A question that has bugged me...

[Psilon]

Normally we are comfortable of the idea of "the millions for the billions". Like if I sacrifice a town in a war to save five cities it seems like a ethically sound idea.

However, if we use the same logic to another situation it seems wrong. I could murder a person and then hsrvest their organs and save five other people.

Why are the two situations different?

[Stewie]

It's different because those 5 people that are going to die without the organs are presumably dying of natural causes.
If you are conducting a war, those 5 cities will be destroyed because of your actions.

No one is making a conscious decision to let those 5 people die. No one person is deciding that they will die. In the case of the war, the deaths are being caused by a conscious decision.
Am I making sense?

[Tanooki]

i understand you perfectly, stew-meister. but i can kind of see where psilon is coming from as well, to an extent. although i think think the killing of anybody is severly wrong, whether it be planned or accidental. even if the person you were "killing" is dying in their own right and you can take whatever good organs they have to save the other five people, it is still wrong because that one person has the right to live as long as they are able to

KoD

[Stewie]

Oh yeah. I didn't mean to give the impression that I am comfortable with that. I was just trying to point out the difference in the example that Psilon gave.
I have great pity and respect for the person that has to decide to sacrifice one in order to spare another.

[Supreme]

I think that the numbers have a HUGE bearing on the consideration. Many people think that one for five is not good, but million-->billion is acceptable. Also, when you murder someone, it becomes more personal, plus it's a crime. When it's during war, it's legal and known as "casualties".

[Psycho Fox]

Normally we are comfortable of the idea of "the millions for the billions". Like if I sacrifice a town in a war to save five cities it seems like a ethically sound idea.

However, if we use the same logic to another situation it seems wrong. I could murder a person and then hsrvest their organs and save five other people.

Why are the two situations different?That reminds me of a case study I had in ethics class way back.

Were there is a hospital 3 people that need organs or they will die and one person that just has a cold. One of the possible solutions was to kill the person with the cold and use him as spear parts to heal the 3 people that were going to die. This was a exaple of the needs of the many out weight the needs of the few taken to the extream and is the same logic that leads to the thinking of sacrificing one town to save five.

[Failure]

Normally we are comfortable of the idea of "the millions for the billions". Like if I sacrifice a town in a war to save five cities it seems like a ethically sound idea.

However, if we use the same logic to another situation it seems wrong. I could murder a person and then hsrvest their organs and save five other people.

Why are the two situations different?

I think a big difference is that murder is much different from sacrifice. Murder implies much more malevolence than sacrifice, which seems more like a situation where you're trying choose between a rock and a hard place.

[DarthNuriko]

Normally we are comfortable of the idea of "the millions for the billions". Like if I sacrifice a town in a war to save five cities it seems like a ethically sound idea.

However, if we use the same logic to another situation it seems wrong. I could murder a person and then hsrvest their organs and save five other people.

Why are the two situations different? War changes the variables involved. The town would most likely be sacrificed for strategic reasons. The goal of war ultimately is to win, and the town would be placed towards those means. Saving cities is a strategic and logical end to those means. Murdering a person and saving five is casting judgement on those persons with no other encompassing goal in mind except your own reasons. I guess someone could say "just murder the bad people", but it would still be decisions based on your wants, needs, and biases of people and their characters. The town is not being judged, it is simply a matter of strategy done for the good of many. To murder someone of your choosing and save five people of your choosing would be for the good of one, yourself. That's how I see it.

[Psycho Fox]

War changes the variables involved. The town would most likely be sacrificed for strategic reasons. The goal of war ultimately is to win, and the town would be placed towards those means. Saving cities is a strategic and logical end to those means. Murdering a person and saving five is casting judgement on those persons with no other encompassing goal in mind except your own reasons. I guess someone could say "just murder the bad people", but it would still be decisions based on your wants, needs, and biases of people and their characters. The town is not being judged, it is simply a matter of strategy done for the good of many. To murder someone of your choosing and save five people of your choosing would be for the good of one, yourself. That's how I see it.The case study is not so say a person kills someone for the good of the many but if society does it. IE a nation state kills the person with the cold to save 3 people just like the nation state carpet bombs a city to win a war.

[Jaguar]

The case study is not so say a person kills someone for the good of the many but if society does it. IE a nation state kills the person with the cold to save 3 people just like the nation state carpet bombs a city to win a war.
But it makes no sense for a whole nation state to do it. Then isn't that just staining the blood on more than one person?
If a person killed someone for the good of many it would automatically come across as some sort of evil act. It shouldn't come across as good for a whole nation state or country to do it. We should all be judged on the same level, good or bad.

[Psycho Fox]

But it makes no sense for a whole nation state to do it. Then isn't that just staining the blood on more than one person?
If a person killed someone for the good of many it would automatically come across as some sort of evil act. It shouldn't come across as good for a whole nation state or country to do it. We should all be judged on the same level, good or bad.But that is the whole point. A single person doesn't decide if a town lives or dies and thus the example is of if society does it to follow the same logic of willing to kill a person to heal more people. If you take an ethics course you might see this case study that is used to get people thinking were the line is of how lives saved to each death does it take before the example becomes ethical if at all.