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The Would-Be Murderer

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In one of the late chapters in Moby Dick, Starbuck points a musket at a slumbering Ahab and wonders if he should kill him to save the 30-man crew who would be hurled into almost certain death due to the captain's obsession with the white whale. A problem then presented itself to me...

Let's say you attained certainty (never mind how, assume this) that a youth was to become in the future a murderer with numerous victims. Would you feel it your duty to slay this youth to prevent the future murders? Obviously, you yourself would be treated as a murderer as a result, and there would be no way to prove the validity of your reason for so doing. Let him be, and he goes on to claim his victims...would you be able to look the other way?

I know I'm going to get answers like, "I'd try to become this youth's mentor and steer him onto a more noble path, etc..." Just for the sake of the problem, let's assume this option is not available and that the youth is on a sure path to this destiny. To kill, or not to kill...that's it.

@Labyrinth,

Labyrinth;105230 wrote:

Let's say you attained certainty (never mind how, assume this) that a youth was to become in the future a murderer with numerous victims. Would you feel it your duty to slay this youth to prevent the future murders? Obviously, you yourself would be treated as a murderer as a result, and there would be no way to prove the validity of your reason for so doing. Let him be, and he goes on to claim his victims...would you be able to look the other way?

I know I'm going to get answers like, "I'd try to become this youth's mentor and steer him onto a more noble path, etc..." Just for the sake of the problem, let's assume this option is not available and that the youth is on a sure path to this destiny. To kill, or not to kill...that's it.

First of all, I love and hate these kinds of questions. They really don't do much other than try to justify a particular philosophy but they are very flimsy.

If the option is to kill, then why couldn't another option be just as plausible, but you seem to object to it in favor of kill or not kill. But since you wont allow the option to change the mind of the person then I have to examine who the victims are. Are they all noble people or are they potentially killers themselves? This is where the question works it's way into absurdity. If the victims are good people then by all means you would technically want to save them but what if they are just as bad as the killer? It wouldn't really make a difference now.

I still wouldn't kill the guy to save those others but only because I do not think that killing is the ONLY option.

@Labyrinth,

Labyrinth;105230 wrote:

In one of the late chapters in Moby Dick, Starbuck points a musket at a slumbering Ahab and wonders if he should kill him to save the 30-man crew who would be hurled into almost certain death due to the captain's obsession with the white whale. A problem then presented itself to me...

Let's say you attained certainty (never mind how, assume this) that a youth was to become in the future a murderer with numerous victims. Would you feel it your duty to slay this youth to prevent the future murders? Obviously, you yourself would be treated as a murderer as a result, and there would be no way to prove the validity of your reason for so doing. Let him be, and he goes on to claim his victims...would you be able to look the other way?

I know I'm going to get answers like, "I'd try to become this youth's mentor and steer him onto a more noble path, etc..." Just for the sake of the problem, let's assume this option is not available and that the youth is on a sure path to this destiny. To kill, or not to kill...that's it.

That is the "Hitler problem". Suppose Hitler as a little child was about to drown in a lake, and you, knowing how he was going to grow up, was able to save him. Should you save him? And this brings up the problem of subjective rightness versus objective rightness. It is subjectively right to save an innocent little child if you can do so. But it is objectively wrong to save a Hitler if you can do so. What happens when what is subjectively right is objectively wrong?

@Labyrinth,

These types of questions have their place though I don't see how they really get us anywhere. Take for example this scenario, (assuming you're married) : You must commit adultery with female 1 or female 2, there are no other options. You HAVE to do it. Most people would have issue with committing adultery and hate to answer such a question as it really does not pose a real life situation. There is ALWAYS more then 2 options. Even if someone holds a gun to your head and says pick 1, you can always die or attempt to fight back etc....

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;105246 wrote:

That is the "Hitler problem". Suppose Hitler as a little child was about to drown in a lake, and you, knowing how he was going to grow up, was able to save him. Should you save him? And this brings up the problem of subjective rightness versus objective rightness. It is subjectively right to save an innocent little child if you can do so. But it is objectively wrong to save a Hitler if you can do so. What happens when what is subjectively right is objectively wrong?

Subjective rightness vs. objective wrongness...that's what I was looking for. To those who challenged the worth of problem, I already know it is a useless one in actual application. Obviously, we would seek alternatives to killing. I was just curious where we stood on either side. It just popped in my head after reading the chapter in Moby Dick in which Starbuck would actually have saved the crew had he been seriously considering committing the act.

Personally, I would choose not to intervene and allow the original course to progress. I'd accept the resultant killings as the unfolding events. I'm a little troubled at this choice of mine though I must say that is my honest answer.

@Labyrinth,

Labyrinth;105230 wrote:

Let's say you attained certainty (never mind how, assume this) that a youth was to become in the future a murderer with numerous victims. Would you feel it your duty to slay this youth to prevent the future murders? Obviously, you yourself would be treated as a murderer as a result, and there would be no way to prove the validity of your reason for so doing. Let him be, and he goes on to claim his victims...would you be able to look the other way?

No, because I don't believe in fatalistic "certainty", nor do I believe that people are incapable of change, or that the future is written.

However, to be fair to your hypothetical question, I answer that I still would not kill the person pre-emptively until they had committed an action that I found to be immoral.

-ITL-

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