Theli

Writer@Large...

Even if you could concieve a situation, I wouldn't want you to answer based on it. That's because I'm posing a question of something in general, not in a specific scenario.
Plausable? It's a question. You are still too tied up in building a scenario for the question.
I have never said that any situation is clear-cut, that was why I tried to construct one, to find out what the underlying moral belief said. As you might agree, we don't just go from situation to situation without any moral beliefs to base our decisions on.

Does it become right just because we do it?
I mean, on the same basis, shouldn't everything we do be right?
If moral "right" is based on the single person's selfish human drive, then what is "wrong" based on?

Writer@Large

I know, and that's why I can't answer it. I hate these kinds of questions. Because if I say, "Yes, I'd kill the guy," and then find myself faced with a real situation where killing the guy would be the *wrong* choice, then I feel like I'm being morally inconsistent.

My wife hates that part of me, too. She's a big one for hypotheticals.

At least you admit it's artificial .

Okay, how about this: No. In a vaguely defined, general way, I don't think it's right to hold someone morally accountable for inaction in the scenario in the OP. That's my general, non-specific answer.

--W@L

Theli

Writer@Large...

If you can't answer then why reply?

Hey, I had to use those words to get my point through to you. It was like trying to break through a brick wall with a feather.

Writer@Large

Because i could?

I felt I had something to contribute. I did, and still do, find such hypothetical, bifurcated questions of questionable, and even harmful, use, and I felt the need to state my case. Do you find that answering such questions is useful? Valuable?

I'll take that as a compliment, regardless of how you intended it.

--W@L

Tom Sawyer

I have to agree that the question as posed in the poll is meaningless without the specific scenarios in which it is applied.

As Jamie_L said, if you kill an robbery victim who has a gun who's about to shoot two people with knives who are attacking him in an alley, then your actions are immoral, even though you save one extra life. If you're in a war and you kill twenty enemy soldiers to save the life of one of your comrades then your actions are moral, even though nineteen extra people died.

Saying that you just want an answer to a general supposition without taking the situation in which it's applied gives no answers whatsoever. When I read the poll, I considered a situation in which it would be applied and I'm sure everyone else did as well. Anyone who didn't can feel free to correct me, but I didn't take it as a mathematical problem where one life is more or less than two lives, but applied it to a potential real-world event where the decision could come up and answered accordingly.

I do not believe there is any kind of "absolute" morality. The only kind of morality there is based upon how it is applied in the real world. Asking to give a moral opinion without taking the real world into account is a meaningless excercise that does nothing but take people away from an understanding of moral principles.

LHP Adept

I wrote:
If, as the O.P. states, these people are
A) not my kin or friends or connected to me in any way, and
B) in danger because of a situation I did not create or contribute to creating, then
C) I have zero obligation to protect them.


You wrote:
I've been wondering about this?
(A). Why are kin and friends more of a moral responsibility than strangers?
(B). Does this have something to do with assigning guilt? That, if you didn't mess the situation up, you have no reason to rectify it.


I respond:
A: 4 billion years of evolution, that's why. The name of the game is 'survive and reproduce'. Protecting one's kin is part of our biological imperative.
As for friends, they are allies. If I expect help and support from them, they have a right to expect the same from me. Friendships may not always be formalized like marraiges or adoptions, but even an informal alliance must be honored.

B: I wouldn't say guilt, but rather responsibility. Unlike most of the people on this board, I assume that unless there is a reason why something is my business, it's none of my business, even if stangers are dying by the thousands.
For something to be 'my business', it must affect me or my family/allies, or be a situation in which I/we are already involved.
For example, the killing between the Hutus and Tutsis is none of my business. If I was in Rwanda, and they were killing each other right in front of me, it would still be none of my business, as long as I/we am/are not directly threatened.

By my view, (absent involvement of family/friends or other obligations/duties) a person is only responsible for the difference between the outcome that happens, and what would have happened if they weren't there.

I'll respond to the rest later.