An ethical question.

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2002-09-26 04:08pm

I heard this on the radio yesterday, actually. Imagine that somebody came up to you and offered you $10,000,000 if you would just press a button. The only caveat is, when you press the button, somebody would die as a direct result. My question here is, would you press the button?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-09-26 04:17pm

By Probabilitys sake your very likely to kill somone the world is better off without, and on the flip side, you can do an lot of good or evil with that money

*Waps button

CorSec · Post by **CorSec** » 2002-09-26 04:18pm

The way you set it up biases the answers you'll recieve. You may want to change the "would die" to "might die".

Evil Jerk · Post by **Evil Jerk** » 2002-09-26 04:23pm

Vast riches for me and just one person has to die?
Hot damn, I'd push the button alright!!
But.. I'd still like to pick the victim.. bye bye, Bill Gates.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-09-26 04:25pm

But.. I'd still like to pick the victim.. bye bye, Bill Gates.

Everyone conviently forgets one small Fact about old Bill

1. He's Richer than God

2. He's pretty damn smart
IE he's thought of this, Infact he did what I will do in MY will and has left 100 Million Dollers Bounty on the Head of the Person who kills him(If he does not die of old Age)

hmmmm $100,000,000 just to off one guy...

How long do you think you will live?

GrandMasterTerwynn · Post by **GrandMasterTerwynn** » 2002-09-26 04:37pm

CorSec wrote:The way you set it up biases the answers you'll recieve. You may want to change the "would die" to "might die".

It's a purely ethical question. Changing it to "might die" would invalidate the question . . . i.e. it would eliminate the actual thinking that goes on before one arrives at their answer.

So yes, somebody will die if you press the button.

However, someone faced with the question could say that everybody will die anyway: Many people die every day on Earth due to natural causes and unnatural causes. People die in order to maintain the lifestyle maintained by a citizen in the typical First or Second world country (think girls dying in Thai sweatshops, or people dying of bird-eating spider bites whilst harvesting bananas.) So, one could figure that since the 'victim' is going to die anyway, they'd might as well benefit. (And the money could be used to do good.)

Another person might see it as being just plain wrong and not take the money. From their standpoint, you can't put value on a human life. Pressing the button would be murder.

Raptor 597 · Post by **Raptor 597** » 2002-09-26 05:01pm

Mr Bean wrote:
But.. I'd still like to pick the victim.. bye bye, Bill Gates.
Everyone conviently forgets one small Fact about old Bill

1. He's Richer than God
2. He's pretty damn smart
IE he's thought of this, Infact he did what I will do in MY will and has left 100 Million Dollers Bounty on the Head of the Person who kills him(If he does not die of old Age)

hmmmm $100,000,000 just to off one guy...

How long do you think you will live?

Not unless you pretended too kill yourself and a get a freind too collect it then he gets killed too

And ther is no God so everyone is richer then God

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-09-26 05:03pm

Not unless you pretended too kill yourself and a get a freind too collect it then he gets killed too And ther is no God so everyone is richer then God

To Quote Abu, You need 51% of the Carcuss

Raptor 597 · Post by **Raptor 597** » 2002-09-26 05:10pm

Mr Bean wrote:
Not unless you pretended too kill yourself and a get a freind too collect it then he gets killed too And ther is no God so everyone is richer then God
To Quote Abu, You need 51% of the Carcuss

Oh well

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-09-26 05:43pm

Think I'd want to know who it would be. However I'd very likely do it. If I could pick the target, or at least narrow it down a fair bit, I'd do it in a flash.

I can think of dozens of people who deserve to die but are not on a death row off the top of my head.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-09-26 05:56pm

Of course, when you push the button, you discover the researcher's fiendish plan: the button is wired to high explosives. The person who will die is YOU.

oberon · Post by **oberon** » 2002-09-26 06:30pm

It's pretty easy: no don't push it

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-09-26 06:44pm

Osssaaamaaaa.......
*push*

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2002-09-26 07:01pm

Darth Wong wrote:Of course, when you push the button, you discover the researcher's fiendish plan: the button is wired to high explosives. The person who will die is YOU.

Which is why I insist they all stand nice and close to me..

However its not as such primitive concepts of life and death have any effect on me , Mortal.
However Force Choke Works Wonders~Mr Bean

*Ack! *thud

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-09-26 07:06pm

Ossama? He's dieing no need to waste it when there are so many desevering *Cough Lord of the Fundies *Cough that desever death

Post by **Colonel Olrik** » 2002-09-26 07:11pm

Simple, Just pick someone who is already dying and suffering horribly from terminal cancer and then give 1% of the money earned to a cancer research organization. You'll get rich and go to Heaven

Johonebesus · Post by **Johonebesus** » 2002-09-26 09:43pm

As I remember the episode there was one more caveat: the one pushing the button would not know the victim. Then, when the man pushed the button, a fellow came to take the box and give it to someone else, someone who did not know the new millionaire.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-09-26 09:54pm

I wouldn't do it. It's murder, whether they would die some other time or not isn't even important. We all die sometime but that doesn't mean we can kill whenever we feel like it.

Setesh · Post by **Setesh** » 2002-09-27 12:46am

You have to ask.

*wap*
"SHOW ME THE MONEY"

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » 2002-09-27 01:20am

Truly fascinating dilemma.

I would have to say that I would push the button, and never give it another thought.

If I did not see the person die, how am I to know that anyone actually died?

Far better to act with clear, untainted resolution. History dictates that if you don't, you end up on the recieving end.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-09-27 01:37am

Daedalus wrote:Far better to act with clear, untainted resolution. History dictates that if you don't, you end up on the recieving end.

A sentiment Stalin would appreciate I'm sure.

There are situations other than kill or be killed. And in this situation you are killing a person for no good reason. Is your own greed really worth another person's life? Are you people really that ethically barren? That to some of you the only deterent is the possibility that you'll be next?

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » 2002-09-27 02:01am

I don't think any of that really applies.

Read Cicero's rehash of Panaitios argument on Justice/Injustice and the necessity of each, for the greater good of not just the state, but those whom the state chooses to conquer.

This is, and always has been, a poisonous, harshly-realist-driven world. I empathize with your notions of philanthropy, but really, that is just not how things are.

Let me put it this way. I would, in pushing that button, show precisely as much concern for that person's wellbeing, as they are showing for mine at precisely that moment.

There is no afterlife, no reward for the virtous, no punishment for the wicked. There is only existence, and that which we can ruthlessly derive from its experience.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-09-27 02:14am

Daedalus wrote:I don't think any of that really applies.

Read Cicero's rehash of Panaitios argument on Justice/Injustice and the necessity of each, for the greater good of not just the state, but those whom the state chooses to conquer.

This is, and always has been, a poisonous, harshly-realist-driven world. I empathize with your notions of philanthropy, but really, that is just not how things are.

I know, Life's hard and shit happens. But I still can't see taking another person's life for no better reason than cash.

Daedalus wrote:Let me put it this way. I would, in pushing that button, show precisely as much concern for that person's wellbeing, as they are showing for mine at precisely that moment.

So because that person isn't worrying about at that very moment, they deserve to die? That's incredibly callous.

Daedalus wrote:There is no afterlife, no reward for the virtous, no punishment for the wicked. There is only existence, and that which we can ruthlessly derive from its experience.

I can't buy that. Whether or not there is an afterlife is immaterial, a life is precious for it's own sake. It's not right to kill simply for a pile of cash.

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » 2002-09-27 02:34am

Stormbringer wrote: I know, Life's hard and shit happens. But I still can't see taking another person's life for no better reason than cash.

Can you think of a better reason? Sure, there are a few, because some people need killing more than others. Osama, Hitler, etc.
But in the end, these guys are considered totally abhorrent because they were able to justify mass-murder in the process of attaining their goals. We all fuck each other over to get what we want, everyday.

It is just degrees of evil. From slightly naughty, to genocidal maniac. Society pleads with you draw the line at murder, but as Cicero so eloquently points out in 'On the Commonwealth," there are no natural laws. No justice that is inherent, constant, consistent or universal.

Stormbringer wrote: So because that person isn't worrying about at that very moment, they deserve to die? That's incredibly callous.

Not really, just very pragmatic. I am being the Ciceronian 'clever' man, as opposed to the 'just' man. The clever man enjoys the experience of life to a far greater extent buddy. And in the end, that is all that counts.

Stormbringer wrote:
Daedalus wrote: There is no afterlife, no reward for the virtous, no punishment for the wicked. There is only existence, and that which we can ruthlessly derive from its experience.
I can't buy that. Whether or not there is an afterlife is immaterial, a life is precious for it's own sake. It's not right to kill simply for a pile of cash.

Nonsense. It has been the most relevant issue in the development of moral and ethical man for the last 2,500 years. If there is no ultimate reward or punishment, then there is no restriction placed upon the efforts one might bring to bear upon the attainment of his desired outcomes and objectives.

If I press that button, I am so far and away more ethical than Jack the Ripper or Stalin or whomever, that it does not bear thinking. Throughout our lives, without us knowing a thing about it, we will cause deaths. It may be as simple a thing as stepping in front of a person in a line to get on the bus. Now, he will not die from that action directly, but as a result of the extra time taken for the bus to pull away from the curb, and the resultant other delays that happen as a result of that, the man will arrive too late to see his heart specialist. getting off the bus two stops after you, he has a massive heart attack and dies.

By pushing that button, I am not even killing that person in a personal way. I don't know that person, do not hate or love them, cannot weigh their individual merits or flaws, so in the end, I cannot feel guilty, as I may have just spared the world from the next Hitler.

If you had killed Hitler just after WW1, you would have felt guilty, because you just killed an honored soldier that was working nobly for the Weimar Republic in intelligence - seeking to infiltrate and arrest militant facist groups.

Life is just timing, degrees and scale.

Daedalus · Post by **Daedalus** » 2002-09-27 02:36am

If I press the button several more times, does that mean I get more money?

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

An ethical question.

So, would you press the button?

An ethical question.