Would you be willing to murder an innocent person if it would 'somehow' end all hunger in the world?

Nope. What makes that person’s life any less important than anyone else?

Personally, I would; the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. :)

Well you could not be the one to judge wither or not others would live if he died. I mean had people known about Hitler would it have been okay to kill him before all those people died at his command? I don’t think we can make that judgement.

Nah, I haven’t the appetite for it.

Nah, this world is way too damn overpopulated, and I want my space.

God damn South Africans!!

I’d do it – as long as the effects were clarified a little better (i.e., I don’t want to end world hunger, and all of a sudden the population quadruples…

Fortunately for all involved, this question is born purely of absurdity, as no single person’s death could be directly responsible for ending world hunger. I can simply choose not to answer it. ^_^

I will admit I do have a hard time with more realistic questions of this nature. My history teacher in high school was quite fond of moral questions related to the Holocaust: Would you change the names on the “next to go” list to save yourself or your family, knowing someone in the next bunker would die in your stead?” or “Would you kill an ill person so a child could have his rations?” etc. There is no way of knowing what I would actually do in that situation, but I tend to answer with a logical “greater good” mentality.

Yes i would. As bad as I would feel I would do it.
@TheOnlyNeffie you’re right one person’s life is not less important than the next but thousands are more important than one. This one person dies so thousands get to live their life.

Not a chance. And I’m not sure I believe others who say they would.

You can make this choice a bit harder by saying you have to kill this person personally, with a knife. The beneficiaries are fine—because they are all abstract. I don’t believe anyone but a psychopath would do that.

Of course, it’s a false example, since it could never be like that. No one would ever have such a choice.

I wouldn’t do it, not even if the person begged me to kill him or her.

@wundayatta you can get anyone to do anything.

@wundayatta Oh, I agree; it’s a totally ridiculous question, but it’s nice to think about, isn’t it?

Anyway, I would kill them, as I said above, but I didn’t say I could live with it; it would just be terrible knowing I took a life…

I would prefer to die myself for the lives of many. I couldn’t hurt anyone, so I’d see if I would make a good “sacrificial lamb”.

I don’t think I could no matter the outcome. I am just selfish enough to be unable to live with myself if I killed someone.

No one’s rights can be secured at the cost of another’s.If 9 cannibals vote to eat the 10th,does that make it ok?

No. No one deserves to live more than another. This seems like a villians way of validating themself.

I would. I would even give my own life if it saved billions from starving. The basement would be OK without me.

What an evil choice. And if you could choose that innocent person?

@johnpowell Yeah there’s a huge difference in sacrificing yourself and taking someone else’s life.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to kill somebody anyway.

(For the sarcasm impaired: I’m kidding… I don’t need an excuse!)

I feel like people are neglecting the fact that in either case, you kill. If you kill the person yourself (@wundayatta – I actually considered that, and made sure also that it would have to be personal) then you kill one person. If you do not do it, then you kill every person who dies from hunger thereafter for all time.

Just because in one case you take a positive action and in the other you do nothing…the greatest wrongs are often acts of omission.

Gadzooks! That would stem to the ideal of the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few. Logically it would be quite sound, one death to save possible millions. But since we are an emotional based society that cares little for logic over the guise of fairness would see that no person should be excluded over the needs of the many unless he served time for a pass crime, which he should have paided back his debt to society but that never really happens. It might be hard but considering the way greater good I would do it but I would tell the person why and hope she/she would bless it, but I guess if I choose someone who don’t want to live but too scared to do it themselves it is a win-win.

How is an “innocent person” responsible for world hunger? Are we talking about some mythical appease the gods with a sacrificial lamb thing?

I’d probably ask the designated fall guy if he was willing to off himself for the greater good. If he said “no” then the responsibility lies on his head. Or does the hypothetical require that I do the killing?

They say the world will continue only while it contains one righteous man. What if you killed him?

Who is “they”? and define “righteous”.

Seek_Kolinahr You will find a definition here. It is actually thirty righteous men but if you killed one of them it would be curtains.

Only if we get to eat them.

But seriously. I’m with @Seek_Kolinahr on this one. The question is totally unrealistic.

Would you be prepared to murder? That is the question. If it seems unrealistic be glad. It isn’t an unrealistic question to some.

@flutherother “It isn’t an unrealistic question to some.”

And yet we could kill any innocent person and world hunger would be unaffected. How can it possibly be a realistic question when it relies and the assumption that one action will have an effect that it has never had and we have no reason to expect?

You may as well ask “would you fill your hummingbird feeder to keep the milk from spoiling?” There is simply no relationship between the two.

Do I get to pick who?

@fundevogel – did you really hop onto the thread to just criticize the question? You knew it wasn’t going to have a basis in reality when you read it, I’m pretty sure. ;-).

It’s a hypothetical question that is asked simply to test our values. But if you were in the military for example it might begin to seem more realistic.

@flutherother

Please, describe to me exactly how murdering one person – any one person – could possibly singlehandedly end world hunger?

@Seek_Kolinahr

That person had all the food, of course.

@iamthemob well then they wouldn’t be innocent would they?

Stalin created a man made famine in the 1930’s that killed millions. Mao Tse Tung did the same more recently for China. Killing either of them would have saved countless millions from starvation. The question whether to invade a country to depose an evil dictator is not a hypothetical one and innocent people will suffer and be killed.

@fundevogel

They weren’t hoarding it to be mean…they were actually trying to get the food to the people but they were just really, really bad at administrative tasks. Plus, his/her internet was down. And he/she had the flu.

@flutherother

So the incredibly realistic question depends on one knowing the future?

Besides, millions < 7 billion.

The question presumes kill 1 person = 7 billion people never go hungry.

Dude, it’s a hypothetical question. Why is there a need to argue so much about its validity?

Then again, one should be careful when answering such questions.

@bob_ Basically because it’s debating our morals. People base their morals on real-life situations, not absurd hypotheticals. Now, give me a realistic hypothetical, like the one in your link, and I would definitely answer it.

@Seek_Kolinahr So what do you say to the million dollars?

Take the money and run. I may or may not tell my husband. ^_^

@bob _right there with you dude, it is a hypothetical question of ethics and values that need not be bogged down with the symantics of who the “who” are and how the person killed is chosen or how their death will stop hunger, for the sake of the quaestion the death will and would you? Those who are namby pamby and not answering the question because they want to spar in its legitimacy are basically saying I would see 3,000,000 people starve to death because I can’t pull the trigger.

^ I think of it more as saying “Hm. Interesting question. How are you going to guarantee my becoming a murderer is going to save 3 million lives?”

All right a massive alien spacecraft from a super advanced technology lands outside New York City. The aliens demonstrate that they have the technology to relieve world hunger once and for all. They will give us this technology but there is one catch. They ask if we are prepared to sacrifice one human being in return.

This is exactly the question we were given in the introduction to my ethics in religion class. Still don’t have an answer for it. I tend to lean toward not doing it. But I couldn’t say that 100%. It’s an extremely difficult question and it’s meant to be. If you’re a consequentialist, you’ll do it because the consequences are greater in the positive if you do; you choose the “lesser of two evils”. That’s how I generally am, but this question makes it more difficult to stick to that.

@iamthemob “They weren’t hoarding it to be mean…they were actually trying to get the food to the people but they were just really, really bad at administrative tasks. Plus, his/her internet was down. And he/she had the flu.”

Somehow I think that we could resolve that situation without killing the guy.

@fundevogel Suppose we couldn’t.

@bob_ If you couldn’t solve the problem by any other conceivable means I rather doubt you can be any more confident in the effectiveness of killing him. At that point aren’t you just saying “well nothing else will work so that just leaves killing him.” But the idea that no other solution would be effective does not making the killing more likely to be successful.

And if you’re wrong and, like every other conceivable solution, killing him doesn’t fix the problem you’ve still got a problem, but now you’ve killed an innocent man too.

Okay, I give up.

lol @bob I agree with @fundevogel

@Loried2008 That’s okay.

Wouldn’t be the first time. I’d do it to end the starvation of a small village. For free. Using only my index finger, if necessary.

@seazen but what would you do when you ran out of long pork? It seems to me that this is a short term solution.

True dat. And jellyfish are amazing.

No. The end never justifies the means.

Yes. To not have a million stand up and ask to be the one who dies for millions is just selfish. Your one life means nothing in the realm of millions of hungry and starving, suffering people.

Wow. That little romp made me tired.
Anyone else ready for bed?

Oops, I almost feel bad for starting such an intensely debated question, and you’ve definitely succeeded in making me feel guilty for choosing “yes, I’d kill them”. :D

I was intending on asking interesting hypotheticals like this more frequently; considering how strongly contested this has become, I may reconsider, at least until I can find some more peaceful questions. :)

@Rubrica I firmly believe a hotly debated question is a good thing. You’ve forced people to think in more than simply terms of “yes” or “no”.

The question isn’t bad, it’s simply illogical. Which is fine. @fundevogel and I were simply pointing out the fallacy in so many people choosing to become murderers without first asking about the method used to guarantee that their murder will have its desired effect. I think that’s a very important step to determining one’s answer, especially considering the relative ease of execution, and the extremely widespread benefit.

Fair point, I knew when I asked it that there’d be someone who rightly acknowledged the fact that it’s a ridiculously illogical question. You and others just happen to have done so in far more depth than I expected. :)

So, I’ll try and think up a new hypothetical question for you all today. Have a nice day!