On Moral Right

(If this does not belong here let me know)

There is a virus that is going to kill everyone in the world. One man created the cure; no one else can possibly create it in time. He decides not to give it to anyone but himself. Is what he doing morally wrong?

[lehighguy]

Try the philosophy forum.

And no.

[mackthefork]

Everyone in the world is lying on a bed of nails, a big weight will drop on them in 5 seconds, a man has discovered the button which will stop this from happening, he decides he will not press it, is this <font color="green"> morally </font> wrong?

Mack

[lehighguy]

No. Assuming he has nothing to do with the situation being set up in the first place, he owes the world nothing.

There are no moral absolutes, only what we decide on for ourselves. To me there is a big difference between a sin of action and a sin of inaction.

[ QUOTE ]
No. Assuming he has nothing to do with the situation being set up in the first place, he owes the world nothing.

There are no moral absolutes, only what we decide on for ourselves. To me there is a big difference between a sin of action and a sin of inaction.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't you think that any moral system that allows this to happen is ridiculously flawed? I could never believe in something that allows this scenario. It's so... inhuman.

[lehighguy]

Well, your free to believe that, I just don't agree.

To do something wrong to someone is bad, but to allow something bad to happen through your inaction is fine. If that were not so, you would be responsible for every single bad thing that ever happened in the world. That seems just silly.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Sounds sort of goofy to me. I'd at least give the vaccine to myself *and* Selma Hayek.

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
(If this does not belong here let me know)

There is a virus that is going to kill everyone in the world. One man created the cure; no one else can possibly create it in time. He decides not to give it to anyone but himself. Is what he doing morally wrong?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's not admirable. However, enslaving him and stealing his labor and the product thereof is much, much worse.

[jthegreat]

If I were going to die, I'd steal it in a heartbeat, even if it took the rest of my life to pay him back.

See Rand's treatment of "emergency ethics".

[tylerdurden]

[ QUOTE ]
If I were going to die, I'd steal it in a heartbeat

[/ QUOTE ]

That's probably what would happen in such an edge case, even if there were widespread belief in absolute property rights.

Basically, this kind of question is similar to the "what if there's a ticking nuke in manhattan" objection to torture bans. If such a scenario actually develops, and the authorities get a suspect who knows where the bomb is, you can be pretty sure someone is going to torture the guy if he won't talk, whether or not there's any law against it.