(Untitled)

[lipservicing]

"Consider the following moral dilemma (the crying baby dilemma):

Enemy soldiers have taken over your village. They have orders to kill all remaining civilians. You and some of your townspeople have sought refuge in the cellar of a large house. Outside, you hear the voices of soldiers who have come to search the house for valuables.

Your baby

Comments

[twobitmatt]

Personally, I'd say let the baby live - it is better to die with honor than to live with dishonor. Ceteris paribus, assuming that if you decided not to kill the child the other villagers wouldn't try to kill it instead, etc, then I think that I'd be willing to go down in a fight. I mean, I understand that as a civilian, and as the basis of this whole premise, I will die, but as it is a ethical question, my ethical stand would be to die with honor rather than cowardice. And to briefly lift the aforementioned ceteris paribus and take it that I would kill my baby, then how can we safely assume that the soldiers wouldn't search the rest of the place? How long are they going to stay? I say it is to best to accept that death is the most likely outcome, and given that the ultimate outcome is going to be static, then it is to go for the best variation on that outcome, being 'die with honor' rather than 'die as a baby suffocation coward just to prolong my life for another two hours of sheer terror before the soldiers find and kill me

[sarasvatia]

I call bullshit.

No contest:

[sarasvatia]

It is completely appropriate to plug the brat.

If the soldiers find out where you are, everyone (including the baby) is toast. This way it's just the baby.

One dead baby, or numerous dead townspeople (who quite possibly include more babies). C'mon. The moral calculus isn't even that hard here, people.

It's the same shit that makes me mad about the people on the planes for 9/11. Box-cutters? Box-cutters??! I say jump the fuckers and LET them kill their sole hostage, in exchange for taking away the threat. Because this way, the hostages died anyway, along with everyone else.

The choice sucks, but it's an obvious and intuitive one. You can do nothing and keep your CONSCIENCE clean, but in actuality be responsible for the deaths of many, or you can bloody well ACT, have nightmares for awhile and then get the fuck over it.

Re: No contest:

[twobitmatt]

Go ahead and call bullshit if you want - what I said was that from where I stood the soldier would find and kill me anyway - your whole thing of 'have nightmares for awhile and then get the fuck over it' means nothing from my standpoint. If we're going with 'kill the baby and live' then fine, kill the baby, be a hero, dandy. Look over what I said carefully - assuming that the ultimate outcome is static, meaning, I'm gonna fucking die by these soldiers' hands, then I'd rather die now with a clean conscience than in two hours hating myself for killing my kid. So go ahead and call bullshit, but read over what I said one more time before you do.

Re: No contest:

[sarasvatia]

Still calling bullshit. Here's why