The Value of Human Life (a poll for BigSooner)

[BigSoonerFan]

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BSF's point is rather simple, no matter what the consequence, murder is still wrong in the moral sense.

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You do realize that if I don't act and save the one I love, I'm effectively murdering her, right?

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No, you aren't. You need to work on your reasoning skills.

[BigSoonerFan]

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BSF's point is rather simple, no matter what the consequence, murder is still wrong in the moral sense.

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You do realize that if I don't act and save the one I love, I'm effectively murdering her, right?

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The funny thing is that I bet you (and those that think like you) don't like anyone infringing on your rights. You probably don't like it when people say you should help others, etc, yet when it comes down to it, you'll infringe (most dramatically) on the rights of ten people if it serves your purpose.

The fact that the children were "starving" is what swayed my decision (death ray). I looked at it as if I were preventing 11 people from dying a horrible death. 10 by starvation, and 1 by some disease. If the 10 children were perfectly healthy, then I probably wouldn't have done it. I would instead do just about anything to get the cure to the disease without killing 10 innocent kids in the process. If that was in no way possible, then I might recommend that my loved one overdose on sleeping pills (or some such painless way to die).

Killing the children painlessly (or near painlessly) if they are starving would not be immoral. If the question was "Save one healthy, happy African child or save 10 loved ones who have been transported to a desert island with no hope of survival", I'd have chosen to save the child.

[hmkpoker]

Yeah, I'd probably help my loved one with the euthanasia...except, I'd lie and just slip her a few sleeping pills and a bunch of placebos...then while she's out, BOOM! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY!

I might just use the death ray indescriminately, god that would be fun. It's fun just to say it! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY! DEATH RAY!

[hmkpoker]

And thus we open the can of worms that Sklansky opened a few months ago, with a series of uncomfortable questions structured as "would you rather save this, or this?" And eventually we'll boil it down to the fact that the value of human life is variable and relative. I assume that most people here have figured that out by now.

Now here's a REAL question.

Is there a "best" or "better" method of judging the value of human life, so as to provide the most benefit to the most people?

[sweetjazz]

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Killing the children painlessly (or near painlessly) if they are starving would not be immoral.

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And how do you decide this? Are you able to go around and distinguish between which people it is moral to kill and which it is immoral to kill? How do you accomplish this feat? At what point of hunger and food deprivation does it become moral to kill an individual? Extreme starvation? Beginning stages of starvation and no stable source for acquiring food in the future? One skipped meal?

Does the morality of killing the starving African children change if it is possible to communicate with them and ask them if they want to be killed? What if -- and I know this may come as a shocker -- they are still desparately clinging to a hope that their lot in life will improve? Even though that hope is completely unfounded, do you still find it morally acceptable to kill them?

And since there are innocent people who can be killed without it being immoral, how do we know that gamblers and poker players are not among that group? Or Americans (as Osama bin Laden might suggest)? Or people who are depressed and seem unhappy? Or people who have cancer and are going to die pretty soon anyway? (Actually, we are all going to die fairly soon, from a geological perspective.)

As is probably clear by now, I find your quoted statement quite controversial, and I am amazed that you could simply state it is as a fact without providing any argument that suggested your claim is true.

[hmkpoker]

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The funny thing is that I bet you (and those that think like you) don't like anyone infringing on your rights. You probably don't like it when people say you should help others, etc, yet when it comes down to it, you'll infringe (most dramatically) on the rights of ten people if it serves your purpose.

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I'm starting to believe that you're incapable of arguing anything without resorting to ad hominem attacks based on ill-informed notions, and pompous moral right.

You'll probably also be surprised to know that there are people in my life that I would take a fatal bullet for.

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If the question was "Save one healthy, happy African child or save 10 loved ones who have been transported to a desert island with no hope of survival", I'd have chosen to save the child.

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I think I know what you meant, but you sure worded it ambiguously. You mean you'd save the child by killing your loved ones that were going to suffer & die soon anyway.

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Is there a "best" or "better" method of judging the value of human life, so as to provide the most benefit to the most people?

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There are probably "better" methods... but no "best", as the value judgements will be subjective.

I think this is the main problem with Utilitarianism (from what I know of it). How can you measure utility? Happiness? Pretty hard to do... especially when we aren't even very good at knowing what makes us happy.