No-one's saying that. They're saying that one person is worth '1', and that a million people are worth '1,000,000'.
Saying that the individual is worth something but is still insignificant compared to the majority suffers from the exact same problem. If you render the individual as insignificant compared to the greater whole, you have rendered each individual which comprises the greater whole insignificant, and you are left with no foundation at all.
Here's a question that comes to mind: Let's say that same person makes the same offer to you again. A million or whatever amount of dollars to kill another person? Would you do it? What if the offer keeps standing? At what point do you stop killing people? At what point does it become wrong?
Perhaps not anything you would wish for for your own benefit, but what about something that saves hundreds of lives?
I don't have the right to take some stranger's life away to serve my own agendas. The day I presume that I have some moral authority that allows me to make decisions about who does and does not get to live to serve my own ends, whatever they may be, however enlightened I claim they are, is the day I compromise my morals in an effort to justify an act of tyranny against another individual, and that is not a line I ever cross.
Not that I would condone murdering people to accomplish this, but our world population could do with being reduced by about...two thirds of what it is now, down to around 2.33 billion world human population (which is still a ridiculously high number for a species of our size and impact).
Were I to take such a deal for a wish, it would certainly involve a non-lethal way to reduce the worlds population down to similar levels, perhaps through sterilization of a certain % of the populace until those levels are achieved.
I'm with Gene Hackman though. Huge Grant may be inspiring, but Hackman is correct.
No he's not. Grant shatters his argument right through. Hackman's character took an oath and then broke it. He has no right to perform his experiments, whatever benefit may come of them.
Once you compromise the ethical core of medicine you have lost sight of the purpose behind medicine in the first place. Much like in this thread, you have sacrificed value and respect for human life in the interests of self-advancement.
Respect for the value of human life and the fundamental rights of a human being isn't something we should only have when it's convenient, when it costs nothing to observe it. If that's the case, then it's absolutely meaningless.
The person we're talking about murdering isn't a volunteer. He's not someone who violated the social contract by becoming a murderer. He's not a person who contracted a deadly plague. He's a person with the same rights to life as anyone else. We have no right to violate his right to life. If we choose to stop valuing the right of an innocent person to not be deprived of his right to life, then we've invalidated the value of every single life we've saved as a result of this. We don't get to justify atrocities against people by saying, "Eh, whatever, it's just a person dead, people die all the time" and then claim we're benefactors. Every single person that would be saved by this is then invalidated. They are each just one person. They are no different from the person that would be murdered in this hypothetical scenario, indeed any of them could just as easily have been that person, and should whoever it is that is setting up this hypothetical scenario choose to, they could very well be.
You do not get to sanction murder and then claim that the greater body of human beings is important. It is completely illogical, and it is the most paper-thin of all moral stances. "I'm going to help people out and I will compromise any of my morals to do it and I don't care who gets harmed in the process"? Really now? dcartist shows how easy it is to see through this argument, this isn't about altruism, this no longer has anything to do with anyone else, this is about self-advancement. You don't get to reduce human beings to animals or puppets to be casually toyed with and discarded on a whim and claim that you're doing humanity any benefit, because you've done a greater harm and created a greater cost than any benefit that you could possibly create. You don't get to claim that you are somehow elevated beyond all of humanity, and will help people by achieving your desired ends whatever the cost may be in terms of human lives, and then justify it by saying it's something you're doing out of any kind of concern for them.
Whatever ideals or higher purpose Hackman's character might have had has been lost by his desire to attain a goal at any cost, regardless of what the human cost may be.
I would answer yes to all three for the same reason the op. I could cure major world problems with what is to be gained by killing the person. Yes it is sad that the family of the man in the last situation would witness the murder of a family member but the positive of being able to cure world hunger, poverty, war, and many other problems out weigh the negative effects.
To be honest the only difference between option 2 and 3 is that you are afraid of your own character assassination by the family knowing you did it and that is selfish.
I, being religious, would sacrifice my salvation for the greater good of many. And it's not because I think this act of sacrifice would gain my entrance to salvation because all religious text says murder outside of self defense is the greatest of all sins and results in damnation.
Money is pretty silly, to be honest. To actually do anything significantly substantial to improve the lives of mass quantities of people you would need more than 100 billion. There just isnt enough money in the world to help everyone, and if you had the kind of money to help save/give lots of money to millions of people, the global economy would plummet and money would be almost valueless. When there is that much money in the system, the value of your "saving" money becomes nothing.
Wait, because 100 billion doesn't solve all the problems in the world for everyone, it's not worth doing this? 100 billion is a huge amount of money. Lets put that amount into perspective. I remember my comparative politics professor said it would cost ~100 billion to setup facilities to give every person on this planet clean drinking water.
The wish questions are just silly. I think few people would really think that "A permanent cure for aids that costs less than a dollar to produce" isn't worth a life.
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That's the remarkable thing about life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse
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Wait, because 100 billion doesn't solve all the problems in the world for everyone, it's not worth doing this? 100 billion is a huge amount of money. Lets put that amount into perspective. I remember my comparative politics professor said it would cost ~100 billion to setup facilities to give every person on this planet clean drinking water.
The wish questions are just silly. I think few people would really think that "A permanent cure for aids that costs less than a dollar to produce" isn't worth a life.
You get to choose the number you could say 999 Septillion which would be
$999,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 That's a few clean water factories.
Child abusers? Necropedophiles? People with aids who spread the disease on purpose? Torturers?
You must be either very young or very innocent in the ways of the world to say something like that. I envy you for either reason
I am 26 years old, and i believe that, if you point a finger at a person, you point 4 fingers at yourself.
those that you've mentioned is out of the question. Pure evil is what i call them, but judging their lives is none of our business (IMHO), for we did not create them.
I used to bully a lot when i was in elementary, but things changed after i almost killed my colleague with my bare hands.
besides from my faith, i do believe in karma. it happenned to me as well.
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A team should be as happy as a meal - TEAM HAPPYMEAL
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tronGR
Buy All the planeswalkers!!!
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Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
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You get to choose the number you could say 999 Septillion which would be
$999,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 That's a few clean water factories.
problem with that much money is that it can't be real money.. Because it has to some from somewhere. That much money would have to have been counterfeited, or printed up extra by the federal govt.. Spending it all would cause runaway inflation and reduce the value of the dollar to a fraction of the current value.
Even if you argue it's just fantasy, and that the cash is just an proxy for influence, it just highlights the fact that its trading murder of a stranger in order to be made dictator of the world ( make all the big decisions in the world that you would like, build all the clean water plants you like, etc. ). Which begs the question: why is the world better off wih you in charge? Actually, let me rephrase:
Why is the world better off with a murderer in charge?
If we change the third one to allow changing of memory (no genie restrictions except the dead one has to stay dead), we get an interesting thought experiment on the metaphysical status of Evil.
As it is, this is pretty sad stuff. Very basic morals.
Then again... genies.
Come on people. Genies.
(And is the person in case #1 random or is it chosen by Gman? )
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The wish questions are just silly. I think few people would really think that "A permanent cure for aids that costs less than a dollar to produce" isn't worth a life.
Would said people be doing it for selfish reasons or selfless reasons? I ask that because I can see people trying to justify their actions as selfless or not for themselves, but in the original question the reasoning is simple.
Either you kill the man for money, or you don't.
In a purely black/white situation there shouldn't be any justification behind the choice to change the moral decision.
~~~
In infamous 2, the ending makes a very poignant choice. I feel its worth mentioning since the basic question is the same.
The protagonist, Cole MacGrath has to make a choice between sacrificing thousands of humans (including yourself) to save millions from an incurable plague or kill millions to save hundreds while making an evolutionary jump.
If your Karma level is good by the end of the game you sacrifice yourself (as well as everyone with the evolution gene) and the potential evolution to save the millions of people. If your Karma level is evil you sacrifice the millions to save the hundreds of 'conduits'.
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Even if the author is silenced, the performance is stopped, the story will not end.
Whether it's a comedy or a tragedy, if there is cheering, the story will continue on.
Just like the many lives.
For the us who are still in it and still in the journey, send warm blessings.
- We will continue to walk down this path until eternity.
Would said people be doing it for selfish reasons or selfless reasons? I ask that because I can see people trying to justify their actions as selfless or not for themselves, but in the original question the reasoning is simple.
Either you kill the man for money, or you don't.
In a purely black/white situation there shouldn't be any justification behind the choice to change the moral decision.
~~~
In infamous 2, the ending makes a very poignant choice. I feel its worth mentioning since the basic question is the same.
The protagonist, Cole MacGrath has to make a choice between sacrificing thousands of humans (including yourself) to save millions from an incurable plague or kill millions to save hundreds while making an evolutionary jump.
If your Karma level is good by the end of the game you sacrifice yourself (as well as everyone with the evolution gene) and the potential evolution to save the millions of people. If your Karma level is evil you sacrifice the millions to save the hundreds of 'conduits'.
I can't think of a logical reason to choose not to promote the conduits.
Ironically I think that more religious people would comitt murder here than atheists, believing something like "yeah but he will get to heaven" or reincarnate or enjoy the beer volcano donated by the flying spaghetti monster. So their belief would in this case, once again, cause harm.
Other than your own personal bias, and badmouthing religious people (which, I guess, knock yourself out if you're so inclined, whatever floats your boat), do you have any data to support that statement?
Look back at this thread. Do you see a single person who is an identified "religious person" who has supported the idea of committing murder for money?
I am Christian. I've said "NO". I've not seen a single Christian or other identified religious person say "YES" to the question in 5 pages.
IcecreamMan80, the biggest proponent of killing for hire in this thread, I believe, is decidedly non-religious.
Murder for hire to do humanitarian things with the money is quite utilitarian, and that philosophy definitely runs counter to what most religious people on THIS FORUM have expressed.
Personally its just a bad habit to regard objects and power over living things. Ultimately, what does it get you? Your just going to die anyway, so why leave behind a trail of unhappiness?
1.yes. For $100 billion, no repercussions of any kind they have no family absolutely.
2.Again yes. Wish for a global cure for all human aliments IE: Cancer, aids, etc permanently
3.Yes, with no hesitation. wish for the world to be free from war and corruption til the end of time.
But again, why should someone else have to die just because of some individual's desire (or collection of them)? So what if there's a vaccine for cancer, how does that automatically mean they don't deserve to survive?
Also, I just think its a bad habit to regard objects over living things. Usually just leads to something tragic anyway.
1.yes. For $100 billion, no repercussions of any kind they have no family absolutely.
I don't think our mystery man has control over your conscience. There might not be an external repercussions, but you'd have to live with the fact that you murdered someone to further your own desires.
2.Again yes. Wish for a global cure for all human aliments IE: Cancer, aids, etc permanently.
3.Yes, with no hesitation. wish for the world to be free from war and corruption til the end of time.
How ironic that people would spit on human rights in order to preserve humanity.
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"If you're Havengul problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and a Lich ain't one." - FSM
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
I don't think our mystery man has control over your conscience. There might not be an external repercussions, but you'd have to live with the fact that you murdered someone to further your own desires.
How ironic that people would spit on human rights in order to preserve humanity.
Not really that ironic, I mean, basicly he's willing to take the brunt of having to live with what he did, and humanity gains the benifits.
Ulfsaar
I don't think our mystery man has control over your conscience. There might not be an external repercussions, but you'd have to live with the fact that you murdered someone to further your own desires.
By why should they have to die just because of what "you" want to do with the money?
But again, why should someone else have to die just because of some individual's desire (or collection of them)? So what if there's a vaccine for cancer, how does that automatically mean they don't deserve to survive?
Also, I just think its a bad habit to regard objects over living things. Usually just leads to something tragic anyway.
Millions have died for freedom
Millions have died for democracy
Millions have died for erroneous beliefs in god(s)
Thousands die every year because some company wanted to make 2.1% more profits.
Thousands die every year just because someone else wanted what they had.
If (according to you) it is wrong to kill someone for the cure to cancer...isn't also wrong to kill someone for freedom? Democracy?
I guess we shouldn't have killed any nazi's then right?
Where's the line? What IS worth someone's life?
We waged a war that costed over a million lives, in order to preserve our Union, and *free slaves (*sorta - I mean, it was part of the reason)
We waged a war that costed nearly 400,000 lives so that a tyrant wouldn't conquer europe and *murder an entire race of people (*that was just part of it too), oh, and because Japan attacked us
The total dead in WW2 is something like 70 million. The Tyrant indirectly or directly caused the deaths of nearly 50 million so that his nation of superior race could rule europe, or something along those lines.
Again, to promote democracy we got involved in a war that claimed another 170,000 lives. For what? To help protect the establishment of a form of government? Okay.
"Murder for hire"
Hah...
Every single soldier, foreign or domestic, who has shot an enemy was a hired gun. Every cop, every FBI agent who has pulled the trigger. Every pilot who has dropped a bomb. Every admiral who has launched a missile. All hired guns, hired to uphold someone else's authority. Hired to enforce someone else's rules. They got paid didn't they? They take care of their family with the money they made killing someone else, right? Sometimes for reasons not even remotely as righteous as you think.
So I kill ONE person, in order to wish the whole world into a better form of existence, or to gain an amount of money that when properly used could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of less fortunate.
and I'm a MURDERER! MURDERER!
Seriously.
Wake up.
People die against their will everyday, every 5 minutes of every day. For what? $20 in a register, a car, a drug deal, adultery, anger, hate, racism, rebellion, tribal disputes, territory, wrong place wrong time...
You name it and someone has died for it. Many many many times, for NO reason at all. Against their will, and sometimes so violent and absurd is the method in which they were killed that they would not show the pictures on television.
This world is incredibly ****ed up. But whats even more ****ed up, is that IN such a world...someone like you can look at one hypothetical death in disgust, while ignoring the cemetary being built around them.
This world is incredibly ****ed up. But whats even more ****ed up, is that IN such a world...someone like you can look at one hypothetical death in disgust, while ignoring the cemetary being built around them.
While we cannot be responsible for what we cannot control, we can be responsible for what we can and do control. This is why in part people look at a statistic and see nothing, but when they see a dying person they have an emotional reaction to it. We have various identities when it comes to what we face in our lives, and as such we may act inconsistently or seemingly so as a result.
In the terms of this context and the way humans perceive empathy, especially in the modern era, is that the death of a man that has done no harm to you is "immoral."
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Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Cpt.Morgan
While we cannot be responsible for what we cannot control, we can be responsible for what we can and do control. This is why in part people look at a statistic and see nothing, but when they see a dying person they have an emotional reaction to it. We have various identities when it comes to what we face in our lives, and as such we may act inconsistently or seemingly so as a result.
In the terms of this context and the way humans perceive empathy, especially in the modern era, is that the death of a man that has done no harm to you is "immoral."
Do you believe that the world is so large you have 0% to do with people in Afghanistan dying? People in Lybia? People in Iraq?
We all vote. We all buy products, oil, and more. I know I do.
The death of 10,000+ people I've never even met, seen, or have done "nothing" to me, should upset me more than just 1. Especially if the people doing the killing claim they are fighting for my sake, and in my name, or for the sake of my freedom, kill thousands with the efficiency and annonymity of large BOMBS and automatic weapons.
Ya well
to me one death is one death, and a million is just a million. Neither carry the burden of empathy. In a massive ant colony of 7 billion...it hardly makes a difference if one ant gets smashed by a shoe, or a million get washed away in a tsunami. But if you are going to value either, wouldn't you value the million?
If one person had to die to cure cancer vs. the millions that will die as we wait patiently and fail miserably to find one, I'd kill one person.
Wouldn't it have been nice if we could have killed ONE person to stop Hitler?
But no, in the real world we had to kill thousands upon thousands...
Why am I the one with bad reasoning?
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“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
All three options are morally wrong. You do wants right, and you don't worry about anything else. What-ifs are for God and people who like to think they are.
Millions have died for freedom
Millions have died for democracy
Millions have died for erroneous beliefs in god(s)
Thousands die every year because some company wanted to make 2.1% more profits.
Thousands die every year just because someone else wanted what they had.
If (according to you) it is wrong to kill someone for the cure to cancer...isn't also wrong to kill someone for freedom? Democracy?
I guess we shouldn't have killed any nazi's then right?
Where's the line? What IS worth someone's life?
We waged a war that costed over a million lives, in order to preserve our Union, and *free slaves (*sorta - I mean, it was part of the reason)
We waged a war that costed nearly 400,000 lives so that a tyrant wouldn't conquer europe and *murder an entire race of people (*that was just part of it too), oh, and because Japan attacked us
The total dead in WW2 is something like 70 million. The Tyrant indirectly or directly caused the deaths of nearly 50 million so that his nation of superior race could rule europe, or something along those lines.
Again, to promote democracy we got involved in a war that claimed another 170,000 lives. For what? To help protect the establishment of a form of government? Okay.
"Murder for hire"
Hah...
Every single soldier, foreign or domestic, who has shot an enemy was a hired gun. Every cop, every FBI agent who has pulled the trigger. Every pilot who has dropped a bomb. Every admiral who has launched a missile. All hired guns, hired to uphold someone else's authority. Hired to enforce someone else's rules. They got paid didn't they? They take care of their family with the money they made killing someone else, right? Sometimes for reasons not even remotely as righteous as you think.
So I kill ONE person, in order to wish the whole world into a better form of existence, or to gain an amount of money that when properly used could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of less fortunate.
and I'm a MURDERER! MURDERER!
Seriously.
Wake up.
People die against their will everyday, every 5 minutes of every day. For what? $20 in a register, a car, a drug deal, adultery, anger, hate, racism, rebellion, tribal disputes, territory, wrong place wrong time...
You name it and someone has died for it. Many many many times, for NO reason at all. Against their will, and sometimes so violent and absurd is the method in which they were killed that they would not show the pictures on television.
This world is incredibly ****ed up. But whats even more ****ed up, is that IN such a world...someone like you can look at one hypothetical death in disgust, while ignoring the cemetary being built around them.
It sounds like a purely pragmatic argument you're making, but there is a problem with this (and it's sometimes hard for a young person to see the flaw in this approach to life).
One problem with a "deal with the devil" to achieve some "net good" is that you are "playing ball" with the devil.
If all individuals use their personal will to actively perform an evil act (to achieve some net "greater good" in the current system), it will not ultimately acheive a better system. Just a world where people live longer.
You can't know all possible outcomes and implications of an act, but you are achieving the will of some malevolent person or entity when you kill in this fashion.
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Saying that the individual is worth something but is still insignificant compared to the majority suffers from the exact same problem. If you render the individual as insignificant compared to the greater whole, you have rendered each individual which comprises the greater whole insignificant, and you are left with no foundation at all.
Here's a question that comes to mind: Let's say that same person makes the same offer to you again. A million or whatever amount of dollars to kill another person? Would you do it? What if the offer keeps standing? At what point do you stop killing people? At what point does it become wrong?
It doesn't matter.
One of my favorite monologues in a movie ever, thank you for giving me the opportunity to link to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ1BkH1ucfc
I don't have the right to take some stranger's life away to serve my own agendas. The day I presume that I have some moral authority that allows me to make decisions about who does and does not get to live to serve my own ends, whatever they may be, however enlightened I claim they are, is the day I compromise my morals in an effort to justify an act of tyranny against another individual, and that is not a line I ever cross.
Were I to take such a deal for a wish, it would certainly involve a non-lethal way to reduce the worlds population down to similar levels, perhaps through sterilization of a certain % of the populace until those levels are achieved.
just as Dr. Manhatten sides with Ozymandias
Kill a million to save billions.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
No he's not. Grant shatters his argument right through. Hackman's character took an oath and then broke it. He has no right to perform his experiments, whatever benefit may come of them.
Once you compromise the ethical core of medicine you have lost sight of the purpose behind medicine in the first place. Much like in this thread, you have sacrificed value and respect for human life in the interests of self-advancement.
Respect for the value of human life and the fundamental rights of a human being isn't something we should only have when it's convenient, when it costs nothing to observe it. If that's the case, then it's absolutely meaningless.
The person we're talking about murdering isn't a volunteer. He's not someone who violated the social contract by becoming a murderer. He's not a person who contracted a deadly plague. He's a person with the same rights to life as anyone else. We have no right to violate his right to life. If we choose to stop valuing the right of an innocent person to not be deprived of his right to life, then we've invalidated the value of every single life we've saved as a result of this. We don't get to justify atrocities against people by saying, "Eh, whatever, it's just a person dead, people die all the time" and then claim we're benefactors. Every single person that would be saved by this is then invalidated. They are each just one person. They are no different from the person that would be murdered in this hypothetical scenario, indeed any of them could just as easily have been that person, and should whoever it is that is setting up this hypothetical scenario choose to, they could very well be.
You do not get to sanction murder and then claim that the greater body of human beings is important. It is completely illogical, and it is the most paper-thin of all moral stances. "I'm going to help people out and I will compromise any of my morals to do it and I don't care who gets harmed in the process"? Really now? dcartist shows how easy it is to see through this argument, this isn't about altruism, this no longer has anything to do with anyone else, this is about self-advancement. You don't get to reduce human beings to animals or puppets to be casually toyed with and discarded on a whim and claim that you're doing humanity any benefit, because you've done a greater harm and created a greater cost than any benefit that you could possibly create. You don't get to claim that you are somehow elevated beyond all of humanity, and will help people by achieving your desired ends whatever the cost may be in terms of human lives, and then justify it by saying it's something you're doing out of any kind of concern for them.
Whatever ideals or higher purpose Hackman's character might have had has been lost by his desire to attain a goal at any cost, regardless of what the human cost may be.
To be honest the only difference between option 2 and 3 is that you are afraid of your own character assassination by the family knowing you did it and that is selfish.
I, being religious, would sacrifice my salvation for the greater good of many. And it's not because I think this act of sacrifice would gain my entrance to salvation because all religious text says murder outside of self defense is the greatest of all sins and results in damnation.
Sig made by Argetlam from http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=6100225#post6100225" rel="nofollow"Hakai Studios.
Wait, because 100 billion doesn't solve all the problems in the world for everyone, it's not worth doing this? 100 billion is a huge amount of money. Lets put that amount into perspective. I remember my comparative politics professor said it would cost ~100 billion to setup facilities to give every person on this planet clean drinking water.
The wish questions are just silly. I think few people would really think that "A permanent cure for aids that costs less than a dollar to produce" isn't worth a life.
Calvin and Hobbes
Cube Tutor
You get to choose the number you could say 999 Septillion which would be
$999,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 That's a few clean water factories.
Sig made by Argetlam from http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=6100225#post6100225" rel="nofollow"Hakai Studios.
I am 26 years old, and i believe that, if you point a finger at a person, you point 4 fingers at yourself.
those that you've mentioned is out of the question. Pure evil is what i call them, but judging their lives is none of our business (IMHO), for we did not create them.
I used to bully a lot when i was in elementary, but things changed after i almost killed my colleague with my bare hands.
besides from my faith, i do believe in karma. it happenned to me as well.
EDH - UWGrand Arbiter Agustin IV
UBW Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Modern - Mono U tron / Polymorph / NFTW (ninja for the win)GR tron GR
Buy All the Dual Lands!!!
Buy All the fetches!
Create tons of EDH Decks!!!
Eat Nothing but Oats!! (LOL, not true)
Train MMA!!!
Marry My girlfriend!!!
Get her Pregnant only Once!
Teach my Son/Daughter Sports and magic cards!!!
Continue my legacy son!!!/Daughter!!
Even if you argue it's just fantasy, and that the cash is just an proxy for influence, it just highlights the fact that its trading murder of a stranger in order to be made dictator of the world ( make all the big decisions in the world that you would like, build all the clean water plants you like, etc. ). Which begs the question: why is the world better off wih you in charge? Actually, let me rephrase:
Why is the world better off with a murderer in charge?
As it is, this is pretty sad stuff. Very basic morals.
Then again... genies.
Come on people. Genies.
(And is the person in case #1 random or is it chosen by Gman? )
Awesome avatar provided by Krashbot @ [Epic Graphics].
Would said people be doing it for selfish reasons or selfless reasons? I ask that because I can see people trying to justify their actions as selfless or not for themselves, but in the original question the reasoning is simple.
Either you kill the man for money, or you don't.
In a purely black/white situation there shouldn't be any justification behind the choice to change the moral decision.
~~~
In infamous 2, the ending makes a very poignant choice. I feel its worth mentioning since the basic question is the same.
If your Karma level is good by the end of the game you sacrifice yourself (as well as everyone with the evolution gene) and the potential evolution to save the millions of people. If your Karma level is evil you sacrifice the millions to save the hundreds of 'conduits'.
Whether it's a comedy or a tragedy, if there is cheering, the story will continue on.
Just like the many lives.
For the us who are still in it and still in the journey, send warm blessings.
- We will continue to walk down this path until eternity.
I can't think of a logical reason to choose not to promote the conduits.
Look back at this thread. Do you see a single person who is an identified "religious person" who has supported the idea of committing murder for money?
I am Christian. I've said "NO". I've not seen a single Christian or other identified religious person say "YES" to the question in 5 pages.
IcecreamMan80, the biggest proponent of killing for hire in this thread, I believe, is decidedly non-religious.
Murder for hire to do humanitarian things with the money is quite utilitarian, and that philosophy definitely runs counter to what most religious people on THIS FORUM have expressed.
2.Again yes. Wish for a global cure for all human aliments IE: Cancer, aids, etc permanently
3.Yes, with no hesitation. wish for the world to be free from war and corruption til the end of time.
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Really, the third one is too, except I couldn't bring myself to do that...
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By why should they have to die just because of what "you" want to do with the money?
But again, why should someone else have to die just because of some individual's desire (or collection of them)? So what if there's a vaccine for cancer, how does that automatically mean they don't deserve to survive?
Also, I just think its a bad habit to regard objects over living things. Usually just leads to something tragic anyway.
I don't think our mystery man has control over your conscience. There might not be an external repercussions, but you'd have to live with the fact that you murdered someone to further your own desires.
How ironic that people would spit on human rights in order to preserve humanity.
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Ashcoat Bear of Limited
Not really that ironic, I mean, basicly he's willing to take the brunt of having to live with what he did, and humanity gains the benifits.
Millions have died for freedom
Millions have died for democracy
Millions have died for erroneous beliefs in god(s)
Thousands die every year because some company wanted to make 2.1% more profits.
Thousands die every year just because someone else wanted what they had.
If (according to you) it is wrong to kill someone for the cure to cancer...isn't also wrong to kill someone for freedom? Democracy?
I guess we shouldn't have killed any nazi's then right?
Where's the line? What IS worth someone's life?
We waged a war that costed over a million lives, in order to preserve our Union, and *free slaves (*sorta - I mean, it was part of the reason)
We waged a war that costed nearly 400,000 lives so that a tyrant wouldn't conquer europe and *murder an entire race of people (*that was just part of it too), oh, and because Japan attacked us
The total dead in WW2 is something like 70 million. The Tyrant indirectly or directly caused the deaths of nearly 50 million so that his nation of superior race could rule europe, or something along those lines.
Again, to promote democracy we got involved in a war that claimed another 170,000 lives. For what? To help protect the establishment of a form of government? Okay.
"Murder for hire"
Hah...
Every single soldier, foreign or domestic, who has shot an enemy was a hired gun. Every cop, every FBI agent who has pulled the trigger. Every pilot who has dropped a bomb. Every admiral who has launched a missile. All hired guns, hired to uphold someone else's authority. Hired to enforce someone else's rules. They got paid didn't they? They take care of their family with the money they made killing someone else, right? Sometimes for reasons not even remotely as righteous as you think.
So I kill ONE person, in order to wish the whole world into a better form of existence, or to gain an amount of money that when properly used could improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of less fortunate.
and I'm a MURDERER! MURDERER!
Seriously.
Wake up.
People die against their will everyday, every 5 minutes of every day. For what? $20 in a register, a car, a drug deal, adultery, anger, hate, racism, rebellion, tribal disputes, territory, wrong place wrong time...
You name it and someone has died for it. Many many many times, for NO reason at all. Against their will, and sometimes so violent and absurd is the method in which they were killed that they would not show the pictures on television.
This world is incredibly ****ed up. But whats even more ****ed up, is that IN such a world...someone like you can look at one hypothetical death in disgust, while ignoring the cemetary being built around them.
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
While we cannot be responsible for what we cannot control, we can be responsible for what we can and do control. This is why in part people look at a statistic and see nothing, but when they see a dying person they have an emotional reaction to it. We have various identities when it comes to what we face in our lives, and as such we may act inconsistently or seemingly so as a result.
In the terms of this context and the way humans perceive empathy, especially in the modern era, is that the death of a man that has done no harm to you is "immoral."
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Do you believe that the world is so large you have 0% to do with people in Afghanistan dying? People in Lybia? People in Iraq?
We all vote. We all buy products, oil, and more. I know I do.
The death of 10,000+ people I've never even met, seen, or have done "nothing" to me, should upset me more than just 1. Especially if the people doing the killing claim they are fighting for my sake, and in my name, or for the sake of my freedom, kill thousands with the efficiency and annonymity of large BOMBS and automatic weapons.
Ya well
to me one death is one death, and a million is just a million. Neither carry the burden of empathy. In a massive ant colony of 7 billion...it hardly makes a difference if one ant gets smashed by a shoe, or a million get washed away in a tsunami. But if you are going to value either, wouldn't you value the million?
If one person had to die to cure cancer vs. the millions that will die as we wait patiently and fail miserably to find one, I'd kill one person.
Wouldn't it have been nice if we could have killed ONE person to stop Hitler?
But no, in the real world we had to kill thousands upon thousands...
Why am I the one with bad reasoning?
Thanks to Xenphire @ Inkfox for the amazing new sig
“Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by slight ligaments
are we bound to prosperity and ruin.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Soldier Primer
Sig by ol MISAKA lo
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One problem with a "deal with the devil" to achieve some "net good" is that you are "playing ball" with the devil.
If all individuals use their personal will to actively perform an evil act (to achieve some net "greater good" in the current system), it will not ultimately acheive a better system. Just a world where people live longer.
You can't know all possible outcomes and implications of an act, but you are achieving the will of some malevolent person or entity when you kill in this fashion.