Can we exchange lives for lives?

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Render
 
Reply Wed 19 May, 2010 10:47 pm
Would you agree with this?
Let's say that a man kills 3 people from America.
He then donates 200 dollars to help save the lives of 6 Third world children, so that makes up for everything he did, and he is saving more lives, so then his actions are justified right? or not?
This may be a bad example but you probably understand the idea.
 
Jebediah
 
Reply Wed 19 May, 2010 10:59 pm
@Render,
He could have just given the 200 dollars without killing the people, so no.

Perhaps you are looking for something like:

"A doctor has 5 patients who are about to die from lack of organ transplant, they each need a different organ. By chance, he has another patient in his office, already under anesthesia, who could donate organs to all 5. Is it moral for him to kill that man to save the 5?"
 
Render
 
Reply Wed 19 May, 2010 11:06 pm
@Jebediah,
Jebediah;166302 wrote:
He could have just given the 200 dollars without killing the people, so no.

Perhaps you are looking for something like:

"A doctor has 5 patients who are about to die from lack of organ transplant, they each need a different organ. By chance, he has another patient in his office, already under anesthesia, who could donate organs to all 5. Is it moral for him to kill that man to save the 5?"


So he could have. What if he didn't kill the people, or killed 0 people(to emphasize my point), but still could have saved 3 lives and he didn't give the money. So then he's not guilty now?
 
Jebediah
 
Reply Wed 19 May, 2010 11:16 pm
@Render,
Render;166303 wrote:
So he could have. What if he didn't kill the people, or killed 0 people(to emphasize my point), but still could have saved 3 lives and he didn't give the money. So then he's not guilty now?


He's not guilty of murdering the people (since he didn't). Are you asking if not donating the money needed to save lives is murder? That's a tough one to say, because then most people are murderer's, including many of the people who are being "murdered".
 
Render
 
Reply Wed 19 May, 2010 11:53 pm
@Jebediah,
Jebediah;166306 wrote:
He's not guilty of murdering the people (since he didn't). Are you asking if not donating the money needed to save lives is murder? That's a tough one to say, because then most people are murderer's, including many of the people who are being "murdered".

Yeah you're right, I suppose we cannot assume that everyone saving lives would be the right thing to do.
I also came across another problem with this whole thing. Life could mean anything and i think that it ultimately comes down to our interpretation.

In reality it can't be just life vs. life because we cannot look at things that simple without a little bit of bias.

So we end up determining things that make one life better from our perspectives
-like age, location, chance of success of the individual, connection to us, would this person just blend in with everyone else so should I really save them, ect.
 
HexHammer
 
Reply Thu 20 May, 2010 03:22 am
@Render,
Render;166299 wrote:
Would you agree with this?
Let's say that a man kills 3 people from America.
He then donates 200 dollars to help save the lives of 6 Third world children, so that makes up for everything he did, and he is saving more lives, so then his actions are justified right? or not?
This may be a bad example but you probably understand the idea.
They have a system in the middle east that are vaguely related. If you causes death of some family member, then you have to pay for it's death, compensating for the value of the person, if it's a husband it's a huge sum.

..but it's a bad system, allowing ritch people to be a bit more "reckless", in the west such system would be absolute abomniable!
 
 

 
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