A dillema for the "moral" Absolutist...

[bybee]

war as an instance

war as an instance

It's definately not a stupid scenario - I know that many similar situations have already occured in war-torn portions of our world and seeing how the oceans don't protect us from this type of insanity anymore it could happen here as well.

Now, are you willing to provide an answer? Or just hurl more baseless insults?

the thing is, in war I doubt that rhe military people having the upper hand would offer choices to the conquered people. Just as in Nazi Germany, once Hitler took power it was too late for the German people to resist overtly. They had already succumbed to the proganda of hate and Aryan Supremacy. When some of them finally woke up the only choices left to them were to secretly fight their own government or obey the government and be involved in the slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, handicapped people, Slavs, political dissidents and any other person who disagreed with the party line or face execution as many people did. The freedom to disagree with one another without persecution or recrimination must be protected before rabid public opinion has been manipulated into an unstoppable juggernault. Sound familiar? bybee

 

[CabinetMaker]

I know that among most people who ascribe to themselves an absolute "moral" system in our culture human life is viewed as something that is of great intrinsic value - it's held up as such that the preservation of it takes priority over anything else. In short, it's often taken for granted that one can't put a price on it. To this assertion, I vehemently disagree and wish to point out that one can put a price on human life - even the vaunted "moral" absolutist.

Consider the following scenario: you are in a public place (mall, office, school, church, etc...) with some one close to you (a parent, sibbling, best friend, significant other, etc...) and suddenly a group of armed lunatics bursts in takes everyone in this gathering place hostage. For amusement, they randomly take ten people you don't know out of the group and place them on their knees - and then take that person of importance to you (parent, sibbling, friend, etc...) and put him/her on the floor apart from the others and then ask you to make a decision...

1. Say the word and the ten strangers will immediately be released to go home, but the person close to you will be shot to pieces as they walk out the door.

2. You and the one close to you can leave immediately, but only after the ten strangers have been killed.

Note: fighting back is out of the question as there are too many of them and you can't match their firepower. So is stalling for time, as the gunmen give you only so much time to reach a decision before they simply eliminate you and the two parties in question.

To the "moral" absolutist I ask you - what is your final answer?

Well, since their is no moral absolute principal at stake in the described situation then I opt for option 2. There is no moral absolute that says you must save the most lives that you can. So, for the poorly contrived situation you have described, I choose option 2 with moral certainty that I have done nothing wrong.

 

[MrRadish]

The sheer level of question-dodging by Knight, Lighthouse etc in the earlier part of this thread (though it must be said in the last page or two it's got much better) reminds of what snotty and bloody-minded 8-year old schoolkids used to do when they didn't want to do a maths problem:

Teacher:
If you have 6 apples, and two of your friends come to visit and between the three of you you share them, how many do you get each?"

Eggleston Jr:
*with a grin at his friends* I don't like apples, so I don't have any.

Teacher:
:sigh: Okay, bits of chocolate then.

Eggleston Jr:
Well I'd give them half a square each and eat the rest myself. No friend is worth 6 bits of chocolate.

Teacher:
No, no, you're missing the point. You share it equally.

Eggleston Jr:
But I don't want to share them equally. It's not realistic.

Teacher:
Oh for... It's a division problem. It doesn't matter if it's not realistic. It's basic arithmetic, not literary criticism!

Eggleston Jr:
It's a stupid question, when am I ever going to share chocolate with my friends, they get more candy than me anyway.

Teacher: :madmad:

Eggleston Jr:
Ha ha, I'm smarter than the teacher, look everyone, I outsmarted the teacher, ha ha.

Fin

Epilogue -
Soon afterwards, the teacher has a nervous breakdown, and after a recovery period buys an orchard and spends the rest of his existence in a distant but pleasant mental pasture where people are born at the age of 30 and are fed on a permanent drip. Eggleston Jr grows up to become manager at a non-specific firm and, many years later, is strangled by his wife.

Meanwhile, a major terrorist group is defeated after the capture the entirety of TOL, present them with a moral dilemma, and are killed in the cross-fire between the members themselves.

 

[MrRadish]

The sheer level of question-dodging by Knight, Lighthouse etc in the earlier part of this thread (though it must be said in the last page or two it's got much better) reminds of what snotty and bloody-minded 8-year old schoolkids used to do when they didn't want to do a maths problem:

Teacher:
If you have 6 apples, and two of your friends come to visit and between the three of you you share them, how many do you get each?"

Eggleston Jr:
*with a grin at his friends* I don't like apples, so I don't have any.

Teacher:
:sigh: Okay, bits of chocolate then.

Eggleston Jr:
Well I'd give them half a square each and eat the rest myself. No friend is worth 6 bits of chocolate.

Teacher:
No, no, you're missing the point. You share it equally.

Eggleston Jr:
But I don't want to share them equally. It's not realistic.

Teacher:
Oh for... It's a division problem. It doesn't matter if it's not realistic. It's basic arithmetic, not literary criticism!

Eggleston Jr:
It's a stupid question, when am I ever going to share chocolate with my friends, they get more candy than me anyway.

Teacher: :madmad:

Eggleston Jr:
Ha ha, I'm smarter than the teacher, look everyone, I outsmarted the teacher, ha ha.

Fin

Epilogue -
Soon afterwards, the teacher has a nervous breakdown, and after a recovery period buys an orchard and spends the rest of his existence in a distant but pleasant mental pasture where people are born at the age of 30 and are fed on a permanent drip. Eggleston Jr grows up to become manager at a non-specific firm and, many years later, is strangled by his wife.

Meanwhile, a major terrorist group is defeated after the capture the entirety of TOL, present them with a moral dilemma, and are killed in the cross-fire between the members themselves.

 

[MrRadish]

Wow, double post. Sorry about that. And the edit button seems to have disappeared What's going on?

 

[Granite]

Well, since their is no moral absolute principal at stake in the described situation then I opt for option 2. There is no moral absolute that says you must save the most lives that you can. So, for the poorly contrived situation you have described, I choose option 2 with moral certainty that I have done nothing wrong.

Just because a hypothetical makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it poorly contrived. And what is the huge problem here? Why does it take so much for people to admit their loved ones matter more to them than strangers? That's hardly a revelation, or shouldn't be.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Just because a hypothetical makes you uncomfortable doesn't make it poorly contrived. And what is the huge problem here? Why does it take so much for people to admit their loved ones matter more to them than strangers? That's hardly a revelation, or shouldn't be.

Its poorly contrived in that a heavily armed group of people take a bunch of hostages, randomly select one with a significant other with them and then give them a choice about who lives and who dies. Sounds like a great movie plot but not remotely probable in real life. That is why I say it is poorly contrived.

 

[GuySmiley]

I know that among most people who ascribe to themselves an absolute "moral" system in our culture human life is viewed as something that is of great intrinsic value - it's held up as such that the preservation of it takes priority over anything else. In short, it's often taken for granted that one can't put a price on it. To this assertion, I vehemently disagree and wish to point out that one can put a price on human life - even the vaunted "moral" absolutist.

Consider the following scenario: you are in a public place (mall, office, school, church, etc...) with some one close to you (a parent, sibbling, best friend, significant other, etc...) and suddenly a group of armed lunatics bursts in takes everyone in this gathering place hostage. For amusement, they randomly take ten people you don't know out of the group and place them on their knees - and then take that person of importance to you (parent, sibbling, friend, etc...) and put him/her on the floor apart from the others and then ask you to make a decision...

1. Say the word and the ten strangers will immediately be released to go home, but the person close to you will be shot to pieces as they walk out the door.

2. You and the one close to you can leave immediately, but only after the ten strangers have been killed.

Note: fighting back is out of the question as there are too many of them and you can't match their firepower. So is stalling for time, as the gunmen give you only so much time to reach a decision before they simply eliminate you and the two parties in question.

To the "moral" absolutist I ask you - what is your final answer?

Hmmm, I know I'm late. I don't know what I'd do. I think I'd chose my family member to live. Then I'd feel guilty for the rest of my life. Anyway . . .

Why is this a dilema for moral absolutists? Seems like a dilema for everyone. As if it'd be an easy choice for relativists. What has this got to do with morals being absolute or relative?

 

[CabinetMaker]

Hmmm, I know I'm late. I don't know what I'd do. I think I'd chose my family member to live. Then I'd feel guilty for the rest of my life. Anyway . . .

Why is this a dilema for moral absolutists? Seems like a dilema for everyone. As if it'd be an easy choice for relativists. What has this got to do with morals being absolute or relative?

Nothing. It was contrived by an individual that has no understanding of biblical morals. By his own admission he is a nihilist and lives by his own "moral" code.

 

[Granite]

Its poorly contrived in that a heavily armed group of people take a bunch of hostages, randomly select one with a significant other with them and then give them a choice about who lives and who dies. Sounds like a great movie plot but not remotely probable in real life. That is why I say it is poorly contrived.

Many hypotheticals are just as unlikely. What matters is the answer you provide. Nitpicking the scenario is a waste of time.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Many hypotheticals are just as unlikely. What matters is the answer you provide. Nitpicking the scenario is a waste of time.

In this case it is. Punisher1984 advertises this as a moral delema for the moral absolutist yet there is no delema. He gives us no moral principal that either choice violates. He is operating on a faulty assumption that saving the most people is the right thing to do without indicating where this moral principal originates. It does not originate within the pages of scripture. So its a hypothetical that is so poorly contrived that it utterly fails at its intended purpose: moral absolutes create delemas for people who are not morally flexable.

 

[always_learning]

...Why does it take so much for people to admit their loved ones matter more to them than strangers? That's hardly a revelation, or shouldn't be.

This is where you misunderstand... I'm sure everyone who has posted so far would agree, their loved ones are worth more to them than strangers. That's why they're called "loved ones", after all...

Where your thinking diverges from the moral absolutist's is your understanding of worth.

This from wiktionary.org:

worth (countable and uncountable; plural worths)

1. (countable) Value.

I’ll have a dollar's worth of candy, please.

2. (uncountable) Merit, excellence.

Our new director is a man whose worth is well acknowledged.

Obviously, countable value isn't applicable here... I would assume we all agree, you don't rate your loved ones to the value of strangers ("my older sister is worth 8 good-looking strangers' lives, while my little brother is worth 2 ugly ones").

So we are talking about uncountable value here. The value you are speaking of IS relative: I would value my loved one more than a stranger, and the stranger has a loved one who would value them more than me or my loved one. This value is personal.

The value that we moral relativists would refer to in this situation is God's value of human life. We (would like to) look beyond our personal opinions and values to see God's value. (I say would like to because it's not something easily accomplished.) In the current situation, if it was my loved one, who like many of my loved ones, was a Christian, the decision, while not easy, would be obvious... because they would be "going to a better place."

As has been well pointed out and ridiculed by many others already, this situational ethics question is ridiculous. My question is, how do you know the "armed lunatics" will keep their word? What would give you the impression a group of people who find amusement in killing would feel pangs of guilt if they killed two more people? And don't you know, any intelligent killer doesn't leave witnesses behind anyway?

 

[bybee]

regarding perfidy

regarding perfidy

I thought I'd re-animate this thread, with a question for the moral absolutists.

Are there any circumstances under which you would resort to perfidy, as defined thus:



If perfidious means would win you the fight, would you resort to them? If not, why not?

It appears to me that the definers of "Perfidy" in time of war, have never been in a life threatening situation. Up in the Ivory Tower life looks different from the Fox Hole. I would do what ever it takes to survive short of killing civilians. These are "Arm chair quarterback" debates. bybee

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Its poorly contrived in that a heavily armed group of people take a bunch of hostages, randomly select one with a significant other with them and then give them a choice about who lives and who dies. Sounds like a great movie plot but not remotely probable in real life. That is why I say it is poorly contrived.

actually, it does happen every day - only with far worse consequences ...

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

.... .....
....
.....
And don't you know,
any intelligent killer doesn't leave witnesses behind anyway?

no, don't know that.