Forums → WEPR → Is Killing Someone to Protect a Person Morally Acceptable?
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Imagine this situation: You are walking in the park with your wife and a masked man comes up to your wife. He threatens to kill both of you unless your wife lets him have sex with her.
Is it morally acceptable to kill a person in order to save the life of another man?
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@Emp
That was my thoughts when i firat heard the two..still my thoughts to this day. However i thought it would be nice to have the other version thrown in
Also surprised no one brought up a Kantian argument
Are you talking about this?
The argument I'm discussing is where he argues that to find if something is moral we should view the act as if everyone on Earth were to do it..and what the consequences would be
Ok, guys, I believe we are getting off-topic. Let's stick to the original three questions, the title question, the Pebble Problem, and the Trolley problem.
Ok, guys, I believe we are getting off-topic.
Talking about ramen noodle flavors would be off-topic. Talking about ethical systems, such as Kant's, is very relevant to the question.
Another variation of the "fat man" is the "fat villain", meaning the guy that put the people on the track is standing by it. You could push him on the track to simultaneously kill him and save his victims. Is pushing him morally good?
Is pushing him morally good?
We need more context to determine this. What is his motivation?
I figured I'd pop my head in to provide the Kantian response to these scenarios. If you're not interested in this line (or Kant) then feel free to ignore this post.
Anyone who has studied Kant will have heard something about his categorical imperative. Sometimes it's explained along the lines of "what if everyone in the world did X?". But this isn't quite right for 2 reasons.
First, Kant was concerned with maxims, rather than actions. A maxim is basically a motivation for doing something plus the rational action needed to do that thing.
Second, once we have established a particular maxim we have to ask whether that maxim, when universalised, would lead to a contradiction. Scholars of Kant still argue about what sort of contradiction is going on (it might not be a straightforward logical contradiction) so things get a bit complicated. The upshot is that it looks like on most of these scenarios, a Kantian ethical system is silent about what we ought (or ought not) to do.
So let's take the standard trolley problem. Should I turn the trolley on the 1 in order to save 5? Well, suppose this maxim is universalised: Everyone who finds themselves in control of a trolley in this situation should turn the trolley on the 1. Does this result in a world that is logically inconsistent? The answer seems to be a clear 'no' so it's morally permissible to turn the trolley. But it turns out that even if we don't turn the trolley the resulting world would still be consistent. So Kantianism can't really tell what we should do here.
We can run the same line for the health pebble - it seems that no matter what you do, your maxim can be universalised without resulting in a contradiction.
But there may be an answer to be found in a different formulation of the categorical imperative. This is the Humanity Formulation. It goes something like: "Never treat another person as a mere means".
This does give us a clear answer to the fat man scenario. Since we would be using the fat man as a mere means (even if it is to save lives) it would be morally impermissible. Now, perhaps we could use this formulation to suggest that we shouldn't turn the trolley either. But it's not clear (to me, at least) that we are using the 1 as a mere means to save the 5 in this scenario. If you wanted to argue that we are using the 1 as a mere means, there is a worry that, by not turning the train, you are using the 5 as a mere means. The result would be that you couldn't turn the trolley or keep it on the same track. Both actions would be morally impermissible.
So, the Kantian response - while difficult to nail down - is going to be pretty uninformative about what we ought to do. This is reflected by other problem cases for Kant. One-off events, such as revenge killing, don't seem to be impermissible according to Kant. And, of course, there's the well-known case of not being able to lie to a murderer who is looking for a friend that you're hiding (this would be wrong on both the Universilisability and Humanity Formulations).
What is his motivation?
We're referring to the Trolley Problem, right? If I were him, I wouldn't want to push the fat dude down. But seeing the other people tied to the train, I would rather save the other five people myself and have myself killed, so at least, I wouldn't be accused of killing the fat man.
You already knew the answer... don't ask.
It also depends on the situation, you know. If having to kill someone is the only option to protect someone, then yes, I'm sure you would kill that person. But if there are more than one way to get out of such a situation, killing a person would be my last-resort option.
Should you kill your wife to save the life of the criminal?
If she was my wife, I would try to reason with her. After all, she is my wife.
I would not choose murder if I did not absolutely have to.
I agree with you. Voluntary manslaughter should only be a 'last resort' option.
I would not choose murder if I did not absolutely have to.
First of all, bump.
But in what situation would you 'absolutely have to' kill someone to protect yourself or someone else in danger? George Zimmerman felt threatened, and acted accordingly.
Technically you are not saving the "life" of someone, but saving them from a traumatic experience; which is different. As she would be my wife, I would do it because I am naturally bias to protect those that I love from harm. That is human nature; especially since she is my frickin' wife I would obviously go to a much greater extent to protect her from harm, killing someone would be in that range of things I would do. Only if I had to, though and it would not be something I just DO without caring after, I would very much so hate what I did, but I would do it to protect her.
As for the train issue, I think I would panic and shut down under the pressure of the situation and thus not act at all; if I did act I would prefer to kill the single man and save the others. But then I would change the issue from "witnessing the killing of 5 people" to "Bloody Hell I just murdered someone"... I would have trouble reconciling that.
As for the pebble; the same thing applies, I would like to say I would intervene, but in doing so I am ipso facto killing someone by my own will; I am not naturally sympathetic, but murder in cold blood is not something I think I could do. I could only kill in extreme circumstances; and even then I would have trouble getting over what I did and moving on, I just don't believe in the blatant disregard for human life.
The answer is subjective, because many, many different people have different moral standards and we cannot determine exactly what the "right principles" are. There are just too many contrasting ethic principles, that are influenced by when and where you grew up. Example;
Let's say you're a white male at any point in time-
1500's- Rape an indian? Go ahead.
1800's- Rape an indian? (As long as she's your slave and not white.)
2000's- Rape anyone and you're going to get incarcerated regardless of race. Case closed.
Really, you don't have to kill him.
Judging from the details given in the scenario, the assailant would be outnumbered, considering it would be a grown man with a grown woman against some horny guy, I would just have my wife tackle his lower body and I would get his upper body and head. Pin him down, knock him out, take his money, piss in his mouth and BOOM! Everybody's happy.
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