The Watchmen Dilemma

Like I said earlier, it's the same as the "torture a terrorist"argument. Do you give up your precious, lefty feel good ideals and torture the terrorist to find where the bomb is?

I'll note that I'm not much of a consequentialist.

This is a far more realistic dilemma and one which , to some extent, faced Harry Truman during WWII.

OK, but my initial questions still hold true. Why can't you do it with 10 million? Or five? Can you pursue a third option? Why are you limited to the options you posit? This seems to be the same as the "would you torture someone to stop a terrorist nuclear bomb" question. You assume that a) humanity will be killed if you don't act and b) your action will prevent that death. Your killing twenty million could actually start the war you assume you will prevent. Failing to kill twenty million might not result in nuclear war. I think in real life, killing twenty million to prevent a possible war would be considered a phenomenal crime of a megalomaniac.

Like I said earlier, it's the same as the "torture a terrorist"argument. Do you give up your precious, lefty feel good ideals and torture the terrorist to find where the bomb is? Like that example, you are presented with impossible certainties in order to predetermine the answer. Everyone agrees to kill the least number of people because the problem has been so constrained as to remove all uncertainty.

But what about your own survival?

You guys seem to be missing the point, and that is the fundamental of this question. Would you kill an innocent, or a million innocent, in order to save far more innocents?

I do not believe Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings were justified, by the way, but in this scenario I would push the button.

I wasn't attempting to offend you, merely playing devil's advocate as best as possible. I didn't call you spineless, as I haven't actually seen you act in such a situation. Despite what I consider morally correct, I'm honestly not sure how I would act under such a situation.

"If it was necessary to kill someone, perhaps, us, as a species should die out." This is somewhat contradictory in that many people would have to die for us to die out. We are the only species that can appreciate morality, allowing us to be destroyed by it would make it contradict it's own value of life.

Well, there goes Godwin's law. Please elaborate in how killing one to save many can be likened to the events known as the Holocaust?

I again state that this is a hypothetical situation, and YOU know that what you would do saved the human race. Are you really so selfish as to allow the entire human race die out because you don't want your moral image tarnished?

The dilemma is the same regardless of the scope.

Killing one stranger to save ten should be just as difficult (or easy) as killing 20 million to save 6 billion if all you have to do in either case is push a button without having to witness the deaths you've caused.

I'm with those who would push the button although I think I might go upstairs afterwards and blow my brains out.

I'm interested, though, whether or not the hypothical's condition of remaining hidden is essential to the decision of anyone who has indicated he or she would push the button.

What would make the decision much more difficult, I think, is the degree of certainty one had that killing 20 million would actually save 6 billion. Presumably, if the ploy didn't work the 20 million would just be the first to go and so no harm; no foul.

However, how certain could you be that without killing 20 million, 6 billion would die?

This is a far more realistic dilemma and one which , to some extent, faced Harry Truman during WWII.

Easy solution.

I would personally round up all the stupid people according to my opinion, yes my opinion and move all the others to safety then nuke the stupid people. Oh and I would toss all those who said i was being inconsiderate of the stupid people too.

I don't like these hypothetical scenarios, because they don't actually do anything at all. Do you know how many people are dying from starvation on a daily basis, yet you can sit down to dinner and chat it up with your family and friends totally nonchalant as if it's not even happening. So you can't honestly tell me that if you were faced with a situation that you would act in a certain way that was noble because i simply won't buy it, at least not until i see you taking a flight to Africa and spending a simple months salary (probably not even that much) on feeding some starving people.

Okay, it's morally wrong to commit mass murder, but do you not agree it's also morally wrong to let someone die? Not to mention let far more people die then you would have to kill? If there's no one to measure morals in the first place, what does it matter? The survival of our species takes priority.

Would you let your own guilt get in the way of billions of innocent lives?

Perhaps you have not been very close to death, as of yet.

Hi Sentience,
I just added that last post to see if any would react. I would only kill to preserve - That goes for animals too. I used to hunt, trap and fish. Now I respect all livng things and do neither. For 'That' which we exact against, will be exacted upon - measure by measure.

Have a marvelous day, Sentience.
Mark...

Okay, it's morally wrong to commit mass murder, but do you not agree it's also morally wrong to let someone die?

Not to mention let far more people die then you would have to kill?

If there's no one to measure morals in the first place, what does it matter? The survival of our species takes priority.

Would you let your own guilt get in the way of billions of innocent lives?

This a pet peeve of mine--"I wouldn't do it because I'm not a something-ist". No different than saying "I wouldn't do it because I wouldn't do it". But in reality you just allowed hundreds of millions of people to die. Get in touch with your common sense.

First things first, this is a hypothetical situation. You saying that you COULD trace the bomb in my hypothetical situation is the equivalent of me walking up to Alan Moore, punching him in the jaw, and telling him Doctor Manhattan COULD see the future even with tachyons.

You're questioning the realism of something that doesn't exist. There's absolutely no point.

Not to mention you COMPLETELY missed the idea. This has nothing to do with your country, it's to create a violent third party so that whatever superpowers were originally about to bomb humanity into dust would team up and forever seek revenge against something that doesn't exist, thus nuclear warfare would be avoided.