Would it torment you more to have the blood of an innocent person on your hands or to know you let millions?

Question

of people die?

Answer 1

None of us are innocent. People make choices more terrible than this everyday. Think of the executives at a car manufacturing firm. Could they make the car safer and save lives? Absolutely! We all KNOW it. Would putting in the safety features drive the price of the car up and cut into the profits of the company? Of course. These types of decisions are being made everyday. Could airplanes be safer? Could medicine be made available to the poor? Could we feed the starving? We all know the answer to all of these questions is YES! Do we make the necessary choices to do it? Do we sell our 2nd car to feed the starving? Do we give up our vacation to pay for someone Else's medical bills? Don't give me that innocent crap! As Clint Eastwood says in "The Unforgiven" just before he blows Gene Hackman's head off "We all deserve it." So back to your question 1 innocent or a million. Given the fact that no one is innocent, I say save the millions. Would I be tormented that I let one die? Not if I knew it saved millions.

Answer 2

Having the blood of an innocent man on my hands because I would have to live with the guilt of me knowing i killed an Innocent person . To know I let millions die is not something I can control because people die everyday for different reasons and there is nothing i can or do do to help.

Answer 3

That totally depends on whether I killed said innocent person (or group of millions of people) on accident, or for a good reason.

For example, if I had to kill an innocent person to save the lives of a thousand innocent people, I could probably still sleep at nights. If I was responsible for the deaths of a million people through a war I instigated, I could probably live with that too. Neither would be a decision to be made lightly, but being an adult and a productive member of society means sometimes having to make difficult decisions.

Answer 4

Unless the millions of people you let die somehow all managed to convicted violent criminal, then more then likely at least 2 of the people in the millions you let die may be "innocents" so it is automatically worse then having just one persons death as your responsibility...follow?

Answer 5

I think this comes with the good of the many outweighs the good of the few.

Worse to let millions die, than just one. Even if I had to experience that one personally.
-Vic

Answer 6

They would both bother me to the point that I would have to have more info to make a decision. Neither is good and I would torment myself to no end with either.

Answer 7

since everyone, except infants & children under 7, who the only true innocents, have reached the age of accountability, the innocent would haunt me to no end. i don't believe any amount of justifying (or therapy) could remove the guilt,or shame i would feel.

Answer 8

letting millions of people die seems much worse

Answer 9

letting millions die.

Answer 10

This is the old argument for capital punishment. The Jewish tradition is that every life is a universe, even one death is the destruction of the world.