In class today the teacher proposed, "If you had the choice between boiling a baby or causing 100 people to die in a terrible catastrophe which would you choose?" Personally, I think every life is valuable. What would you pick and how do you justify it?
P.S. no cheating either! Like "Id go call for help....etc etc"
2006-09-11 15:56:48 · 37 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
the teacher isnt trying to be sick, he is just trying to see what we belive--one kid said the baby--because it "takes up reasources".
P.s. WHY would you boil the kid? Please JUSTIFY and defend
2006-09-11 16:02:10 · update #1
When you do the right thing, you do it regardless of your personal feelings.
I used to work as a security guard, and we all learned CPR, including mouth-to-mouth respiration. Some of my coworkers thought it was gross, and said they could never do it. They're rather let someone die than do something gross.
My opinion: these people didn't have morals, they had no inner guidance, they would never do something hard in order to accomplish something good. They selfishly let their personal feelings prevent them from doing the right thing.
Boiling a baby is not nice, but if you really have no other choice, then the only real reason not to save 100 people is your own weakness and fear of doing something gross.
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All you people who slammed the teacher for asking a difficult question: you disgust me. This teacher is asking us all to think clearly about why we believe what we believe, and apparently you confuse that with wanting to boil a baby.
Facing difficult choices is an important part of life, and apparently you think a teacher helping us prepare for those choices is evil. Go bury your heads in the sand and let someone else make your decisions for you.
I have no doubt that you would have voted to put Socrates to death for "corrupting the youth of Athens".
2006-09-11 16:05:54 · answer #1 · answered by Tom D 4 · 0⤊ 2⤋
I would just answer like you did, I find every life valuable, if I had to choose between those two I'd rather take my own life than living with the death of an innocent child or 100 people I don't know because at least I have control over my own life and not that of others.
To every choice there is a thing not chosen...
If picking is a must...First I'd say I would choose the baby over the 100 people . A baby has an entire life to live, you can be involved with his or her life and make sure the person grows a certain way, while with the 100 hundred people they have already lived a life, experienced the wonders of living an been able to choose for themselves.
On the other hand if you choose the 100 hundred people over the baby you are sacrificing one life over a hundred, which sounds like a lot. The baby doesn't know what it will be missing but the 100 people do, they have lifes and families that will miss them.
This is an awfully hard question, if I had to answer it for homework I would write everything I have already told you. Hope this helps!
2006-09-11 16:09:56 · answer #2 · answered by White 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
a utilitarian would say that the greatest good for the greatest number is the best outcome therefore the baby has to get stewed.
deontologists believe in the equal rights of all humans, like you do, however it can hardly be argued that the 100 people have less rights than the baby tho can it
baby stew for me
actualy its fundamentaly floored as an ethics questions because there really isnt a dilemma, philosophically speaking
what about asking should an elderly and confused person be allowed to stay at home, as is there right, even though neighbours are worried they will leave on the gas and blow up herself and them up too?
Oh and to all those people who dodged the question by saying its either unethical or impossible or "i would kill myself" or other such nonsense. If you are an adult you have to make choices every day, no matter how uncomfortable!
2006-09-11 16:01:00 · answer #3 · answered by duncan 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I would kill the 100 people. the reason is because in my vision of a terrible catastrophe, the 100 would die quickly, which shows mercy. The child would feel every bit of the pain that would come with boiling, and therefore it would not be very humane to do that.I've had chemical burns bad enough where I felt like chopping my arm off to not feel that burn anymore and would not wish it upon anybody. But, remember only if it was a decision I had to make.
2006-09-11 22:23:19 · answer #4 · answered by raw_don 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If I had to kill something I would do it quickly, I couldn't justify boiling something to death no matter whether it was a baby or a lobster. Your second option was 'causing a terrible catastrophe' so I would be in charge of engineering it - I'd see to it that it was extremely quick and painless and kill the 100.
2006-09-12 12:26:26 · answer #5 · answered by weatherwax1 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It seems the point of the exercise is to discover that it's much easier to kill strangers from a distance than to watch someone suffer when you can look into their eyes.
It's human nature, unfortunately, to be willing to justify killing 100 people from a distance, as is done in modern warfare, via the "red button" that sends the nuclear missiles into "somewhere else" without the perpetrator having to witness any personal agony.
Knowing the consequences, I honestly couldn't justify either act - C: boil me.
2006-09-11 17:03:38 · answer #6 · answered by joyfulpaints 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They are both reprehensible outcomes. The thought experiment your professor posited may be trying to highlight a distinction between an ethics of natural rights versus an ethics of utilitarianism. That is, if you think the boiled baby is preferable to the 100 lives lost in the catastrophe, then you are more inclined to a utilitarian point of view. His thought experiment may also be the entry point for an examination of Aquinas's notion of the "double effect" - that acts which intentionally cause harm in order to promote a good are inherently immoral.
Unfortunately, I believe that my thoughts about those questions are ultimately unimportant to you. It is how you think about them that is important.
2006-09-11 16:12:09 · answer #7 · answered by GMoney 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This doesn't sound like an ethics question to me...it sounds more like someone with a sick imagination trying to gross people out. Life is too valuable to speak of even contemplating events like this...personally I would walk out and drop the class because there is no way I could ever choose or justify any choice.
2006-09-11 16:04:55 · answer #8 · answered by belle 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
well, one life vs. 100 lives... on that ground alone i would choose to have the baby boiled. (and boiling babies is a common philosophical example. i've had professors use it too.) of course the baby's death would be very painful, but then presumably so would dying in a "terrible catastrophe." Its a bad situation, but really i don't see any moral dilemmas. killing 100 is worse than killing one.
2006-09-11 18:29:04 · answer #9 · answered by student_of_life 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Neither...seriously...why would you choose either?
The teacher said "IF YOU HAD THE CHOICE"....NOT IF YOU HAD TO CHOOSE!
Well simply decide that you'll do neither.
If the teach says "Sophie's choice" then it's easy...you'd boil the baby because that doesn't mean it would die else he would just say that...
But in the end it's the baby...it's one vs. 100 AND a baby vs. an adult...it's an easy one.
2006-09-11 16:03:27 · answer #10 · answered by flignar 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋