Taken from wavemaker

[pyrephox]

At least one dominant theory of morality suggests that it's not the answer that matters, as much as the reasoning. So for completeness' sake, I include both my simple answer, and the reasoning behind it.

1. At the local grocer, you see an elderly woman shoplift bacon. Do you tell the grocer?

Answer: Probably not. Reasoning: Shoplifting food suggests either hunger or a mental disorder, rather than avarice. I'd pay for the bacon, then follow her out and see if she was okay. I'd pay for the bacon because the grocer doesn't deserve to be stolen from, either.

2. Your name sounds foreign and is difficult to pronounce. Your clients and superiors are always stumbling over it. Do you change it?

Answer: No. Reasoning: I /have/ that name. If nothing else, it's useful for weeding out telemarketers.

3. You need one number to win the jackpot at BINGO. The stranger beside you also needs one number and its been called. Do you tell her?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: It's no skin off my nose. She won, I didn't, so what? I wouldn't have put enough of my money into any game of chance that it would matter one way or another.

4. You're cramming for a critical exam. Classmates are circulating a stolen advance copy of the test. Do you take one?

Answer: No. Reasoning: It would be tempting, but from my experience, professors catch on pretty damned quick to that sort of stuff, and usually find a way to jinx it. Aside from which, I've never needed one.

5. Your spouse has become nervous wreck since he/she began day trading on the Internet. But he/she made $10K in a month. Do you make him/her stop?

Answer: Maybe. Reasoning: I'd suggest quite strongly that they not use any of the communal assets for that, just as with gambling or other high-risk operations. And if it really was driving them up a wall with stress, I'd ask them to lay off for a while. It's not good to get that stressed out.

6. The house of your dreams finally goes up for sale. You take a tour of the home with it's soon to be former occupant, an elderly woman who's moving into a retirement home. When she quotes you the asking price, it is far below what you know the house is really worth. Do you accept her asking price or offer her more?

Answer: Accept the asking price. Reasoning: I don't know /why/ she's selling the house. She may just want to offload it as soon as possible. If I'd seen indications that she was senile or something, I might rethink it, but in general, I assume that people ask the price that they want.

7. You are on a safari with your bestest friend in the whole world and your mom/dad. While walking through the jungle, you all take a tumble over a hole in the ground. Your companions fall in while you fall just past it. In the hole is a nest of vipers that bite your companions. You are carrying the anti-venom but after the fall discover that all but one vial has been smashed. After pulling them both to freedom, who do you give the anti-venom to?

Answer: The most badly bitten one. Reasoning: I can't choose on the basis of who I care for the most, but if I give the anti-venom to the one who needs it most, then I might be able to save the other one through other means, as well.

8. You dream that friends die in a plane crash. The next day they announce a trip to Greece. Do you mention your dream?

Answer: No. Reasoning: I've seen no evidence that prophetic dreams are real, and it wouldn't be fair to worry my friends by telling them about that. None of my friends would cancel a flight based on that information, anyway.

9. Some friends are visiting you. You notice that one of your very valuable collectibles is missing. Do you search the coats and purses?

Answer: No. Reasoning: Since this is me we're talking about, it's far more likely that I set it down somewhere and forgot it.

10. You've just paid for groceries and the cashier is giving you your change. You notice that she's giving you far too much change. Do you ask her if she made a mistake?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: It wouldn't be fair to take it, especially since cashiers often get docked at the end of their shift when they come up short. I've got better things to do than steal from minimum wage workers.

11. You work at a bank and one evening discover that due to a clerical error, you could safely steal 1 million dollars from the bank and never get caught. Would you do it? What if you would never get caught but another coworker would be blamed?

Answer: No. Reasoning: Even if I were never caught, I'd feel guilty about it, and I'd have to be so careful in hiding and spending it that I wouldn't get the enjoyment out of it that would make it worth it.

12. In order to win 1 million dollars, you are told to walk stark naked down a city sidewalk for one block. No one would harm you and you could hop into a waiting limousine at the other end. Would you do it?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: Five minutes embarassment for a million dollars? No reason not to do it. Besides, I've always wanted to ride naked in a limousine. :)

13. You are told that if you leave the country, taking only one other person with you, you will both be well taken cared of but you could never return. Would you do it?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: If we're well taken care of, I can probably have friends and family come and visit me on occassion, and perhaps even be able to pay their way. I have no particular attachment to my hometown, so, why not?

14. If by cutting off your pinky you could stop all wars, now and future, would you? What about your thumb?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: A very small sacrifice. Although I'm squeamish enough that I'd want to know if I could pay a butcher to do it for me. :D

15. Would you rather have a simple and predictable life, dying among friends and family, or a dramatic life with major ups and downs, dying alone in an empty apartment?

Answer: The latter. Reasoning: I don't want my friends and family huddled around me as I die, /anyway/. I'm not certain that I'd want to die completely alone, but I wouldn't want them to have to watch me die.

16. If you could use a voodoo doll to hurt anyone you chose, would you?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: If I knew someone who the law could not touch, who desperately needed to be hurt, then if I had the opportunity, I probably would do it.

17. Would you accept twenty years of extraordinary happiness and fulfillment if it meant you would die at the end of the period?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: Twenty years of happiness would be far better than a hundred years of sadness.

18. You have the chance to meet someone with whom you can have the most satisfying love imaginable, the stuff of dreams. Sadly, you know that in six months the person will die. Knowing the pain that would follow, would you still want to meet the person and fall in love?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: Love is a good thing, just by its very nature. After that person dies, I'd still have the memory of them, all the good times we shared, and the life that we lived. It would hurt like hell to lose them, but it would be worth the pain.

19. Would you rather be extremely successful professionally and have a tolerable yet unexciting private life, or have an extremely happy private life and only a tolerable and uninspiring professional life?

Answer: The latter. Reasoning: Even a dull job can be interesting and enjoyable when the rest of your life is going well. When you know that you'll come home to a good situation, and be able to relax and feel joy and amusement, the things at work seem less drudge-like.

20. If a new medicine were developed that would cure cancer but cause a fatal reaction in 1 percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: They're already at-risk of death. The drug can only alleviate that risk, and hopefully the fatal reaction will be more merciful than a long, lingering death from cancer.

21. You're invited to a cocktail party that turns into an in-the-buff pool party. Friends and strangers are present. Do you skinny-dip, too?

Answer: Sure. Reasoning: My friends aren't going to do anything to hurt me, and if a stranger tries it, my friends will stand up for me. Aside from which, if everyone's nude, people tend to get the ogling out of their system fairly quickly.

22. If you knew that by killing one person, all world hunger would instantly end, would you? What if the person was a horrible murderer? What if the person was an innocent child?

Answer: No. Reasoning: I don't have the right to decide to murder someone like that. A sacrifice of myself, sure. But sacrificing another person to stop something that isn't their fault...even if they're a bad person...no.

23. If, for the next year, you could have the free services of a maid, a chauffeur, a gardner, a masseuse, or a chef, who would you pick and why?

Answer: A masseuse. Reasoning: I can cook, I can drive, I can pick up after myself, and I don't care about gardens. But it's really, really hard to give yourself a good backrub.

24. If you could pick the sex of your child, would you?

Answer: Yes. Reasoning: It's simply a matter of personal preference. I'd prefer to have a girl, if I were going to have a child. I would not be dissappointed with a boy, but if I could choose...yeah.

25. To win 1 million dollars, you and your partner could not have sex with each other for a month, would you? What about 10 million for 3 months? 100 million for 6 months?

Answer: Sure. Reasoning: Abstaining for a month, three months, or six months isn't really a big deal, and at the end of the six months, we could take a million from our winnings, take a tropical vacation on a private beach, and have as much sex as we like for the next three weeks straight. And get tans. There's no bad here. :D

Comments

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

Regarding #22: If you have the means to defend millions of lives from death at the expense of one, and choose the one, aren't you just as morally guilty of their deaths as if you'd driving the knife through their eye yourself?

Since, in context, we know that you bear direct responsibility for the consequences, there's really no moral grey area. As such, is that not a fair recap?

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And that is one of the ones that I had the hardest time answering, partially because I can't figure out any possible realistic way for that situation to ever arise.

However, all too often, people justify doing absolutely horrid things 'for the good of us all'. While there may be another way to end world hunger (and, indeed, we probably /could/, if we wanted to), there's not yet any way to bring someone back from the dead.

I simply wouldn't do it. Not an unwilling sacrifice. Now, if the person knew the situation, and agreed to be killed...that's something else. But if they decided not to agree, then I'd just have to find another way to end world hunger.

[zamiel.livejournal.com]

I don't think I could legitimately say no to the act of desecration, myself. Preferably to a child --- after all, they're all potential, no actual. In exchange for the lives of millions in Sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia? Pretty much OK with me, really.

The thing is, in this case, there's no question that your choice led directly and irrevocably to the suffering, not merely expiration, of millions of people, and not just the ones alive at the moment, but the millions more forevermore who die of hunger that you, by a single act, could have saved. In the end, likely multiple billions.

That's a lot of blood on your hands to save one life.

This is also why I'm not a Deist or Theist; any Deity is ultimately responsible not only for current suffering, but all suffering in all time. Pretty much an indefensible guilt, in my mind.

[pyrephox.livejournal.com]

*nods* And I can understand your point. It just seems to me that it's /possible/ to end world hunger in ways that don't involve killing an innocent person. Until those ways have been exhausted, then killing someone would be taking the easy way out...practically, it might be the best solution, but morally and ethically, I don't think it would be.

[wavemaker.livejournal.com]

My reasoning on this one: I, personally, don't believe that morality is about numbers; in my value system, the good of the many is not more important than that of the few or the one. Rather, each individual person has inherent rights, which cannot be taken away. So, sacrificing an innocent person, against his or her will, to save others is not morally justified. To do so for the sake of five billion people is no more moral than to do so for two or three. (Although, the biological side of me, the part impelled by my genes towards preserving the survival of the species, might feel otherwise.. and I would not entirely blame others for listening to their genes, since it's pretty hard to take genes out.)

The murderer, on the other hand.. my reasoning on that, is that by taking the lives of others this individual had forfeited his own rights. But, after thinking this over a bit, I realise that there is more ambiguity in that. Heck, I don't even approve of capital punishment as a general principle. (Okay, I get a point of dissonance for that.) The situation I was thinking of was of an actively dangerous predator on the loose, whom the law hadn't been able to catch. But, of course, there could be many other possibilities -- a person who had killed once, in an act of passion, but would likely never kill again, for example. In that situation, it would be much fuzzier.. I normally don't approve of vigilante justice, unless there really is no other way to stop a dangerous person.

So, here's what I get for filling out memes during times of day I should be asleep. At least one point of dissonance, and possibly two. :)

Another point I'd bring up here, though, is to question Zamiel's assumption that the refusal to take action in such a case would carry equal responsibility as making the active choice to kill people. As I see it, if someone else, or some mysterious alien power, dragged me off somewhere and placed before me the choice between killing someone or passively allowing the deaths of many, it wasn't my choice to get into that situation. If there is any responsibility, it's on the hands of the one who decided to force me into it. It is, after all, not rightfully my decision to make who lives or dies, and if I refuse to perform a questionable act to end world hunger, that is not the same as saying that I am personally and actively responsible for world hunger.