Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
User Journal

Journal Tet's Journal: Moral dilemma 23

Journal by Tet
I was having a discussion with a friend the other day, and she mentioned a dilemma that she was asked in one of her philosophy degrees:

Assume you're in a foreign nation, and you inadvertantly stumble into a courtyard where a man with a gun stands over 5 others kneeling blindfold on the floor. He explains that he is just about to execute the five men. However, he gives you a choice: you can either walk away immediately, in which case, he will kill all 5 men. Or you can take the gun and shoot one of them, in which case, the other 4 will be allowed to go free. What do you do?

For the purposes of this argument, you are unable to reason with the executioner, or to persuade him to follow any other course of action. You may not take the gun and turn it on the executioner. You will have no time to leave and contact the authorities/anyone else. You may not reprogram the computer to avoid having to face a Kobayashi Maru situation. Your only choices are to walk away, or to shoot one of the men to spare the other four.

Interestingly, she and I both gave the same answer, but for very different reasons. So, what would you do, and equally importantly, why?

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Moral dilemma More

Moral dilemma

Comments Filter:
  • i would probably walk away. for all i know, 4 of them could have raped a little girl and 1 of them stole a candy bar and i'd kill the one who stole the candy bar letting four child-molesting rapists go free. basically, i'd have to leave that foreign country's business up to them. if i knew more about the situation, i'd probably reconsider. of course, all 5 of them could have stolen a candy bar too--but if i don't know what's going on, what business do i have intervening?

    i don't think you can avoid ratio
    • I think the dilemma is only such if you choose it to be. A philosophical smoke machine.
    • You see, my first instinct would be: kill one and let the others go. I did not, however, consider the option that they could have been criminals. A thing that should have occurred to me. Probably that's why the "foreign country" is added in the dilemma. Somehow you're more probable to think that other countries execute innocents (or political dissidents).

      As you said, you can know nothing about the prisoners: they could be anything from political dissidents to murderers. We also do not know *anything*

  • I sort of wonder why this happens in a foreign country.

    I would probably walk away and try to make myself believe that if I didn't see it happen it didn't happen. Like it was just a prank between friends and when I left they all got up and played some 3 on 3 basketball. I could lie to myself and say I really didn't think he was actually going to kill them. I believe that after a certain amount of time, I might actually start believing it. By actually pulling the trigger and causing the death of one person,

  • I'd shoot one or all of them - thus proving mymself friend to this nation and being given vasy sums of money.
  • If the gunman liquidates the five kneeling figures, then he does that.
    The "you could have done something" argument is only as powerful as you subjectively choose it to be.
    The lure into playing God and possibly saving four lives is exactly that: a lure.
    In other words, the act of murder is a horrible thing, and I wouldn't minimize the horror, but I'm not sure I'd choose to subject myself to any thought of involvement with the scene.
    • If the five men are innocent, then you are morally culpable to take the gun and shoot the executioner. This dilemma is false, there is no real dichotomy of choice here. And since I'm I filthy philo/comp-sci major, I'll put it philosophically. The Law of the Excluded Middle is a logical fallacy. It allows you to frame how the argument takes place... "You're either against abortion or you want to kill babies", "You're either against gay marriage, or you want people to marry animals", "You either hate bush, or
      • If the five men are innocent, then you are morally culpable to take the gun and shoot the executioner.

        How so? Is absolute innocence humanly possible?

        Assuming briefly that innocence is humanly possible, how does it fall to the accidental observer to shoot the shooter?
        • If one does not have the moral responsibility to defend the weak, who does that responsibility fall on?
          • How is this question of defending the weak bounded? Just this instance? Before subscribing to some imperative to defend the weak, I want to know what rules will be applied, and whether defending the infinite stream of people whom I deem weak will be come a defacto denial-of-service attack on the rest of my life.
            To take a controversial example, if I decide all unborn human beings are the weak, now I'm anti-abortion.
            But, if those five kneeling figures are in fact pregnant women who were in line awaiting a p
            • Hmmmm... good point. I'll have to think about it.
            • Okay, after some thought, I can't determine where the line should be drawn. If I define it where you are the only person capable of acting, then people would be responsible to avoid acting if there are others who can. If I define it too broadly and say that one should always act to defend those incapable, and we get logically untenable situations where you're defending a potentiality. I lean more toward the 'help everyone' side though.
              • And why are we incapable of determining where the line should be drawn? Finite brain, imperfect knowledge. We can't even state with total accuracy the ratio of a diameter to a circumference.
                Such closed-form answers as are available are theistic in character: my true answer, confronted with such a situation, is that if I feel some "spiritual inspiration" to take action, then fine. Likely, I'm going to eject, and report the scene to the authorities (who might, in fact, be the ones behind the trigger). S
                • We can't even state with total accuracy the ratio of a diameter to a circumference.

                  I think the "even" in that is a bit harsh. It implies it's a simple problem, when in fact, the reason we can't state it with total accuracy is that it's impossible. I don't think that criticizing our inability to do that is really much of a comment on anything.

                  • We can't even state with total accuracy the ratio of a diameter to a circumference.

                    I think the "even" in that is a bit harsh. It implies it's a simple problem, when in fact, the reason we can't state it with total accuracy is that it's impossible. I don't think that criticizing our inability to do that is really much of a comment on anything.
                    Not even the limitations of the wetware, as pointed out in the preceding sentence, sir?
                    • Not even the limitations of the wetware, as pointed out in the preceding sentence, sir?

                      Nope. Such limitations are many, but they don't, IMHO, include inhibiting our ability to make an irrational number rational.

      • So, Tet, I don't accept your rules - I didn't accept them in ethics class either.

        No, I didn't accept them either, and was castigated by my friend for not being able to put myself in a hypothetical situation. Which of course, I can, I just don't see that I would need to in this case. But I guess the point was to force me to make a decision, which supposedly would reveal something about the way I thought. See below for my answer.

        • My ethics professor* criticised me for the same reason. I argued that like the Pascal Wager, this presumes a false dichotomy and cannot really tell us anything. If the situation were clearer, perhaps the dichotomy would exist, but I don't see it.

          In the interests of answering the question, I think I'd shoot the one person. I would rather act and be responsible for the outcome than eschew action and be responsible for the outcome.

          [*] He was fired the next semester for incompetence thank goodness.

  • Because in the real world, there are always alternatives.

    I would say that I would take his gun and figure out for myself what's going on, and figure out for myself who needs killing, because I don't take orders from him, and I don't take orders from philosophy professors.

    Especially when I'm the one with the gun.

    • This smells suspiciously like a simplified version of "should the US take out dictators or not?" For example, should we let a dictator slaughter 50,000 people, or invade and cause the deaths of "only" 10,000 people through collateral damage? And I agree without knowing more it is hard to make a decision that feels right.

      Anyway, with the minimum amount of information we are given, I would probably allow the five to be killed, for the following reasons:
      - They are another country, with another set of rules. I

  • Murder (Score:2)

    by panZ ( 67763 )
    The act of killing when not directly under threat of violence. All artificial constraints aside, blah blah blah... The question posed to a centric person is, do you commit murder or does he commit murder. Forget the numbers game. I wouldn't murder. If the guard does, he must live with that.

    Part two, travel etiquite, you are at a disadvantage of knowledge. The consequences of action without knowledge are simply unpredicatble. Worst case, your act of murder gets you in to shit in that country and you end up

  • My answer (Score:2)

    by Tet ( 2721 )
    My answer was that I'd walk away. While my friend would do so because she couldn't live with being directly responsible for the death of another human, I would do so because I just don't care. The occupants of the courtyard are people I neither know or care about, and to be perfectly honest, I'm just not interested. Besides, I see humanity's obsession with the sanctity of life as a disease, and the sooner we're cured of it, the better. People die. Not every death should be prevented. Indeed, you could argue

  • I'd trade with one of the victims, blindfold myself and then shoot my own brains off.

    And then walk away and leave the six to their own foreign devices.

    That's what you get for positing counterfactuals.

Slashdot Top Deals

Kleeneness is next to Godelness.

Close