Poll: Would you kill an infant if it meant saving the lives of a large group of people?
- Thread starter the spud
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No. There is always a better way. When people construct intricate scenarios about moral choices that resemble thought experiments, they are invariably flawed and they are also impossible to answer. No matter what we answer here (including my negative answer above) there is no way of knowing what we would do when placed in a situation like this. It also ignores all the real world variables that come together with it. The world has never been and will never be clearly cut out, black and white, right or wrong. There would be choices. But even if we're in a hypothetical situation where someone has you strapped to a chair and forces you to choose between gassing a room full of people or kill a baby, I'm a bit appalled that people who are sitting in the comfort of their homes viewing this forum would answer that the baby has to go with such ease. You're not at gunpoint now. The only logical thing is to reject the question. "I would find a different solution" is a perfectly valid choice and I'm glad to see people have used it. Because it's when people get in the "I had no choice" frame of mind that all the wrong choices start being considered.
Disclaimer: As I said above, I don't know what I would do. I would like to think that I'd rather die than consciously choose to kill a baby. But I don't condemn the woman hiding from the Nazis for what she did. She found herself in that situation, it was unavoidable and she did something that she obviously regretted for the rest of her life. (I'm not sure if she consciously chose to kill it or if she just tried to silence it and ended up choking it by mistake) I hope I'm never in that situation but if something like that happens, you find out who you truly are.
Disclaimer: As I said above, I don't know what I would do. I would like to think that I'd rather die than consciously choose to kill a baby. But I don't condemn the woman hiding from the Nazis for what she did. She found herself in that situation, it was unavoidable and she did something that she obviously regretted for the rest of her life. (I'm not sure if she consciously chose to kill it or if she just tried to silence it and ended up choking it by mistake) I hope I'm never in that situation but if something like that happens, you find out who you truly are.
I remember there being another topic exactly like this a month ago. Im gonna say..... yes.
Because im a heartless bastard.
Because im a heartless bastard.
I wouldn't kill the baby cos' it's a bigger pleasure seeing a large group of humans die, so what?
Logically, the baby should be silenced, and if the only way is to kill it, so be it. But emotionally, I'm sure I couldn't do it. Man, even if I hit someone jokingly I feel bad about it, let alone kill an infant.
Besides, in the clamour of civilian murderings, I'd think no one would really pay mind to a crying baby.
Besides, in the clamour of civilian murderings, I'd think no one would really pay mind to a crying baby.
Well I believe that the life of one person is not equal to the life of many so I said yes. Yet if I was in that situation I would leave myself to make a distraction I?m sure by the time the soldiers find and kill me the baby would have stopped and who knows I might have killed a few soldiers as well.
It is plausible to gut the baby and fill it with hand grenades and douse it in petrol? I'd say that'd be the best distraction, and it also tells them you mean business.
In reality, it's a hard scenario. It's not a decision one person can make, because I'm sure the mother or father would be there with the child and they wouldn't want to sacrifice it. If you killed the child, then the mother and father would start yelling, which makes the initial point moot.
But yes, if it was 20 people who could hide safely without a screaming child, versus 21 dead bodies, I would kill the child.
In reality, it's a hard scenario. It's not a decision one person can make, because I'm sure the mother or father would be there with the child and they wouldn't want to sacrifice it. If you killed the child, then the mother and father would start yelling, which makes the initial point moot.
But yes, if it was 20 people who could hide safely without a screaming child, versus 21 dead bodies, I would kill the child.
Stupid poll is stupid. This basically comes down to deontology vs concequentialism and not logic vs emotion. To say that if you wouldn't murder a baby then you're an "emotional thinker" (read: moron) is idiotic and fallacious. If you murder a child you deserve to die regardless of any and all underlying circumstances. Because, at the end of the day, either YOU are murdering an innocent child for purely selfish reasons (your own survival) or a group of soldiers is murdering a group of people. Which of those actions is your fault? See, by not being an evil baby-murdering psychopath, you aren't the one taking action. You can't be blamed for something you didn't do.
Also, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOCmJevigw
Also, watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwOCmJevigw
I'd choose the third option to this scenario- Lock the baby in the room, kick everyone else (except the mother) out and escape the oncoming pursuers. How do i escape an ENTIRE ARMY I hear you ask? Well, let's just say I'm gonna need all the nineteen people for this:
Elevate the majority? Wha? Did you read the OP? It's one dying or twenty dying. No elevation there.Sharpiez said:
It's kind of a stupid question because killing the baby (assuming it has to be killed) would result in the possible safety of the group whereas not killing the baby would result in the death of the group and the baby. So there is not really any reason not to. However I'm sure if it was my baby I'd be all "Logic be damned I'll take you all on!" as I hold my baby in one hand whilst fighting off a pack of angry rebels and then taking on the entire army with nothing but a single bare fist. But that's just what I do...the spud said:
I liked the video it was quite funny but really that theory is so obviously fundamentally flawed that I'd be surprised if anyone actually followed it. I mean in a perfect world that is exactly how everyone should operate all the time, there should be a right way to do things and a wrong way and people should always choose to do the right thing. However in the real world people generally are lying and manipulative to some degree. Thus if a minority lived by those rules and a majority didn't they would essentially just be opening themselves up to be completely controlled. Taking the white/black approach is kind of a lazy way of dealing with morality in my opinion.Himmelgeher said:
I honestly think the best approach is to do what we do at the moment, by which I mean having a set of laws chosen by a government elected by the majority of the country which when broken people are judged by a set of their peers as to what laws they have broken and to what degree. Now obviously it isn't perfect, I know that I'm not trying to claim otherwise, but I think it is the best system that has been tested so far.
Frankly I've always found the argument that inaction is morally neutral to be silly at best. The fact is that if the child is not silenced in one way or another the failure to act, the failure to prevent harm, does lie just as much with those who could have taken action and did not as it does with the soldiers. Yes, the implication is that we, as individuals and as a society, are in some way responsible for a great many evils that we do not directly take part in, but at least it does away with the myth of a pure personal responsibility for "individual" actions.Himmelgeher said:
If it was my kid I'd rather kill all of them but any other situation I'd sacrifice it to the Blood God.