Well still relatively new here at Armor Games and I just decided to put down some thoughts on this somewhat controversial topic
I recently just finished playing fate/stay night (visual novel) and it arose this idea not everyone can be saved for example if there was a robber and 9 hostages ethics dictate that you shouldn't kill the robber and try to save everyone even though you know it's impossible but if you think logically you would kill one person to save 9 others. Now I think that if anyone wants something close to a perfect government. That government would have to use logic but logic is cold and basically inhuman so would people be able to support something like that because to be a leader of humans means to have human thoughts and emotions right? logic is something pretty far from human ideals anyway play the game for yourself if you're confused i don't really know how to word this better something my teachers constantly remind me of on my report cards
Though that depends entirely on the person's sense of ethics.
Some people would feel that since the person is taking hostages & imposing on the rights of others, that they themselves give up their own rights, and that being killed to save the 9 hostages is not a violation of ethics at all.
I'm not sure this is really a logical consideration, but purely an ethical one. I see what you're saying that killing one person to save more might seem like a "logical" choice, but in the realm of philosophy, the area of logic is something much different than how me might use the word in normal conversation. The ethics of the situation you laid out can actually be described completely in two purely ethical systems: Kantian categorical imperatives and utilitarianism. The Kantian would say that it is an imperative that we should not kill in any circumstances. So even if my decision entails the death of everyone there, as long as I'm not the trigger man, then I have fulfilled my moral obligation. The utilitarian would argue along the "logical" lines you laid out, saying that the death of many would cause greater unhappiness/suffering than the death of only one.
I don't think we've ever had a debate comparing these two systems. Most of the ethics thought experiments have been more along the lines of "what do you think?" without any restrictions. If anyone would like to argue for one system over the other, I'd love to see it.
