Originally posted by annoy-you-must:
Some dictionary define murder as 'The unlawful killing of one human
by another, especially with premeditated malice'.
In this case, if you kill the one guy to save the five lives, it is
for the greater good, not for some malicious intent. Hence, you're
saving lives, not murdering people.
Even if you decided to stand by to do nothing, you are already
making a concious decision to let the five guys die. Because of
your action (of inaction), you have caused the death of five guys.
You could stop their death, but you chose not to. In a way, aren't
you similarly responsible for their death?
It's just like when a person is drowning. If nobody is nearby to
notice him and save it, that drowning person's death is just an
accident. However, the situation is different when there's so many
people who witness the incident but decided not to play god and not
to save the person. By making a concious decision not to save that
person, everyone who witness the incident has to pay some
responsibility for the person's death.
I may not have the rights or the power to decide who dies and who
survives in this world.[b] Through inaction, however, we are too
already deciding who is to die. As such, I will chose to
make sure as little people as possible dies in this case.
Maybe the public will see me as a murderer for sacrificing that one
person (without his consent) to save the five person. But I rather
be labeled as a murderer by the public than be labeled as a
murderer by myself. I'll just be doing what I think is right,
therefore, my concience is clear.[/b]
I'm not sure the innocent man minding his own business would
agree with your "greater good" statement, but I digress.
The situation is far removed from your drowning example. In your
example, the life cost of saving a life is 0. Obviously you need to
save the person. If you don't you condemned him to die.
In this scenario, however, the men are already condemned to die.
There's nothing that you can do to save them without incurring
extra lives. You can't put lives on a balance like that and measure
out which is more effecient.
The solitary man is not supposed to die. You are not saving 5
people if you throw the lever. The act you are commiting is murder.
The 5 people in the way are just having a bad day.
Like i said. Really imagine hard the situation. If you were REALLY
put in that situation, could you push yourself to pull the lever?
And it's a good thing that you can't. It's not because you can't do
math. It's because your instincts are accurate that life is not a
balance sheet.
