Ethical Dilema #1 - The Button

NeverAmI said:
I suggest responding before reading the other responses.

You are kidnapped and faced with a problem. There is no clear indication as to why you were taken and any attempts to solicit details are denied. Each kidnapper has a hidden identity through an altered voice and all skin area being covered.

You are approached by one of the kidnappers and that person explains the following.

You must make a choice. You can either choose to press a button or not. If you press the button, a machine will administer a lethal dose to an unknown person. If you choose not to press the button, 20 unknown individuals will be killed by unknown means.

You are given no identities of anyone and no further details are allowed, the kidnappers assure you that the administering of the lethal dose can never be traced back to you, and their details as to why are accurate. You will not be made to witness the death of any party. Choosing to take no action and give no response counts towards not pressing the button.

You have 5 minutes to choose the fate of 21 individuals. Do you save the 20 by taking the life of one or do you let them perish?
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I call his bluff and do not press a button.

So, what does it say of one who thinks the whole dilemma is totally ridiculous to begin with? Someone else pointed out that you can't really trust a kidnapper to tell you the truth, so how do you know what the outcome will be anyway? You either fearfully and blindly accept the terms or refuse to cooperate with someone who has taken you against your will and proposed a ridiculous scenario for you to solve.
It makes more sense to me to do nothing and remain blameless and neutral.
 
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As much as I would advocate the lesser of two evils, in the real world, we don't always have this luxury.

From a legal and logical stand point, it's either me performing an action that would knowingly killing someone or deferring that task to the bad guys.

I'll be damn straight forward: I don't give a shit about 20 unknown people who could be just fucked up as the people who kidnapped me.
 
I'd push it. And if the button is like a remote I would push it as I caved the kidnapper's head in with it... So I killed an unusual number for this mind game, so what?
 
NeverAmI said:
@corndogman presents an interesting diversion, there is little to no chance of surviving, although the scope of this was never touched upon. Yet action can be taken to intervene completely.

There is a lot of unknown and a lot of risk with that scenario, but it leaves the conscience intact. It offers some various potentials:

Potential to survive and win all
Potential to survive and 20 still die
High probability of getting killed and 20 still die
Martyr for what you believe
Justify action and ideals through confrontation of injustice


Interesting that a Si dom is thinking outside the box. :)

Or perhaps it is just a quick response to elicit comic relief without any real bearing on what would actually occur in a real-life scenario.
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Sorry to shatter your view of Si dom. I have secondary and tertiary thingymagijs too ya know.

And whos to say I wont tell them to do it, kill the kidnapper, and push the button? I mean, Id kill a puppy for the right price. Why not 22 people for nothing?
 
If one can reduce the situation to a numbers game, it makes the most sense in terms of the moral good to press the button.

I wasn't able to do such a reduction, even after some real mental endeavor. My intuition (not "N") kept getting in the way.


cheers,
Ian
 
aeon said:
If one can reduce the situation to a numbers game, it makes the most sense in terms of the moral good to press the button.

I wasn't able to do such a reduction, even after some real mental endeavor. My intuition (not "N") kept getting in the way.


cheers,
Ian
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Reducing it to a number's game isn't the best way to do it though. I was trying to play within the constraints of the game (That being the moral ramifications). Realistically speaking, killing one important person could have far more detriments than killing twenty homeless people. It's a icky situation.
 
Reon said:
Reducing it to a number's game isn't the best way to do it though.
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Fair enough - I mentioned it because of earlier posts in the thread that communicated the poster's angle of consideration of the problem, and I wanted to share that I agree with that angle in theory, even if I wasn't personally able to align myself with it.


cheers,
Ian
 
NeverAmI said:
Out of scope of the scenario.

That would be hindsight.
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If we don't think of the consequences after the facts then the scenario is pointless.

It's no different then the discussion over the one important person vs the 20 homeless.
 
Barnabas said:
If we don't think of the consequences after the facts then the scenario is pointless.

It's no different then the discussion over the one important person vs the 20 homeless.
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It's just like that news report about some brave American mountain climber that fell victim to a landslide causing him to get his hand stuck in the tumbled rocks. After a couple of days he brought himself to finally cut off his own hand to escape to freedom. It was a story of incredible bravery and courage that's truly inspiring.

I couldn't help thinking from reading that story would I ever do that?

After some consideration I think yes, yes I would....what do I care about an Americans hand :P
 
I was actually serious with my post though.

Why play by their rules? You can't trust them. They don't provide any evidence for their claims and they've KIDNAPPED you. There's no way to know if the button actually kills anyone, or if they even have 20 people to kill. If you press the button and it actually IS traceable back to you, what'll you do then? There's even the possibility you could be framed for it. What if you press it and the 20 others never existed, but that one person did? Perhaps their rule is to actually kill people who press the button. There's no way to determine what their real intent is here.

Take stock of my surrounding. Determine a course of action to subdue my kidnapper(s) or escape. If at any point I can get access to a phone or cell phone, contact the police immediately.(If cell phone, hide the phone somewhere after making the call to ensure they can figure out its location)
 
Barnabas said:
If we don't think of the consequences after the facts then the scenario is pointless.

It's no different then the discussion over the one important person vs the 20 homeless.
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There is no way of knowing and the speculation prior to would be pointless. Dove could be one of the 20 people too.
 
If I'm reading this correctly, I can push the button and kill one person, or not push the button and 20 people die. As I understand it, someone is dying either way and 1 is better than 20 if I have no choice in the matter besides "press or don't."
Standing aside and letting 20 people die is just as bad as killing them if you can press the button and ensure their safety from this. Looking at it this way, the most logical choice (since we're eliminating attachment here) for me is to doom 1 instead of 20.

Of course, that's tough theoretical talk and just knowing what to do is only the first step :m169:
 
NeverAmI said:
I suggest responding before reading the other responses.

You are kidnapped and faced with a problem. There is no clear indication as to why you were taken and any attempts to solicit details are denied. Each kidnapper has a hidden identity through an altered voice and all skin area being covered.

You are approached by one of the kidnappers and that person explains the following.

You must make a choice. You can either choose to press a button or not. If you press the button, a machine will administer a lethal dose to an unknown person. If you choose not to press the button, 20 unknown individuals will be killed by unknown means.

You are given no identities of anyone and no further details are allowed, the kidnappers assure you that the administering of the lethal dose can never be traced back to you, and their details as to why are accurate. You will not be made to witness the death of any party. Choosing to take no action and give no response counts towards not pressing the button.

You have 5 minutes to choose the fate of 21 individuals. Do you save the 20 by taking the life of one or do you let them perish?
Click to expand...
I press the button. This is murder. So is not pressing it.

Put simply, not pressing the button is necessarily a choice, but only because it is a dichotomy. Not choosing one necessarily dictates not choosing the other. In a zero-sum game of mutually exclusive and opposite choices, there is no middle ground. Rather than looking at it from the perspective of making a choice or not making a choice, this situation should be looked at as making a choice to do something or making a choice to not do something. Since they are both choices and they are the only choices, they are essentially equal in terms of moral worth. So then, the deciding factor is the effects of choosing to press the button opposed to the effects of choosing to not press the button. In this case, the lower value is more desirable (unless you would rather more people die than less people). There is no such thing as a 'moral' option in this case, only less immoral and more moral.

Here is a mathematical model:

'b' defined as pushing or not pushing the button (positive and negative, respectively), 'c' defined as choosing to push or not push the button or not choosing to push or not push the button (positive and negative, respectively), and 'm' represents relative morality vs immorality (positive and negative, respectively).

INCORRECT MODEL:
b=c
-b=-c

If b=c, then -m
If -b=-c, then m

CORRECT MODEL:
c=b || c=-b

if c=b || c=-b, then -m

So then, there is clearly no choice and no real 'moral' option. The only variable left is the effect of b as opposed to the effects of -b. Because b will result in less deaths (1 as opposed to 20), b is more desirable.

So, I press the button.

I included the mathematical model in case someone was so inclined to that and had difficulty understanding what I was saying. Sometimes math is easier than words.

Or this.
 
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