Ends Never Justify Means?

[David Sklansky]

To those who say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save 1000 because an immoral act can never be justified by some greater good, I say that you need to find a better argument.

To prove that, one needs only to consider a situation where the original act was less than murder but still clearly immoral under normal circumstances. Perhaps stealing someone's car or even much worse. If it was save 1000 lives only lunatics would not condone the act, even if the victim himself would not have volunteered to allow the act to save the lives. Put another way, immoral acts can become not immoral under certain circumstances.

I'm not saying that killing one to save many is therefore morally right. I'm saying that if it is wrong, the argument that shows it has to be a lot stronger than some simplistic figure of speech.

[bearly]

well said.............b

[BluffTHIS!]

The nature of the act and its objective morality is key to determining the subjective morality/culpability of the person committing an act. Stealing a candy bar when you are homeless and starving is committing an objectively wrong act, but assuming conditions where you cannot find food and shelter not due to your own fault (like being drunk where the shelters won't take you), then since that theft is relatively minor on the scale of immoral actions and your need is grave, it would still be wrong objectively but subjectively not. However the greatest immoral act is killing another human life, so that can never be justified without the exceptions for self defense. So however grave one's "need" were to kill otherwise (you are going to die if you don't get his food so you kill him to get it and can't get it otherwise), that in no way mitigates the subjective culapability of the person committing it as in the first example.

It is obvious that our courts/judges take the circumstances into account when giving sentences to the degree allowed to by law. But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors.

[David Sklansky]

"But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors."

Disagree. Stealing your car to save 1000 lives is simply not a crime at all. In fact NOT stealing it would be the crime. You and chez fight hard agaisnst this obvious fact because you are worried about a slippery slope. But slippery slope arguments should not be used for slam dunk cases.

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
To those who say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save 1000 because an immoral act

[/ QUOTE ]Maybe this has been discussed in another post but has the term "immoral" been defined to most everyone's agreement?

And, of course, the whole idea of morality is completely silly (and dangerous) unless defined under the narrow guide of social contract theory.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
"But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors."

Disagree. Stealing your car to save 1000 lives is simply not a crime at all. In fact NOT stealing it would be the crime. You and chez fight hard agaisnst this obvious fact because you are worried about a slippery slope. But slippery slope arguments should not be used for slam dunk cases.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd steal a car to save 1000 lives in the blink of an eye.

I've never fought at all against the obvious fact that this would be good.

chez

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
"But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors."

Disagree. Stealing your car to save 1000 lives is simply not a crime at all. In fact NOT stealing it would be the crime. You and chez fight hard agaisnst this obvious fact because you are worried about a slippery slope. But slippery slope arguments should not be used for slam dunk cases.

[/ QUOTE ]


To the contrary. Slippery slope arguments are valid and explore the logical end of small wrong actions which can be much bigger and worse actions. Now naturally any person would see the difference between stealing a car to save 1000 lives and killing a person to steal a candy bar. But the person who would do the latter includes the former in his much wider range. So having the attitude the latter is OK will inevitably lead a small portion of people committing that to commit the latter, because of belief that one can commit a wrong to achieve a supposedly good end, when one could have refused to even have taken the devil's bargain to begin with.

And part of the slippery slope not often achnowledged is that there can be much greater, albeit unintended, consequences from a small wrong act. You go to steal the car to save the 1000 and in your getaway unwittingliy strike a pedestrian in the street and kill him. That wasn't your intent, but it was a result of a chain of actions that began with your theft.

[guesswest]

There's so much wrong with that statement I could ramble on forever, but I'll stick to one observation.

The slippery slope argument does not apply because your motive in stealing the car is not gaining possession of the car, your motive is saving 1000 people. If the slippery slope argument did somehow apply it'd mean you would compulsively escalate your behaviour to save 1500 people the next time, god forbid.

[BluffTHIS!]

Stealing is an objectively wrong act period. You are trying to justify it by your intent in committing that act when you have a different ultimate goal.

But people like you love situational and relativistic ethics so that you don't have to make the sacrifices required in order to be a moral person, nor to make judgements about the morality of acts committed by others as well as yourself. It would make you feel bad to do so. It's just a form of cowardice.

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
So having the attitude the latter is OK will inevitably lead a small portion of people committing that to commit the latter, because of belief that one can commit a wrong to achieve a supposedly good end, when one could have refused to even have taken the devil's bargain to begin with.


[/ QUOTE ]

How about the attitude of "I will do a package of actions which include some bad and some good only if I'm sure the overall result is positive"?

Is there a danger of someone with this attitude eventually killing for a candy bar?

2nd question: Do you believe it's wrong to steal a car to save 1000 lives?