Moral Dilemmas

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Manslaughter, yes. This is a moral dilemma though, so deciding counts as an action.

We can't have that in a legal dilemma unless we start producing telepaths.

 

By not acting I am letting the baby die, by acting I am killing the old man. For me there is a big difference between the two.

 

I would personally feign ignorance of the old man and tell the police I was rushing to save the baby. That may not make a difference in court but I'm inclined to believe it would carry weight with a jury.

 

If feel that the baby is equally important, why would you kill him/her (by deciding not to do anything)? This part is just glass is half empty/half full semantics, with a kill/save a life twist.

Edit: sums it up nicely

 

I would without thinking save the baby. I don't know why, just a built in women and kids first and perhaps not in that order.
Robery? When you start pointing guns around you must remember someone can be or will be shot. Call the cops.
Break a promise to your father for 10Gs? I dislike my father intensly and would be bound to keep the dead mans request because of a promise I gave.

 

From my viewpoint the person who has to make a choice is part of those circumstances. In my perspective, if we were to recreate the whole situation as a mathematical formula then not including the person and the part he/she could play in it would be just plain wrong, regardless of what he/she ultimately does or his/her intent.

 

The elderly are kinda in that category too, for me. I think getting the baby before the train comes is the best option - ironically the more you deliberate, the surer you kill one of them .

In all three dilemmas, the situation is such that you can think of many ways to go around what is meant to be a choice with only two options. Getting the baby out yourself (putting yourself at risk to help another instead of deciding to let someone die), warning the people that you know and would expose them to the police if they do, trying to smuggle the ashes (or haggle about the price), and so on.

 

What I've been trying to point out to you all this time is that you seem to think that (hypothetically) although you are physically there and you are part of the situation whether you like it or not, you seem predisposed to compartmentalize things so from your viewpoint you are somehow not actually part of the situation (ie, "let present circumstances proceed as they should").

Now if you find the last paragraph outrageous, then that's simply how different your line of thinking is from mine. I do not think I can recreate my reasoning using your viewpoint. So... short of me actively forcing my ideals on you, I don't think I can explain it in some other way.

Anyway for me your new example only introduces a compulsion to choose. That doesn't change the bottomline - that ultimately you make a choice/decision, that doing so counts as an act, and that act kills/saves one of them (or you and a dozen people).

Note that I do not consider compulsion, blame, intent, regret, responsibility, or whatever in this part my observations - I try to look at these things as objectively as I can, and basically the person who makes the choice is to me simply a variable that is nevertheless a part of the big equation, whether it likes to be or not. If you can think like that, then if you can imagine yourself back into the situation then you know that whatever you decide (even if you decide to do nothing), it will (most probably) result with one of them dying anyway. So if you think they are equally important, then it no longer becomes about choosing whether to act, or not to act.

Edit: mis-posted, continued

 

Paracelsi, there are a lot of people who do nothing in an emergency -- for whatever reason. A few months ago a two year old girl was hit by a car in China and for two hours people just walked by her while she cried. Women are raped (and killed) in public places and no one even calls the police.There are simply some people who would rather do nothing than get involved; I don't understand the mindset but I know it's real.

 

What you describe is a known phenomena and now I can't remember its name but the point is that if the street had been empty and the child was crying most people would go help it, same with the assaulted woman but the more people there are around the less likely people are to help because they think "someone else will do it, someone else is better suited to do it". The presence of others gives you a way out of getting involved while if you are the only one around you are the only one who can help and most would.

 

I have heard of that too joacqin. It's counterintuitive, but it basically says the more people there are around to help you in a time of need, the less likely you are of actually receiving help. And I agree that it stems from the mindset you describe - there's someone else here who can help better than me.

But that same person if they are the only person around, is likely to jump in, because of the mindset if I don't help than no one else can.

 

Sometimes, in some places, there's a bit more to it though ... like real apathy and even genuine disdain for various cultures/races/national origins. In those cases the thinking is not "someone else will do it, someone else is better suited to do it," but "f*ck that guy/gal/kid."

In some places, as per the above-described mentality, this has even been cheered on by the viewing public. That's not reluctance to help, it's active contempt for the victim (with maybe a twist of mob mentality thrown in).

 

Blackthorne, those who insist that all life is equally important are being dishonest with themselves and the forum. Almost all of us have held a baby and experienced it's helplessness and faultlessness first hand. There is no way to fight the biological and evolutionary forces which dictate that babies are to be preserved.**

Your question has not been answered because of an unwillingness to honestly compare the value.

**Unfortunately, many of us have also held blindly drunken men in our arms at some point...which makes my argument all the stronger.