The Value of Human Life (a poll for BigSooner)

[sexypanda]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can not justify taking someone else's life even if it means letting someone I love die.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can justify taking someone else's life... even if no loved one's are involved: self-defense, euthanasia.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough: I think good arguments can be made for killing someone in the two examples listed. Can you give a justification for killing someone who (1) hasn't infringed on your rights at all and (2) hasn't consented to your taking their life?

I don't think you have offered an example which refutes the previous poster's claim: that it is not moral to kill someone based solely on utilitarian calculations of what is best for society.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, defense of a friend is a perfectly justifiable defense for killing someone. That person would have neither infringed on your rights, nor consented to you taking their life. This can be said to be utilitarian because infringment on anyones rights is a harm to society and tears at the foundation of social laws. When someone infringes on anyone elses rights, they are a threat to the fabric of society, and thefore it is justifiable to stop them from doing so (appropriately according to the situation) for the good of society. If that person is trying to kill another, you are then justified in killing them.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very good example. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Unfortunately, this principle does not provide a justification for killing the African children in the scenario of the OP. (Not that this is a criticism of what you wrote, but that is what I was trying to get at with my conditions. But I obviously left out the possibility you mention here.)

I should replace (1) with
(1') hasn't infringed on anyone else's rights to the point of requiring homocide to defend the victim's rights

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha you happen to be in luck. I'm a first year law student who happens to be studying for his crim final and is exactly on the "justification" section.

The law allows 2 types of general defenses for criminal conduct: justifications (ex. self defense) and excuses (ex. insanity). A justification defense is a claim that the person did the crime (ex. murder) but due to special circumstances, society doesn't deem it wrong. An excuse defense is a claim that the person did the crime but conditions show that the person was not responsible for his act so he should not be punished. Society still says that the act was wrong, but the actor was in a state where he should not be held responsible for the act.

An example of a justification for murder where noone's rights were infringed is if you killed someone you reasonably believed was going to kill you, but you ended up being wrong. Even though noone's rights were infringed, and you were never in any threat, you're act of killing is still considered justifiable. An example of this is if a police officer shoots someone aiming a watergun at him, under the impression that his life was in danger.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can not justify taking someone else's life even if it means letting someone I love die.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can justify taking someone else's life... even if no loved one's are involved: self-defense, euthanasia.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough: I think good arguments can be made for killing someone in the two examples listed. Can you give a justification for killing someone who (1) hasn't infringed on your rights at all and (2) hasn't consented to your taking their life?

I don't think you have offered an example which refutes the previous poster's claim: that it is not moral to kill someone based solely on utilitarian calculations of what is best for society.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, defense of a friend is a perfectly justifiable defense for killing someone. That person would have neither infringed on your rights, nor consented to you taking their life. This can be said to be utilitarian because infringment on anyones rights is a harm to society and tears at the foundation of social laws. When someone infringes on anyone elses rights, they are a threat to the fabric of society, and thefore it is justifiable to stop them from doing so (appropriately according to the situation) for the good of society. If that person is trying to kill another, you are then justified in killing them.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very good example. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Unfortunately, this principle does not provide a justification for killing the African children in the scenario of the OP. (Not that this is a criticism of what you wrote, but that is what I was trying to get at with my conditions. But I obviously left out the possibility you mention here.)

I should replace (1) with
(1') hasn't infringed on anyone else's rights to the point of requiring homocide to defend the victim's rights

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha you happen to be in luck. I'm a first year law student who happens to be studying for his crim final and is exactly on the "justification" section.

The law allows 2 types of general defenses for criminal conduct: justifications (ex. self defense) and excuses (ex. insanity). A justification defense is a claim that the person did the crime (ex. murder) but due to special circumstances, society doesn't deem it wrong. An excuse defense is a claim that the person did the crime but conditions show that the person was not responsible for his act so he should not be punished. Society still says that the act was wrong, but the actor was in a state where he should not be held responsible for the act.

An example of a justification for murder where noone's rights were infringed is if you killed someone you reasonably believed was going to kill you, but you ended up being wrong. Even though noone's rights were infringed, and you were never in any threat, you're act of killing is still considered justifiable. An example of this is if a police officer shoots someone aiming a watergun at him, under the impression that his life was in danger.

[/ QUOTE ]

Really really good stuff. So it looks like (1') is still not good enough, so I am going to try:
(1'') hasn't infringed on anyone else's rights to the point of believing that the steps leading to homocide were necessary to defend the victim's rights

Good luck on your exam. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[sexypanda]

Given the new number 1, I don't think anyone can bring up a justifiable defense, but given your caveat of "belief" you are bring in a subjective standard. You then have to put yourself in the person's shoes to see if the belief was reasonable. You have to understand the peron's background and indivudual circumstances. But what if the person was racist and percieved every black person as a threat to him. He then is subjectively justified in killing any black person, but then we have to bring in some sort of objective reasonablness in ("social norm"). I don't think morality is truly only subjective or objective, but I think it can be defined as a counterplay between both standards. If you strictly believe in just an objective standard though, you'll end up coming up with the "wrong" decision in some circumstances.

[BigSoonerFan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I haven't read most of the replies, but I think the conclusion we can draw from the results here is that everything, including morality, is subjective.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a fantastic conclusion to draw!!! Good thing you didn't bother to read most of the replies, or you might not have come up with that amazing insight.

[/ QUOTE ]

He didn't really need to, it's common sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

That the morality of murder is subjective? Sure.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
Given the new number 1, I don't think anyone can bring up a justifiable defense, but given your caveat of "belief" you are bring in a subjective standard. You then have to put yourself in the person's shoes to see if the belief was reasonable. You have to understand the peron's background and indivudual circumstances. But what if the person was racist and percieved every black person as a threat to him. He then is subjectively justified in killing any black person, but then we have to bring in some sort of objective reasonablness in ("social norm"). I don't think morality is truly only subjective or objective, but I think it can be defined as a counterplay between both standards. If you strictly believe in just an objective standard though, you'll end up coming up with the "wrong" decision in some circumstances.

[/ QUOTE ]

Fair enough. We definitely need some sort of social norm, or else we can just all go around making excuses whenever we did something wrong as to why we believed we "had" to do it. There is no doubt that we will sometimes be forced to rely on the subjective beliefs of certain people to decide how to handle a moral issue in society (e.g. a jury deciding whether the police officer could have reasonably believed he was in danger from the watergun).

I tend to think we can generally outline objective principles regarding morality. But applying them to complicated situations in reality requires us to make a certain amount of subjective judgments as to how to weight the various principles at play. So I think I agree with you that there is a counterplay between objective and subjective.

[mrmazoo]

Ok then. Go ahead and give an objective proof for why murder is wrong.

[Lestat]

You are assuming the death ray is the morally wrong answer. Wrong for who? Certainly for the 10 African children, but not for myself or my loved one. Also not wrong for my loved one's loved ones. If my loved one were childless, then definitely not wrong for my loved one's future offspring, grandchildren, etc. If my loved one saves a life, then not wrong for the person who's life my loved one saved. If my loved one becomes a doctor or finds a cure for a deadly disease and saves hundreds and hundreds of lives, then not wrong for any of those who'ss lives my loved one saved.

I could go on and on. Ten deaths to 1 is not a slam dunk. I also do not believe morality is static with clear cut right and wrong answers.

[mrmazoo]

[ QUOTE ]

My contention is that the scenario outlined is somewhat similar. The right thing to do would be to refrain from using the death ray, even though it would be very difficult for most people to actually do so because they would allow their emotions and personal interests to trump their concern for making a morally correct decision. And given the stakes at hand and the fact that many people would make what I believe is the morally wrong decision, that indicates to me that it is possible (indeed appropriate) to be lenient toward the person even though they end up doing something wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

But this is not even an argument. All you do is state the conclusion you believe is correct without giving any reasons to believe so. It may seem obvious to you, and most of us, that 10 lives are worth more than one, but that doesn't make it true.

I'm not arguing that morality is relative. That would imply that ethical propositions are something we can assign as either true or false. I'm saying that there is no list of facts and inferences that can prove one way or another which actions are good and which bad.

That means that ethics is fundamentally NOT like physics, or poker. It isn't just that it is "difficult." It is completely intractable. It is beyond truth. Not even GOD could come up with an objective proof that ten lives have more worth than one (all things being equal). That's why it's called faith.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

My contention is that the scenario outlined is somewhat similar. The right thing to do would be to refrain from using the death ray, even though it would be very difficult for most people to actually do so because they would allow their emotions and personal interests to trump their concern for making a morally correct decision. And given the stakes at hand and the fact that many people would make what I believe is the morally wrong decision, that indicates to me that it is possible (indeed appropriate) to be lenient toward the person even though they end up doing something wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

But this is not even an argument. All you do is state the conclusion you believe is correct without giving any reasons to believe so. It may seem obvious to you, and most of us, that 10 lives are worth more than one, but that doesn't make it true.

I'm not arguing that morality is relative. That would imply that ethical propositions are something we can assign as either true or false. I'm saying that there is no list of facts and inferences that can prove one way or another which actions are good and which bad.

That means that ethics is fundamentally NOT like physics, or poker. It isn't just that it is "difficult." It is completely intractable. It is beyond truth. Not even GOD could come up with an objective proof that ten lives have more worth than one (all things being equal). That's why it's called faith.

[/ QUOTE ]

I hope that I can reply to both of you in one reply, as I believe your responses are similar. I apologize in advance if I miss a subtle point in one of your arguments by trying to treat the two as one.

First of all, I realize that I did not provide an argument for my view in the post you replied to, but I have explained my reasoning in other posts. My series of posts with sexypanda explored the different rationales for killing someone.

The first premise of my argument is that, in order to willingly kill an individual, one must have a justification for it. Possible justifications given in other replies are:
(1) the other person requests your assistance in killing them (e.g. euthanasia)
(2) someone's rights are being infringed and you reasonably believe that homocide is necessary to protect the other person's rights (e.g. shooting someone who was about to shoot you or someone else)

Since the killing of the African children does not fall into any of the possible justifications for willingly killing another individual, it is immoral.

One premise in my argument is that there is a distinction between killing the African children with the death ray -- an outcome that would not have occurred had I not existed -- and allowing the loved one to die from the terminal illness -- an outcome that would haev occurred had I not existed. Many people in this thread have asserted that allowing the loved one to die is akin to murder.

I think it is clear that, all things being equal, one should not allow someone to die if there is something that can be done to prevent that situation from happening, especially if that person is a loved one. It would certainly be wrong to sit back and let them die if all you had to do was drive down to the local pharmacist and buy a $10 pill for them. However, while you should take every reasonable effort to save the loved one, you should not murder another person (or multiple people) in order to do so.

It has absolutely nothing to do with trying to assess which person's life has more value. That is a subjective judgment and clearly will depend on who is making the assessment (e.g. whether it is you or the mother of the African children). In fact, that is one of the main reasons why it is wrong to kill someone else (outside of the exceptions listed above)! Because we cannot objectively determine the value of people's lives and so we don't have the right to play God. When it comes to determining who will live and who will die, we are sometimes morally obligated to allow the natural course (i.e. the one that would take place if we weren't around) to take place.

The scenario of the OP is an illustrative example of such a case. The mistake in thinking it is okay to kill the African children is assuming that the situation is symmetric (someone will get killed no matter what we choose) and therefore we are free to decide for ourselves who dies. In fact, the situation is asymmetric, because letting the loved one die, though unbelievably painful and regrettable, is not murder while blasting the African children with the death ray is murder. And not murdering innocent people takes precedence over saving the life of an individual, no matter how dear to heart.

[sweetjazz]

[ QUOTE ]
You are assuming the death ray is the morally wrong answer. Wrong for who? Certainly for the 10 African children, but not for myself or my loved one. Also not wrong for my loved one's loved ones. If my loved one were childless, then definitely not wrong for my loved one's future offspring, grandchildren, etc. If my loved one saves a life, then not wrong for the person who's life my loved one saved. If my loved one becomes a doctor or finds a cure for a deadly disease and saves hundreds and hundreds of lives, then not wrong for any of those who'ss lives my loved one saved.

[/ QUOTE ]

The "wrong for who?" argument makes no sense. I cannot go and kill Celine Dion and then argue that, yes it may have been wrong for her, but it was right for so many people who hate her music with boundless zeal. Your choice could be between saving Mother Theresa or zapping a spoiled brat with a death ray.

[ QUOTE ]

I could go on and on. Ten deaths to 1 is not a slam dunk. I also do not believe morality is static with clear cut right and wrong answers.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with you 100% that is possible that there is more value to society as a whole to save the terminally ill person than to not zap the African children. Thus, zapping the African children could be for the greater good. Still, it would be wrong to do. (Just as, even if most people thought that killing Celine Dion would serve the greater good of society, it would still, unfortunately, be wrong.)

I too do not believe that morality is always static with clear cut right and wrong answers. But I also believe that in some situations, there are clear answers. I think the example of the OP is relatively clear. (Though I think the reason stated in the poll for not using the death ray is completely off the mark, which might be part of the reason so many people disagree with it.) You could add some additional facts that would make it closer.