Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 10:31:11 AM

Letting someone die is morally superior to actually taking a life.

Not really. If the effect of killing another person is negligible to yourself (no guilt, no PTSD, no recurring nightmares or anything) then you have a moral duty to kill the one. As soon as you're put in that situation, you'll be responsible for a certain amount of deaths either way. There's very little moral difference between a sin of omission or commission.

Not at all. If the one consents to it, sure. But if he is adamant about living, it's straight up evil to kill him anyway. Even if it was a choice of killing one innocent to let 1,000 innocents live.

Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black.

Oh that's right, I forgot. I was totally advocating the same kind of utterly retarded, dangerous and down right idiotic deontological ethics last week.

MUH NON-AGGRESSION

Murdering someone is never justified, no matter how many lives you save by doing so.

So, if I had the capacity to murder a completely innocent person to stop the Holocaust. . . I shouldn't do it?

Quote from: Meta Cognition on August 18, 2015, 12:36:09 PM

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 12:34:26 PM

Murdering someone is never justified, no matter how many lives you save by doing so.

So, if I had the capacity to murder a completely innocent person to stop the Holocaust. . . I shouldn't do it?

No.

Haha, wow. You're either trying to troll us, or you really are that fucking deluded. The sad part is I can't tell which.

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 12:36:25 PM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on August 18, 2015, 12:36:09 PM

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 12:34:26 PM

Murdering someone is never justified, no matter how many lives you save by doing so.

So, if I had the capacity to murder a completely innocent person to stop the Holocaust. . . I shouldn't do it?

No.

Haha, wow. You're either trying to troll us, or you really are that fucking deluded. The sad part is I can't tell which.

What gives you the fucking right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die? Do you have some kind of god complex?

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 12:56:48 PM

What gives you the fucking right to decide who gets to live and who gets to die?

The fact that I have the basic faculties necessary to understand that eleven million is a bigger number than one. Like, substantially bigger. If you know you can stop the Holocaust by killing one innocent person and you refuse to do it, your moral responsibility is on par with those who executed the genocide in the first place.

You're disgusting. You're immoral. You're deluded. You're a fucking joke.

Your priorities are fucking villainous. Individual sovereignty is your birthright. What about the person who you murdered? Does he have a say in this? No one is ever obligated to sacrifice their life for another, and that choice certainly can't be made by someone else. Starting a genocide and refusing to compromise another person's human rights to stop it are nowhere near the same level.

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 06:31:41 PM

Individual sovereignty is your birthright.

MUH RIGHTS

SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED

Fuck the obvious moral implications here, right? It's all about MUH CONSENT.

Uh, duh. Consent is everything. I don't care if it saves 999,999,999,999,999 lives. If you murder someone without their consent, you're a monster. Irrefutably.

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 06:40:21 PM

Uh, duh. Consent is everything. I don't care if it saves 999,999,999,999,999 lives. If you murder someone without their consent, you're a monster. Irrefutably.

Everybody on Earth is going to die a slow, torturous painful death over the course of a decade. Literal, unending, ten-year-long pain. Apart from one guy, who will be fine.

You can stop that tortuous decade by killing that one innocent guy. You can save seven billion people from a decade of torture and eventual death by taking the life of one innocent.

Do you do it?

I'd be lying if I said no, but it would still be a terrible, evil thing to do. I wouldn't try to argue that it was justified, and I'd probably be doing it for selfish reasons like sparing myself and the people I know that pain.

Regarding the original scenario, I would probably give my life to save five people. But I can't ethically make that choice for someone else.

killing isn't inherently wrong.

fuck off with your garbage opinions mate

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 10:31:11 AM

Quote from: CK97 on August 18, 2015, 10:25:17 AM

Quote from: SecondClass on August 18, 2015, 10:10:04 AM

Quote from: Meta Cognition on August 18, 2015, 05:21:16 AM

If you have to kill an innocent to save five innocents, you kill that single innocent.

Oh my god, you can't be serious...

What other choice is there?

Letting the five people die.

Letting someone die is morally superior to actually taking a life.

The needs of many out weighs the needs of one.

fuck off vlad

Moral and ethical dilemmas like this do not exist outside of a philosophy classroom

That's because most people don't know what analytical propositions are vs. synthetic propositions. Class is literally claiming that consent is the bed-rock of morality in a very, very meaningful way--which is an analytic proposition. Throwing ridiculous thought-experiments at people is the best way of trying to bring down such propositions because it highlights their faults.

I love how you act like you tore apart my entire mindset

Except I'm not; I'm pointing out that such thought experiments are a useful tool for trying to highlight perceived faults in somebody's argument. I didn't actually claim I had managed to do that; stop putting words in my mouth. Your position is so devoid of any reference points for me that, by now, I'm not going to pretend either of us will change our minds.

So, whatever. I know I didn't take down your mindset, and I know you won't take down mine.

And everyone considering that killing to be totally fine and reasonable.

The point isn't that it's fine, per se. If you take it in a vacuum, it's obviously a horrendous act. For me, at least, it's made worthwhile by the net benefit to human well-being that comes from said horrendous act.