Moral/Ethical Dilemma

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That is moving outside this scenario.

In the scenario since saving the lives is a matter of flicking a switch the inactivity is murder.

i agreed with that 1. i was not talking about it. i was talking about the 1 of pushing some1 infront of it to kill him.

I'd still do it.

The sacrifice of one for the lives of five is well worth it.

I might be treated like a murderer but my life is worthless compared to five lives.

I missed that option - it always looked like someone had to live
to me! I want that choice.

people ... or zombies?


i sorry im not familiar with cable cars is that like train tracks, cus if 5 people where standing on train tracks and NONE of them where looking out for trains there a waste of meat and no i wouldn't save them



i gotta ask what if the one person was your father ... or son? 5 lives are more important than 1 .... but 5 strangers to a loved one

If there be no room for uncertainty then the question may have only one of two outcomes.
Mathematically it is more likely and efficient to kill the single person and spare the five other individuals under all situations where such circumstances are arbitrary and unclear. (If the single individual were an important scientist and the five other individuals were much more expendable components of society, then of course one would spare the individual. However, this is not the case and one cannot determine the usefulness of each individual unit, and so mathematically one must refer to probability density frequency in order to determine the course of best action.)
If fundamentally everything were reduced to efficiency and potential, the solution to the problem is quite straightforward when viewd through the functionalist utilitarian perspective. There is no dispute here.

tell me how this scenario is different:
someone offered you $1 000 000 dollars to go kill someone. so, you realize with this kind of money, u could save 1000s of peoples lives. you could goto afrika and feed starving kids. you could give food to bums on the street. you could goto north korea and rescue people, etc. so by killing 1 person, you will end up saving 1000s of people. would u do it? why or why not, and how does ur answer differ from scenario 2 posted by whoever?

I'd be afraid that I'd get caught.

But there are no legal ramifications, so you don't have to worry about getting caught.

Hell, I'd kill 1000's for a good million - no question. But I'd use it selfishly.

Would need the cash up front.

Yeah, same here, but for me, it would have to be in gold. I would want a million pieces of gold over a million USD. But up front, definitely. All of it. No percentages, just 100% complete payment.

But then the question is why would anyone want to give you a million dollars to kill someone in the first place, when they could hire a mercenary for much less than that. Or do it themselves if they are skilled in assassination.

The first question is a legitimate question. The second is supposing that the person contracting you IS skilled. We don't know that, and it would be a relatively safe assumption that you are being contracted as a hitman because the other guy isn't skilled. If you find out he IS skilled, then it brings you back to your first question.

In regards to the first, though, it could be a Big Brother/Secret Police sting operation to see if you are morally fit to be a human being, or if you are, instead, a man without scruples who will do anything for money. If that is the case, they might turn you into the next Jason Bourne...or send you to prison/kill you.

Or it could be a set-up, a test to see if you are worthy of belonging to a criminal organization.

It could be that you are a skilled hitman, and the guy contracting you knows this and needs the job done well and right the first time, so he isn't risking any chances, plus, he doesn't want to get caught so you are, essentially, worth only 1 million dollars whereas he values his life and security more than that.

Somehow I doubt this.... But then, the Pentagon is offering millions of dollars to anybody who will give information about Osama's whereabouts. I initially assumed that this guy was probably some mafia thug or something......

Well, anyway, its not the point of the question. If given the choice, it depends on who it is. If it was something like going after some terrorist or bad guy, I would accept the offer in a heartbeat. But if it was a cold blooded murder, I would decline the offer.

This was the only way that I'd chance it. All these real world speculations (like with the trolly) make it clear that one would never be in this position. The point is the moral issue. There are ways of phrasing this question that make more sense - for example, if you were Bill Gates, and knew that someone had a piece of software which would cost you a fortune, would you eliminate it, even if it meant killing the originator. Of course, this doesn't quite connect, as the money situation is something of a reverse, but you see what I mean.