Moral Dilemna - how to solve it

[sauronsfinger]

Prim - as I have said - a persons religious beliefs about an afterlife are their own - I respect that and take no issue with that in this thread. For my purposes, I am limiting all of my comments to the known science of this world.

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

The known science of this world has nothing to say about moral dilemnas.

Meanwhile you are taking issue with peoples beliefs about the afterlife when you confine all discussion to this material plane.

[sauronsfinger]

Everyone has a right to your own personal religious beliefs --- if that belief is your answer - then I have no quarrel with it.

[MithLuin]

Back to honor and integrity.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.

From the Tale of Two Cities, when one character decides to take the place of a man he looks like and be executed in his stead.

Nin mentioned early on that she would not be able to live with herself if she had taken someone else's life, so suicide was a much better option than murder, in her view. The idea that you would not be able to live with a decision and would regret it forever is not just a mental construct. It means that what you are being asked to give up is too high a price to pay.

We all have to die some day. Avoiding it now merely postpones the inevitable. Some day later, we'll still die.

But we do not have to betray those we love and stab them in the back. That is optional. We could go through our whole lives and never be guilty of betrayal. Maybe we would be more satisfied to have a short and honest life than a long and guilty one. This has nothing to do with what comes after; this has to do with what comes now.

It is true that complying with power for the sake of survival is a common choice. But it is also true that not everyone does so. Some people are intentionally defiant knowing that it will cost them. For dumb reasons or good reasons, it happens. Sure, most victims of the Holocaust did what they were told so that they could live today, hoping that tomorrow they would be liberated. But not everyone cooperated with the Nazis - some people got themselves shot when they didn't have to.

Survival is a strong instinct...but there are other very strong motivators. Most parents would risk their own lives to save their children.


I know, I shouldn't be able to think up stuff like this. But just bear with me.

Return to the bank scenario. Armed robber, three employees. Two employees are on the ground. Now, to break with what really happened - you were willing to give the robber your car keys and your car, and you said you would have done whatever he told you. But if he passed you a tire iron (while staying safely out of reach and training the gun on you) and instructed you to bash in the heads of your co-workers...would you have done it?

I am not asking you to answer the question. After all, no robber would ever do such a thing - there is no reason why my scenario should ever happen. I am just trying to say that there comes a point at which the idea, "If we're all going to die anyway, then I'm going to choose the manner in which I go" might trump that adrenaline-rush of "Do whatever he says!"

[Cenedril_Gildinaur]

Thank you Mith for helping to put things back on track.

[JewelSong]

Survival is a strong instinct...but there are other very strong motivators. Most parents would risk their own lives to save their children.

Or willingly die for them. As a parent, I can say unequivocally that I would glad jump in front of a speeding train to save my child.

I think that there are some things I simply would not do simply for my own survival. I would likely humiliate myself in any manner possible. If I was scared enough, or hungry enough, or tortured enough I would like neglect others if I thought it would keep me alive. But I do think I would draw the line at bashing someone else's head in on the off chance that it would keep me alive a little longer.

I would rather be dead than do that. I would rather be dead that live knowing I had committed such an act...or stood by while it was committed when I could have acted to stop it.

[Frelga]

Frelga:

Please add the five-minute time limit that slipped my mind between formulating the scenario about it and typing it. Also, please note than in the scenario, I indicated that available evidence suggests that the terrorist-philosopher will do as he says, as this is not an isolated incident. Knowing the behavior of others with absolute certainty is of course impossible in any case, not just in thought problems.

Still the same answer. The terrorist is clearly psychotic and can't be trusted, and five minutes is more than enough to call 911. While, of course, trying to stall as much as possible. "But how do I know you are not some high school kid? OK, OK, I believe you! Um... tell me more about these people. Do they have children?" And so on.

Now if he called my cell phone randomly, you might pin me down better. In which case I would probably PM Folca and have him IM me through it. He's trained.

[axordil]

Allow me, then, to rephrase the question in starker terms, not allowing evasions:

What repulsive/wrong action X would you be willing to commit yourself to avoid more repulsive/more wrong action Y occurring at someone else's hands? Fill in X and Y as needed.

[Folca]

Sauronsfinger-I would rather die for a reason than in some accident or drowning in my bath tub, as then my experience could be used as an example for others to learn from in some way or another. Everybody dies at some point, and very rarely does one choose when or how. You could cooperate with some criminal and get smoked by a bus thirty seconds later to the accomplishment of what? Just because you don't value another's idealism and commitments doesn't mean they won't carry through.

Axordil-Sorry, but I just can't make it as simple as you want. If bad guy wants me to do something to an innocent to prevent something worse, the only goal I will have is to manipulate the situation to the best of my ability to get myself or someone similar into contact or striking distance of the bad guy.

I still maintain that nothing productive can come of victimizing an involved innocent at the behest of a predator in lieu of finding a way to challenge the predator and ending the scenario.

Consider this: if I go along with the predator's plan, it reduces his resources for leverage (killing and injuring innocents typically generates the violent culmination of a situation, not prolonging it) and it reduces the stock of trust anyone involved in the situation might have in you, which has a better chance of nullifying anything positive you may attempt or accomplish later to end the situation.

I myself am in a unique situation, because a sheepdog is never, ever justified in harming the flock. It is inexcusable, and unredeemable in my opinion.

http://www.arkansaslawman.com/node/95

[axordil]

Remove the bad guy, then. Revert to the old saw: you're the switchman on a railroad. An out-of-control locomotive, abandoned by its terrified crew, suddenly appears, and you can either let it go by, in which case it creams a passenger train around the bend five seconds later, killing lots; or you can throw the switch, in which case it goes onto the siding where your child/a child/a co-worker/some random guy/a bum is, ill-advisedly, napping. There's no time to do anything but throw the switch, or not. Nope, not that. Nope, that won't work either. Flip the switch, or not.

It's called a ten-to-one dilemma.

[MithLuin]

Look at it this way - why do people refuse to leave war zones after their embasies tell them to get the h--- out of there?

The groups of Indians who remained in Iraq after the US invaded had various reasons. The one group that got out were the business men - the chance of making money isn't worth dying for; you can do that elsewhere. But the students stayed, and the nuns caring for handicapped children stayed. The 2004 update makes no mention of the students, but other groups had come to the warzone to help. The nuns are still there, caring for the children. The reality is that people do make choices that put their own survival at risk.

I am timid, so I haven't done anything brave, but I have picked up hitchhikers as a young single woman travelling alone. My mother was furious when she found out, and wanted me to promise never to do it again. I don't do it often (3 times total), but it is an 'unnecessary' risk, even if likely a very small one [probably more dangerous to get behind the wheel in the first place]. Those times, I just felt I should stop, so I did. The first time, I literally thought, "you know, I might die for this...." but did it anyway.


My sister has always wanted to die a martyr's death, and like Beth in Little Women, never saw herself getting old. I would not be surprised if she ended up putting her life on the line one day. I certainly hope that no harm comes to her, especially not any time soon. But she is making plans to travel to Bolivia next month, despite their current lack of US Embassy.....

[Pearly Di]

Guys, I came across this quote by G.K. Chesterton yesterday (in The Gospel According to Tolkien by Ralph C. Wood, Westminster John Knox ):

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die."

[Folca]

Axordil-I don't know enough about switches, but I would try to hold the switch in the middle and derail the train. But yeah, I see your point and understand the no win situation. Glad I don't take naps.

Pearly Di-nice quote!

[sauronsfinger]

from Folca

Sauronsfinger-I would rather die for a reason than in some accident or drowning in my bath tub, as then my experience could be used as an example for others to learn from in some way or another. Everybody dies at some point, and very rarely does one choose when or how.

Each individual has to make those decisions for themself based on their own system of values and beliefs. I do not take issue with your desire to do that.

Have you then thought about if people really do learn from the deaths of others? How many deaths really teach us anything? You say you do not want to drown in your own bathtub - but there would be a lesson for others in that would there not? Don't fall asleep in a full tub being the most obvious lesson. People who do get run over by a bus could well serve as an example to others and perhaps others lives would be spared through safety and caution. Watching a relative die a slow death from cancer due to smoking for fifty years is no picnic and there is nothing heroic about it. But if it discourages a grandchild fromtaking up the habit, then it was useful.

Probably none of those deaths would fit your description of how you want to die since they involve no noble sacrifice or heroic gesture or even any decision of choice. But they serve a purpose just the same.

Look at those who die somewhat heroically. Robert Kennedy was killed campaigning for the office of the Presidency? What do we learn from that in practical terms? John Kennedy had the top of his head blown off in a motorcade....... what is the lesson in that other than not to ride in a convertable? All of the tens of millions who died in the service of their countries in World War One - what did they really do except set the table for more deaths in World War Two. I am sure many of those young men were proud and patriotic and were willing to die for the Great Cause..... which was what exactly?

Too often we glorify the heroic death and neglect the more commonplace everyday passing of the average person.

[axordil]

I would try to hold the switch in the middle and derail the train

There is something admirable about the desire to resist choices forced upon us. How else do we create new ones, after all?

[Folca]

Sauronsfinger-Don't misconstrue my statements for an actual desire to die at all. As Bilbo said in "The Fellowship of the Ring" movie, "It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life." Better to never face the situation at all, but I still don't intend on being caught flat footed should I end up in a bad spot.

My point was even had you done everything that bad guy wanted, he still could have killed you. Each to their own, you handled it your way and came out good, and I am glad. But I could not trust a bad guy not to kill me, and once in a position to act, I would. I would rather take charge of a situation that may end in my death than remain solely at the mercy of others.

I would much rather live past my retirement age and enjoy a bit of it than go to ground any time beforehand. As it is, the average person in my occupation only lives 3-5 years past the day they retire.

To put it in a LOTR perspective: I believe Frodo and Sam risk certain death traveling into Mordor for the sake of the Shire and those they love who reside there. Theirs would have been a martyrdom of very idealistic proportions.

Aragorn risks death to obtain the throne and obtain the hand of Arwen, as his betrothal to her was conditional on his being king per Elrond's decree. I believe Aragorn also has the desire to protect the peoples of Middle Earth. His would have been a death for the sake of glory and personal gain more than anything.

I believe Théoden chooses to go to war even though he seems certain of his death because he knew what it felt like to live as an invalid. Théoden chose to proactively confront a situation as much on his own terms as possible, because death in combat was a more acceptable end than wasting away. Théoden sought never again to relinquish total control to another entity or situation. Théoden's death was the defining moment of his life and the continuing existence of the realm of Rohan.

There are real individuals in history that have exhibited the same behaviors for the same reasons and died for it.

As I said, few people are given the opportunity to choose a time to die or face the possibility of death. It usually blindsides us or takes us away in a slow erosion. Take it as it comes, but Dylan Thomas wrote, "Do not go gentle into that good night," and I won't if the choice is given me.

[baby tuckoo]

Remove the bad guy, then. Revert to the old saw: you're the switchman on a railroad. An out-of-control locomotive, abandoned by its terrified crew, suddenly appears, and you can either let it go by, in which case it creams a passenger train around the bend five seconds later, killing lots; or you can throw the switch, in which case it goes onto the siding where your child/a child/a co-worker/some random guy/a bum is, ill-advisedly, napping. There's no time to do anything but throw the switch, or not. Nope, not that. Nope, that won't work either. Flip the switch, or not.

It's called a ten-to-one dilemma.

Right.

The book/movie Fail Safe presents a modern political version of this decision. Both book and movie are wonderful, though stark, as would be the decision.


Every leader of a nuclear country potentially faces this decision.


Who's the guy in charge of Pakistan? Oh, yeah. Him too.

[MithLuin]

Have we brought up the ferry scene from Batman: The Dark Knight yet?

*Spoilers*

I think that would apply here, and their ultimate refusal to cooperate with evil was clearly the 'right choice'. They still might have all died anyway, but at least they didn't become murderers, too. And it being a movie...Batman saved the day.

Also, the trustworthiness of the 'terrorist' is certainly called into question. All they have is the Joker's word that the detonator in their hand is for the other bomb - and likewise for the time of the deadline.

[Andreth]

I'm passing through but have to compliment Mith on bringing up the Dark Knight. That movie was a facinating study in humanity. What I thought the most interesting about the "ferry scene" was that the criminals refused to use the detanator first. Must see it again...

[MithLuin]

Yes. I thought it was simply *brilliant* to have him remove the temptation the way he did.



And the Joker did lie about who was in which building for Dent/Rachel, so I thought that was an interesting issue of...do you trust him? Do you really trust him?