to save the other, except it's not really gray, because we've demonstrated quite a number of ways that both individuals could walk out of this alive. Who's the one with the 9 year old's understanding of moral ambiguity again?

The nine-year-old bit is about discovering grey morality and racing to apply it because you think it will make you sound like you're figured out some secret the OP didn't know about. The stupid part is in attacking the question. It's safe to assume that the OP knows that you would try to save both and that it would likely be possible. Assuming otherwise is just being a jackass. If this were a real life situation, obviously you would try to save them both. But it isn't. It's a hypothetical question and you gain nothing by attacking the question itself.

Put another way, it's like the OP asked "what do you think life would be like if people had three arms" and you responded "but they don't".

Not really. The OP gave us a real life situation in a real life context, and then asked us to apply a very artificial sense of morality. If he had worded it in such a way that, say, both were dying of a snake bite, you were in the wilderness, and you only had enough antivenin to save one of them, then he might have recieved better answers. Unfortunately, there's too many options with the question as worded.

Edit: I can't take credit for the hypothetical in my post. I remember reading it in a book called "The book of questions," which is an entire book devoted to exactly the sort of moral dilemmas the OP is talking about.

There are three options from the way the question was worded. Precisely three. They were given AS PART OF THE QUESTION. You were even told that they're your only options. By providing an answer that isn't one of those answers, you AREN'T answering the question, you're just rejecting the question entirely. And building a "better" hypothetical like the snakebite doesn't help at all. There are a number of things I could do to try to save two people from a snakebite without antivenom, but that's not the question, that's just me being a dick to show you that I "thought of something you didn't". Except I'm sure you could think of ways too, so it's even more pointless.

When you say "that's not fair, you could save both", you're not adding anything of value to the conversation. We know you could potentially save both, that's not what's at issue here. We know that the choice is artificial, the point is which artificial option you'd choose.

You're essentially rejecting a hypothetical for being hypothetical. It isn't as obvious here as in the three-arm case for instance because the hypothetical is closer to being plausible, but that doesn't change what you're doing.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

Shot them both in a non-lethal way. Once they've seperated due to the pain, I'd tie them both up and hand them to the police to sort them out. At which point I'd leave both of their lives for at least a good while. I'm not going to get caught up with some stupid quarl like that and if they both care about me, then can get their shit together. Otherwise I'd live my own life away from both of them.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Phillip without a moment's hesitation. Nice of Phillip to write and provide for the family, but, from your description, Daniel didn't "usurp" the father role (knocking someone up and sending some money doesn't make you a father), he was the ONLY father. Phillip came back demanding something that he never had and never earned and likely ruined a family over it. It was understandable selfishness, but still selfishness.

And for all of you people who think you're somehow clever because you've realised that there's some way to keep them both alive or because you know that "morality isn't just black and white", do you really think the OP doesn't realise this? The point of it is to choose, not to defeat the puzzle. You're not clever, you're not original, you're just annoying.

I could understand if you had a particularly interesting or entertaining way of ending the fight without killing anyone, but just saying "THIS IS UNFAIR. I WOULDN'T HAVE TO CHOOSE. MORALITY ISN'T BLACK AND WHITE" makes you sound like a nine-year-old who just discovered moral ambiguity.

It's really easy to "solve" a Rubik's cube if you just peel off the stickers and rearrange them, but that completely defeats the purpose of the puzzle. So, yes, you guys "solved" the problem here, but you learned nothing -- you just peeled off the stickers.

You accuse those of us who said the question was flawed and showed that there were a great many ways to solve this without killing anyone of doing it to think we're clever? If anything, the OP is the one who's trying to appear clever, and acting like a child going "it's not fair, the rules of my hypothetical situation don't allow for any other answer, you can't take a third option!" It's not trying to appear clever, it's stating what we believe to be the morally and logically correct answer to the situation.

Frankly, killing either one of them is morally black, and saving both of them is morally white; the morally gray area is killing one to save the other, except it's not really gray, because we've demonstrated quite a number of ways that both individuals could walk out of this alive. Who's the one with the 9 year old's understanding of moral ambiguity again?

The nine-year-old bit is about discovering grey morality and racing to apply it because you think it will make you sound like you're figured out some secret the OP didn't know about. The stupid part is in attacking the question. It's safe to assume that the OP knows that you would try to save both and that it would likely be possible. Assuming otherwise is just being a jackass. If this were a real life situation, obviously you would try to save them both. But it isn't. It's a hypothetical question and you gain nothing by attacking the question itself.

Put another way, it's like the OP asked "what do you think life would be like if people had three arms" and you responded "but they don't".

Not really. The OP gave us a real life situation in a real life context, and then asked us to apply a very artificial sense of morality. If he had worded it in such a way that, say, both were dying of a snake bite, you were in the wilderness, and you only had enough antivenin to save one of them, then he might have recieved better answers. Unfortunately, there's too many options with the question as worded.

Edit: I can't take credit for the hypothetical in my post. I remember reading it in a book called "The book of questions," which is an entire book devoted to exactly the sort of moral dilemmas the OP is talking about.

There are three options from the way the question was worded. Precisely three. They were given AS PART OF THE QUESTION. You were even told that they're your only options. By providing an answer that isn't one of those answers, you AREN'T answering the question, you're just rejecting the question entirely. And building a "better" hypothetical like the snakebite doesn't help at all. There are a number of things I could do to try to save two people from a snakebite without antivenom, but that's not the question, that's just me being a dick to show you that I "thought of something you didn't". Except I'm sure you could think of ways too, so it's even more pointless.

When you say "that's not fair, you could save both", you're not adding anything of value to the conversation. We know you could potentially save both, that's not what's at issue here. We know that the choice is artificial, the point is which artificial option you'd choose.

You're essentially rejecting a hypothetical for being hypothetical. It isn't as obvious here as in the three-arm case for instance because the hypothetical is closer to being plausible, but that doesn't change what you're doing.

Okay, so what exactly are we supposed to learn about our personal morality from a question with such artificial options? Because that was ostensibly the point of the thread, to have an introspective look at what what we would do in such a situation. Those of us who rejected the given answers didn't do so simply because they were hypothetical, we did so because we considered them the wrong answers to the hypothetical. As someone else mentioned above, oversimplifying a moral quandary just to get an answer really doesn't tell us much about our own morals, unless maybe we were the ones doing the oversimplifying.

 

[TilMorrow]

MAJOR PLOT TWIST: You find out afterwards Daniel is Billy's actual father after Daniel impregnated his mother when Philip was off on one of his work trips and never questioned the birth. DUN DUN DUN!!!

Alternative option: Shoot a pistol bullet into the sky to get their attention and make them see how their actions will have negative consequences. Get them to lower their guard then shoot them both and take on the status as the lone Gunman.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

Not really. The OP gave us a real life situation in a real life context, and then asked us to apply a very artificial sense of morality. If he had worded it in such a way that, say, both were dying of a snake bite, you were in the wilderness, and you only had enough antivenin to save one of them, then he might have recieved better answers. Unfortunately, there's too many options with the question as worded.

The aggression the fathers had for each other is key to the reason why I had the reader kill one themselves. While I simplified the question into a "who lives and who dies" choice, the drama from the story adds an element that the snake bite couldn't. It was commonly received that I was asking which one do you, Billy, love more, which, to a certain degree, it was. But I added something more that wouldn't necessarily be a game changer, but just add more possibilities for contemplation: the idea that you're not just choosing who lives, you're also choosing who to kill. The snake bite only goes so far, in that you're choosing who dies. I went for the more direct approach considering that the story I built up made it clear. You pull the trigger. You make the judgment. You were basically saving one man from the other, setting up the antagonist. It wasn't clear who the real aggressor was, who pulled the gun first. Did you save one because you hated the other? Did you kill Philip because of his absence during your childhood or because he became a spiteful drunk? Did Daniel die because of the you felt he moved his way into your mother's bed or because you believe blood is more important? I'm not here to teach you something you didn't know that only I knew. Each answer is ambiguous. There is no black or white.

Choose an option. You might take your time to contemplate, but ultimately you press the button and decide the fate of both the men and yourself. Now ask yourself why you chose that option. Was it to save or kill? How does that reflect on you as a person? What does your choice say about your priorities when it comes to your moral consciousness?

Also, I didn't want to discourage people from choosing apathy, since by doing nothing, the snake venom would kill them both. In my scenario, one will kill the other, the decision is just taken away from you.