Is it morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people?
This is the current topic in Lincoln-Douglas debate (a type of competitive debate) topic, or more correctly it is the resolution- Resolved: It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people.
Anyways, I thought this was a very interesting philosophical argument and wanted to see what other gamers think.
I agree with the last part of kind of games statement. A universal system of morals does not, and most likely should not, exist. Everyone will have different beliefs and it will be different to each person for each situation.
Just hope you are never placed in a situation where you have to choose to take a life to save others.
@Drace, wow, that's pretty harsh. I'd have to say that you have the most diverse set of morals out of everyone I have ever met, lol.
If this kind of situation is not based on math, meaning more or less does not really matter. This is the only fair way to do it. If its me or you thats going to die. We both die together.
@Drace- Say I was a truck driver going down the highway, then as I crested a hill going at 80mph, I swerve and slam on the brakes to avoid a deer on the road. Unfortunately, this blew out the brakes, causing me to crash through the median. Now I am barreling down the hill, unable to stop, and in the two lanes of traffic heading towards me is the car of a tired business man returning from work, his reactions are too slow for him to avoid my truck. In the other lane is a bus with thirty first-graders and a driver, unable to avoid my truck because of it's size. I can choose to kill thirty-one people or one person; naturally I crush the businessman's car and him inside of it. According to your logic though, once that is done we need to pull the first graders from the bus, stand them in front of a machine gun, and massacre them; after that we need to track down the deer and shoot it too. Your logic clearly makes sense *sarcasm *.
The way I see it, if it saves the majority of the people, then yes. SWAT snipers face this kind of situation all the time. They have a hostage situation, one man is controlling 10, maybe 20 people. He is using one of the hostages as a human shield, so he'll get hit first. usually, the sniper shoots through the guy's shoulder, wounding him, and then the bullet hits the suspect, so Cops can take him down for good. Yes it is permissible.
What type of question is that??? Of course its permissible to kill 1 to save 2 or 3 or 4.
Example:
A Gunman tells you to pick 1 person out of a crowd of 10 and that when that person has been selected they will die and the rest will live. You have less then 5 minutes to make the choice or all will die and you have no possible way to charge the gunman holding a machine gun.
Now it would be a terrible situation and I would like to think that I would pick myself knowing that I am saving 10 lives.
@silvrdog in order for the gunman to be close enough to talk to you without other people hearing than youd have the opportunity to take him down once hes down he'll try to shoot you but being offbalance odds are he'll miss which will alert the other people in the crowd who most likely will come to assist you once again theres ALWAYS more options just look hard.
really? you think its that easy just numbers? I dont think its EVER permissable to kill unless its unavoidable defending you or someone else. As i have already told you in my earlier post theres abosolutly NO situation in which you HAVE to kill you might think there is but really theres not, You could give me one in fiction but in real life alot of factors come into play heres a lot of ifs in these examples.
But if you think of another one id be happy to show you the other options just like all the other examples people have given me.
