On morality: Endanger others in order to make you safer?

I voted immoral. However, I do such all the time through my own purchasing power, my consumption, even my keeping of dogs.

Which reminds me -- I've got to call that woman about renter's insurance...

I've voted immoral too, but actually I'm not entirely sure.

Good point. My current insurance only covers if someone happens to catch fire!

(which means if you visit and you fall and break your leg I gotta douse you with kerosene)

Have you ever had dismemberment insurance? It's very tempting.

A little of option A and a little of option B. Life is all about risk, and nothing can change that. If if life isn't all about you living and getting things you want, what IS it about?

That moral judgement is kinda like what occured in WWII. Many Germans were forced (not all, many) into killing prisoners (specifically those of Jewish decent, but you know how it went).

When the war was over, many of those individuals were still tried for their crimes.

I asked my philsophy teacher about this conundrum when I was in College. When someone is given the choice between being forced to kill someone or die yourself, what is the morally correct choice to make.

He said that morally it would be better to be killed, but what % of people do you think would actually make that choice, to die?

I guess that depends on what of yourself you think it's most vital to preserve. We all make mistakes, but some of us are just given more opportunities. Such is life.

IMO, the question as posed is to vague. I put myself and eveyone else on the road "at risk" every time I drive. Everyone else that drives on the roads does the exact same thing.

Most of us don't concern ourselves with it because we deem it an "acceptable risk" - the odds of one random person injuring another random person at any given time while driving are pretty low. How many people consider the act of driving to be immoral? (Some might based on energy concerns etc but the act of driving becomes a secondary concern at that point.).

Now if I was pouring gasoline on random people and throwing lit matches at them the risk of harm to them is much higher and apparent and I'd guess (hope?!?) that most people would consider that someone engaging in an activity with that level of risk would be acting immorally.

The line between moral and immoral is based on the perceived level of risk and it will be different for each of us.

Yes, but how does throwing gasoline and lit matches at people make you safer? An acceptable risk is acceptable not because it is any less likely to turn out badly, but because the benefits it gives are greater than the losses that it could result in.

It wouldn't. I was using something extreme that everyone would understand as a high risk activity.



True enough. I tend see the two as tied together. If something is highly likely to go badly then the ods of benefitting are low and vice-versa. I think we both end up at the same place.

Well we were talking about things that make you safer while endangering someone else. If there is anything that is that black and white and still fits the criteria, feel free to elaborate.

Edit: Just read the second part of your post. No hard feelings.

Kill or be killed.

In the case of the German interrogator, it would of course be more immoral to inflict harm on the one interrogated even if it meant putting the interrogator at risk. This assumes that the interrogator knew the one interrogated was likely innocent of any crime..

The issue of morality becomes more complicated if the one interrogated likely has information that would allow the lives of innocent people to be saved. In this case, how does one decide which lives are the most important? It possibly could be more immoral to stand on principle than to do what must be done to protect and save the innocent.

In the case of kill or be killed (by a bad person), it's a no brainer. You shoot.

The no brainer becomes more complicated however if you could injure innocents if you miss. Police officers frequently have to make this kind of value judgment.

To be truly moral, I think a value judgment must be made in each situation so that the greater good is accomplished.