04-07-2005 02:54									#1
	Another ethical question Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

Today I saw the movie: SAW which honestly is quite a dull piece except in some parts. Overall I was dissapointed by the lack of depth and the end... well.

Anyway, the movie poses 2 slightly different ethical questions. Let's start with the situations.

Situation A:
You are locked in a room. You have a device on your head that will kill you in 15 minutes. The device is locked and the key is in the stomach of a man, alive and awake, who is lying on the floor, but who cannot move because of some strong tranquilizers (whose effects will not diminish over the next 15 minutes). You have a knife. A video presents you what will happen if you don't open the lock with the key in 15 minutes (your mouth will be torn apart and your head explode).

Modification of A: You will need to obtain 2 (or more) keys and kill 2 (or more) tranqulized persons on the floor. Do you do it?


Situation B:
You are again locked into a room and your foot is chained to the wall. This time you have a gun with a single shot and a poisened cigarette. The objective is to kill the other person in the room (that you don't know), who is chained to the wall with the feet as well, before some time is over. You can either shoot him or trick him into smoking the cigarette. Otherwise the guy observing the room through a video camera is going to kill your (wife|husband) and your child. You have spoken to them through a phone (that can only receive calls). You cannot destroy the camera.

Modification of B: You need to kill 2 or more people to save your loved ones.


So in both situations what is ethical to do? Is it okay to kill someone (or more) to save yourself? Is it okay to kill someone (or more) to save others (that you love)?


As for me, I probably could not kill someone (innocent) to save myself and I could probably not kill someone (innocent) to save someone else. Above all I would have too much doubt that the told outcome is really going to happen or that the promise to not kill my loved ones is really to be held. Effectively, my doubts would paralyze me.

What would be the ethical thing to do? What would you do?

	04-07-2005 03:05									#2
	Increase the size of your Attachments

This is the same "stupid" question that pops up in my country every now and than. "What would you have done if you were alive during WW2? Being in the resistance, being a collaborator or just do nothing, trying to go with the flow?" IOW, no one can give a real answer without being in such a situation.

	04-07-2005 03:43									#3
	Support Apolyton

Stick your fingers down the dude's throat and force him to vomit up the keys. Duh.

	04-07-2005 03:52									#4
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Situation A: You are locked in a room. You have a device on your head that will kill you in 15 minutes. The device is locked and the key is in the stomach of a man, alive and awake, who is lying on the floor, but who cannot move because of some strong tranquilizers (whose effects will not diminish over the next 15 minutes). You have a knife. A video presents you what will happen if you don't open the lock with the key in 15 minutes (your mouth will be torn apart and your head explode). Modification of A: You will need to obtain 2 (or more) keys and kill 2 (or more) tranqulized persons on the floor. Do you do it?

A: Yes.

Modification: No, unless the guys are going to die anyway.

	04-07-2005 03:53									#5
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by KrazyHorse Stick your fingers down the dude's throat and force him to vomit up the keys. Duh.

One reason why the movie was crap.
But okay, just assume you can't get the key without killing him...

	04-07-2005 03:56									#6
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker Modification: No, unless the guys are going to die anyway.

You don't know that, you are only being told that they have the keys and you have to kill them all to be freed. Wether or not they die later, is unknown to you.
I guess you'll stay with a "no" then?

	04-07-2005 03:56									#7
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

The questions are only ethically challanging if you assume the dust that calls itself people matter to me.

	04-07-2005 03:56									#8
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa You don't know that, you are only being told that they have the keys and you have to kill them all to be freed. Wether or not they die later, is unknown to you. I guess you'll stay with a "no" then?

Yes.

	04-07-2005 04:04									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

if it's them or me (however many there are) then that's bad luck for them, cos i'm gonna survive.

	04-07-2005 04:07									#10
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

And what if the Device was actually fake and you did the dirty work, being used and manipulated by someone else?
This possibility is not worrying you?

	04-07-2005 04:11									#11
	ask a silly question... Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

and what if a magic unicorn flys through the wall and saves both of us, eh?

	04-07-2005 04:17									#12
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

if the magic unicorns are meant to be police officers.. well yes it's a possibility

	04-07-2005 04:18									#13
	Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

What if I have Jedi powers and can disarm the device with the Force?

	04-07-2005 04:56									#15
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker What if I have Jedi powers and can disarm the device with the Force?

Just disarm the device first, and then kill the guy while rambling about the power of the dark side

	04-07-2005 04:58									#16
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

Attachment: mike lightning.jpg
This has been downloaded 148 time(s).

	04-07-2005 07:45									#18
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa And what if the Device was actually fake and you did the dirty work, being used and manipulated by someone else? This possibility is not worrying you?

See, this is the silly part of these hypothetical ethical questions. You can always new possibilities to them so they can never be answered satisfactorily in one way or another.

For example: suppose these two people are actually Osama bin Laden and Omar (head of Taliban)? What then?

	04-07-2005 08:28									#19
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Let me make this simple ethical question a bit more challenging.

Lets say the person you have to kill is an elderly family member or friend of the family who is begging you to kill them to save the wife and kids and yourself.

	04-07-2005 12:14									#20
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger See, this is the silly part of these hypothetical ethical questions. You can always new possibilities to them so they can never be answered satisfactorily in one way or another. For example: suppose these two people are actually Osama bin Laden and Omar (head of Taliban)? What then?

What I said was not a new possibility. Since you don't know yet if it really works or not, you could also assume that it's a fake device and that after the 15 minutes, nothing would happen.
Basically, someone could use you to kill this man on the floor making you think you have to do it, because otherwise you'll die.

	04-07-2005 12:20									#21
	Put an end to popups!

Simple, I die.

BUT, if BOTH of us are gonna die, then I'll do what must be done.

My thing is all about numbers. But then again, I don't 'love' much, so I'd see almost everyone I know die if given the choice of life and death. Does one stranger who dies equal 1000 people? I dunno.

But probably not, in my book.

	04-07-2005 12:56									#22
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

No - but not for the reasons posited here.

The purpose of putting you in that situation is control, and debasement. Once you start giving in, people with that level of fanatacism/evil/sociopath are going to continue, until you become the b**ch. The situations will escalate, and that is one of the techniques used by intelligence agencies to "turn" regular individuals, i.e. keep putting in these no-win situations.

I will not be terrorized or manipulated like that. They may kill me, but I have watched that kind of technique and what it does to people. A variation on it, but not so blatant, is how my father destroyed my brother's personality. People who do that do not stop - look at how the Gestapo and the NKVD or any other police state manipulates people into being informants. I may die, but existing once you have let groups like that gain control is not what I consider living. By the way, it is also how abusive men often maintain control of their women, using the same threats against their children.

	04-07-2005 13:06									#23
	Support Apolyton

an excellent reason and well formulated.

I am sorry to hear about your real-life experience though. I know it, because I have read your thread from a while ago, still it has lost nothing from its horrors.
Anyway, I hope you're looking forward!

	04-07-2005 13:24									#24
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Atahualpa What I said was not a new possibility. Since you don't know yet if it really works or not, you could also assume that it's a fake device and that after the 15 minutes, nothing would happen. Basically, someone could use you to kill this man on the floor making you think you have to do it, because otherwise you'll die.

There's nothing as you have to do it, because you can always choose to die.

After that said, my original point is these ethical dilemma questions are not answerable. As I pointed out, you can keep adding to them to make them ever more convoluted.

	04-07-2005 14:33									#25
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: Originally posted by Hueij This is the same "stupid" question that pops up in my country every now and than. "What would you have done if you were alive during WW2? Being in the resistance, being a collaborator or just do nothing, trying to go with the flow?" IOW, no one can give a real answer without being in such a situation.

I encountered a stupid modification of this: "You cannot judge about people during nazi era/WW2, because you don't know what you would have done if you were alive during that time"

	04-07-2005 15:50									#26
	Got spare money?

Bebro, now that's really stupid.

quote: There's nothing as you have to do it, because you can always choose to die.

Of course, notice the word "could"

quote: After that said, my original point is these ethical dilemma questions are not answerable. As I pointed out, you can keep adding to them to make them ever more convoluted.

I didn't add anything so far and I don't plan to do so.. okay I said that you cannot remove the key by making the man choke, because that was the original intention.. I tried to make it loophole-secure, but I forgot about that.

Sure you could theoretically add any possibility, but let's just stick with the scenarios and not add them. STILL and what you, I think, didn't understand, is that, while the scenario is fixed and such (and the device will kill you) as the person in the situation you don't know about this and you have doubts. E.g.: 1. The device could be fake, the whole could be a test rather than a real situation. 2. The timer could trigger as soon as you try to kill the guy. 3. There might be another way, another key,...
How do you know you can trust what the guy telling you? And in this setting and with these doubts you have to make your descision and what would that be and what would be the ethical descision?

	04-07-2005 16:15									#27
	Support Apolyton

I kill them, and then because I'm a murder I kill anyone else around.

	04-07-2005 16:37									#28
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

I also challenge the premise about context about if you had been alive in WW2. It all depends.

1) You live in Poland, and are a Catholic. The Nazis are rounding up Jews and putting them in ghettos, where they are starving them. Your choices.

a) Bring food to the outside of the barbed wire, and barter it for family heirlooms, silver and gold. Profiteer, and then after the war make the excuse that you didn't put them there. I can state in that context that is morally repugnant. I have also listened to interviews with Poles who did exactly that, and excuse it to this day.

b) Bring food, and barter it for what will permit you to get more. Be very honest about it, and of course very careful because the Nazis, if they catch you, may not like the fact you are not profiteering. You may not be able to afford the bribe to get yourself out of the tight spot. Now this is something you have done that has some risk, but is a mitzvah, a good work in the eyes of god. A really brilliant person can turn this into a great deed, like Schindler.

c) I have a wife and children, and am also caring for my dead brother's family, who died in the German invasion. I am going to ignore it and do nothing, because there is simply too much risk, and I have responsibilities. Now you have your morally ambiguous situation, and one I can empathize with while disagreeing.

d) Become a resistance fighter Interestingly enough, (b) may actually save more lives, especially if you try to sneak out an occasional Jew, than this one does. So who is more heroic?

I can manufacture examples like this throughout Nazi occupied Europe, and in the old Soviet Union. I can do the same in the American West, Google "Sand Creek Massacre" and look at the protest letters written by officers who were there. Context applies to many of the real life situations normal people find themselves in, but Heroism and Evil can still be clearly identified, and lauded or condemned, in almost any context. It's those muddy middle areas, like (c) above, that become more difficult.

	04-07-2005 18:52									#29
	Suffering from ads?

I think it's unethical to kill people even to save your own life, but I don't know what I would do in a situation like that. There's some biological drive for self preservation.

	04-07-2005 19:27									#30
	Support Apolyton

Since the perpetrator of these scenarios is obviously a homicidal psychopath isn't it reasonable to assume that he's going to kill everyone, yourself, the other guy and your family, when he's had his fun? If he lets you go you might lead the police to him. If you don't do what he says the other guy may lead the police to him. If your family survives they may go to the police. He has to kill everyone involved. Really your choice makes no difference.