Kill 1 to save 1,000?

[yurano]

Whether the 1 wants to be sacrificed also matters.

If you kill someone who doesn't want to die, it doesn't matter how many you kill. Its still murder.

[Ieft]

Don't kill the 1 and let the 1000 die is my choice. The world is overpopulated as it is, seeing as you didn't give these people any relations to me specifically, I wouldn't care to see them go. Yeah, its sinister, don't care.

Totally agree, world needs less people.

[Aristeia]

Totally agree, world needs less people.

Callous indeed, need I say more?

[Deleted]

I'am pretty cold when it comes to these things i simply don't care for random human life!It's not like it matters if 1 /1000 or even 1 million dies will have absolutely 0 impact on nature,society and most important me or my family. But from the goodness of my heart i'd kill 1 to save 1000!

[vadre]

Totally agree, world needs less people.

You're free to do your bit to help out with that problem, of course.

Honestly, dismissively saying you wouldn't care if you don't know them is somewhat ridiculous. That wouldn't just be 1000 lives snuffed out, that would be a whole lot more ruined by it too remember?

But yeah, I'd go for the 1. No one's life is more valuable than 1000 others unless it's seriously context-heavy, like 1000 murderers and... a nun. A nice nun.

[Kickrockz]

Crazy Q,

What if that one person was Albert Einstein?
What if that one person was JC?
What if that one person was Isaac Newton or Alexander Graham Bell?

Lot's of variables to this Q, if it was just a straight up answer it would be to save the 1000 but what if killing that one you ended up without something important or something that could change the world? What if by saving the one but killing the 1000 you saved millions? Or by saving that one you cured cancer or aids?

[Rafdal]

Don't kill the 1 and let the 1000 die is my choice. The world is overpopulated as it is, seeing as you didn't give these people any relations to me specifically, I wouldn't care to see them go. Yeah, its sinister, don't care.

^Have to agree with this one.

[Trassk]

If killing one saves 1000 perhaps, but if killing 1 ultimately down the line costs the lives of 10,000, then no its not worth it.

[Mengucekli]

Kill both 1000 and 1, no one would give it a fuck if they were poor, light up a cigarette in joy and have a fucking nice day. Welcome to the real world.

[Leynal]

Couple things: You have to define the situation a little more thoroughly to make a proper judgement.

Say for instance the 1 person is showing every intention of harming those 1,000 people. It is then justified to forgo honoring his right to life in order to protect the right to life of the other 1000. Or even 1 person, not 1000. In attacking (or making it clear that he has every intention to attack) he has given up his own right to life.

In a situation where all 1,001 people in question are in fact 'innocent' and it is a third party saying 'kill this one person or the other 1,000 die', I believe the only logical conclusion from a moral standpoint is to not kill the person. The reason why is because that person is innocent and has done nothing wrong. Therefore they have not given up their right to life and you do not have the right to take their life no matter what the circumstances. In killing him you have committed a crime which is unlawful and morally wrong even tho it would 'save' a greater number of people. The moral responsibility for the murders falls on the third party that created the situation, NOT on you. You are not killing them, the third party is and you are therefore morally responsible to ensure that you yourself do not commit an immoral act. You are not responsible for the morally reprehensible actions of the third party.

In a situation where say a natural disaster leaves you in a position where you must sacrifice one to save 1,000 then I believe sacrificing the one is the correct decision. This is because the natural disaster is not a thinking entity which has created the situation and is morally responsible for it. It is simply a situation you are placed in and your moral responsibility is to save as many lives as possible.

The existence of the third party who is morally responsible for creating the situation in the second example is the key to the difference in actions between the second and third examples. Now the real question is: does the hypothetical existence of a god (a thinking entity) that created the third example throw a loophole in this reasoning? :-p

[Deleted]

One can argue that to act or to not act, in full knowledge of the consequences of those actions or inactions, are identical, and thus if you choose no, you are killing 1,000 (with the relevant assumptions about there being no other options available, and no chance you have misinformation, and that there is no significant, relevant difference between the lives in question).

Of course, in practice, actually killing someone personally, even for a good cause, is not going to be easy, if it's someone/thing else who would be finishing off the other 1,000, it's a lot easier not to. Doesn't mean it's right not to, just that humans are not keen to kill other innocent humans personally.

We tend to judge actions as harsher than inactions, even when the consequences are the same. This makes sense generally, as we usually don't have the information to know what our inactions will lead to and can make (or think we can make) better guesses about the consequences of what our actions will lead to, as well as actions requiring a concious choice to do something - intent, where as inactions often don't, but certainly can do.

[Deleted]

Show me someone who says they could 100% kill a person in any circumstance and I will show you a nutcase, a liar, or someone who hasn't thought it through.

[Deleted]

/threadhijack
If you could travel in time and you meet a young painter in Paris, named Adolf Hitler. With all you know, would you kill him? And possibly end up in old-time-jail?

Probably but try not to get caught, but i would more likely go back in time and kill him in WW1(where he was actually spared).


Add a twist to the question.
Is it right to kill one person to save 1000: Suggest that the 1 is in some way responsible for the 1000, therefore a killer/terrorist etc
Is it right to save 1000 but consequently kill one: The tradition out of control train going to crash and kill 1000, do u swap the tracks which could cause the train to go different route and kill one person.

Both ways yes personally however.

[zox]

The only problem with killing the 1 person is, that it is possible that they might not have been needed to be killed at all in the first place, should you looked harder for an option 3.
Otherwise there are rules in say scuba diving, cave exploring, etc., that in case of an accident, you must try to save the one in trouble, unless there is a very high risk of you dying if you tried. The rationale being of course is that don't make 2 corpses instead of one. But this is an extremely hard rule to follow, because the obvious moral implications, and the usual lack of clear, objective thinking in those life-threatening situations.
This sort of applies here, although, it is very hard to imagine a situation where this would be true. The last time anything like this happened (that I know of) was 9/11 when the passengers of that 4th airplane supposedly forced it to crash. These situations are thankfully very rare.

[Deleted]

Show me someone who says they could 100% kill a person in any circumstance and I will show you a nutcase, a liar, or someone who hasn't thought it through.

If someone showed 50% chance of killing my baby sister, i'd probably beat him close to death.

[Venant]

A thought exercise:

Suppose you only knew about the aforementioned terms of this scenario in which you are killing 1 innocent person to save 1000 innocents, but what if this question was being simultaneously posed to 10,000 others, and the group of people being held hostage were all the same 1,000. In such a scenario you might end up with 10,000 innocent people being murdered to 'protect' 1,000. The only way to avoid such a situation is to adhere to the rule that murder is wrong.

Suppose you were given this choice and you did chose to kill 1 to save 1000, what would happen if after doing so you were immediately posed with the same proposition again? If you are a rational person then you would make the same decision again and again, which would eventually cause you to kill more people than you 'saved.' If there is a point at which you would simply stop killing people then you don't have a rational moral system in place, since there is no rational way to determine when you would stop. Once again the only option is to never begin, otherwise you risk falling into an endless slippery slope.

[Knetje]

i would kill 1,001 .... i am soooo bad at making descisions :P

[banur]

That is the options kill 1 or kill 1000

and

Do I kill one person or do I kill 1000...
The answer should be pretty obvious.

No, that is NOT the question.
Those 1000 people will die without your action. You are asked if you want to kill one person to save the others or if you don't. You won't kill those 1000 people.

Killing someone is never a good idea. NEVER!

This is the main point of the question. Do you want to kill a person or not? While knowing that your (lack of) action has a certain consequence.

I'am pretty cold when it comes to these things i simply don't care for random human life!It's not like it matters if 1 /1000 or even 1 million dies will have absolutely 0 impact on nature,society and most important me or my family. But from the goodness of my heart i'd kill 1 to save 1000!

Does that still hold if you are the person you have to kill?

[Tyrionlol]

The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic. - Joseph Stalin.

I obviously agree.

[Nuvuk]

If it was a family member, friend or a child then I would have to say sorry to the 1000.