Moral Hypothetical

[Assani Fisher]

I believe James Miller is the original author of the question.....


A company has 100 employees. It has the opportunity to make $1 billion but only if a task gets completed. There are two ways of completing the task.

(1) A specific employee, named John, must die.
(2) Three of the 100 employees will be randomly chosen and killed.

The company can’t force its employees to take any actions, but it can bribe them. John will not accept any amount of money to give up his life with certainty. But all 100 employees would gladly risk a 3% chance of death in return for $5 million. Consequently, the company intends to pay each employee $5 million and complete the task using option (2).

Now imagine that you are a government regulator who has the power to change what will happen. You can:

(A) Forbid the company from completing the task.
(B) Not interfere.
(C) Force the company, and John, to complete the task by using method (1). You could then force the company to give $5 million to each employee.

Assume that all 100 employees are exactly alike except that only John can complete the task by himself. What should you do? Does it matter if John was randomlly chosen right before the game started?



bitch moan count

[CallMeIshmael]

first to say "oats" in this thread

[furyshade]

how is the answer not A? you are asking if a government official would condone a paid execution

[CallMeIshmael]

also, B) not interfere. Though, in reality, the gov't would go w/ A).

[ImsaKidd]

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first to say "oats" in this thread

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104,587 and counting

[Assani Fisher]

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how is the answer not A? you are asking if a government official would condone a paid execution

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Let me be clear that you are being asked to do what you think is best and most moral not doing what you think the government would approve of or what would help you keep your job. Not sure if that changes your answer or not, but I wanted to be clear.


bmc

[ImsaKidd]

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John will not accept any amount of money to give up his life with certainty.

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John doesn't really sound like a team player.

[CallMeIshmael]

Imsa is really shining in this thread

[Assani Fisher]

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how is the answer not A?

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So just to be clear...

You would want to stop a bunch of people from doing something that all of them had fully agreed to and wanted to do? I'm not necessarily disagreeing; I'm just clarifying your stance.

bmc

[Henry17]

B not interfere.