Help me with my Ethics homework

little_ey

little_ey

Member
Imagine you are an observer for an NGO in

Darfur and you come across a village where a military commander has lined up

fifty people against a wall and is about to execute them because someone from

the village fired a shot that killed a soldier last night. You say, “Stop!

Only one shot was fired, and thus most of these people are innocent.” The

commander looks at you with disdain and hands you a rifle, saying that if you kill

one person, he will let the rest go. He warns you not to try anything foolish

because his soldiers now have their guns trained on you. Do you fire and save

forty-nine lives, thus dirtying your hands, or do you drop the rifle and

maintain the integrity of your principles while watching the commander kill

fifty people?

(and no, you cannot shoot the commander. This is not an option for this discussion. Your ONLY options are to kill one villager or none at all)
 
easy. kill the oldest one and save the other 49. I'd be haunted by it either way, so I might as well save some lives. Better to be haunted by one ghost as opposed to 50.
 
would the situation change if all 50 were children or all 50 were women?

There is not right or wrong answer to this, but I'm curious as to how other people feel to the ultimate question: "when, if ever, is it okay to kill someone?"
 
assignment's done, it just sparked me to seek other opinions from people not in a graduate program for public affairs... yes even if that is 15 year olds. I think the real question is interesting for all demographics.
 
kill a person, its the obvious choice.

i admit it would be hard to do (since ive never murdered anyone before) but think about how much worse it would be if you let 50 people die, when you could have save all but 1 of them.

 
if the ONLY two options given to you are to shoot 1 or lose 50 then clearly you go for the 1. Personally I think there are many other options but if that is your assignment then so be it.

Reasoning:

Either way your hands are now dirty. By getting yourself invlved in the situation you are now responsible for the deaths of either 1 or 50 citizens. If you kill the one you save 49. If you throw away the chance to save 49 then all 50 die, so that the one you were going to kill anyways is dead no matter what. Chances are that one of them would be willing to sacrifice for the survival of the other 49. Ask around and if noone volunteers to be executed than kill the oldest or the weakest. And feel good knowing that you just saved the lives of 49 innocent people.

But there are other ways to deal with it. As mentioned though I believe your assignment calls for a black and white scenario (no pun intended).
 
here was part of my answer:

I initially thought about virtue ethics because to me, pulling the

trigger on one person to save 49 is becoming better by doing on act.

But then I though, is killing one person even a good act? Is it making

me better? No, it is not making myself better. I have probably

destroyed myself in the process of killing one person. Was it a good

act? No, I still killed someone. What about the quality of my

person? Am I being good by saving 49? Perhaps. Was my action in the

situation called for? Probably.

Then perhaps I should think

longer of the consequences of shooting one person to save 49. What

will the decision tree look like? In other words, who do I kill? Do I

have a suspicion of who fired the original shot? Even if I did,

weren't these people just trying to defend themselves from a violent

war lord? If me, an innocent observer for a NGO kills someone, perhaps

then I and the NGO will loose the trust and respect of the citizens.

Perhaps these citizens are understanding of the cruelty of the

warlords, but are not willing to accept that of the NGO. Me shooting

someone would make the villagers feel even more morally lost in who

they can trust to maintain their principles. Perhaps any one person I

choose to shot will be a specific village leader or protagonist that

will only push the villagers to become angry at the NGO. OR, that one

person becomes a messiah for the villagers to rally around and inspire

them to rebel against the warlords. But, perhaps in this new rebellion

even more people will die then if 50 passive people died that day.

Or,

what is my duty as a NGO worker? Are we a peacekeeping organization?

Are we a watchdog group like Amnesty International? Furthermore, what

is my role as an "observer?" Am I like a wildlife cinematographer who

has to watch a penguin starve and not intervene because it would

compromise the integrity of the situation? Or do my own morals ask me

to intervene and save 49 people?
 
fuckin easy ass question
either....1 person dies, 49 walk away, you SAVE 49 lives
OR....50 people die, 0 walk away, you killed 50 people
you do the math
 
If you are a utilitarian, this is only an easy problem. If you look at this with the categorical imparative it is not as easy.

For the first formulation, universalize the maxim. That would mean that if everyone shot people, the world would not be a good place. Therefore, it is immoral by this formulation

For the second, find ends justifing tje means. The end would be saving 49 people. The means of gettimg there is shooting a person. Kant who would say that you are using that person to get to the ends so no, the ends do not justify the means

I don't think this would be moral under virtue ethics. Killing a person does not fall under platos forms of a good human
 
Ethics does not answer any questions or solve any problems. It merely provides a lens for which to look at the problem through and every form of ethic holds a different lens.
I've taken many ethics classes (yuck) and for some reason just like telling people that who look for a direct answer to questions like these using ethical theory.
 
Some would argue you can't just "do the math." Please see Nozick and the separateness of persons argument.

If, on the other hand, you believe in utilitarianism, which imo is a very crude ethical theory, then you can simply add the lives of the saved.
 
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