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Will u care about so called "Ethics" ur life is in front of it
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I will not, i will not care about ETHICS when it comes to my life, in fact i am already doing an act which is saving my life and its against so called "ethics".
Whats ur opinion??
Whats ur opinion??
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Would I kill 10 people to save my life? Nope. What else do you want answering?
That's a wierd question. I couldn't possibly know what I would do if I had different thoughts and beliefs than I do now. If I genuinely believed that by having a blood transfusion, God would send me to hell for eternity, then I imagine I would refuse it. I would be an idiot, but if I truely believed that, then that would be the only reasonable choice to make.
You're that confident, J?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Suggests that we can forget our morals quiet easily.
if someone said i had to kill someone i love inorder to survive then i would happily die, but if someone said i had to give up something or never see someone again on order to live, then i probably would do that...
but i do have very strong morals. they are not fixed though, if i can see a good reason to change it, then i would.
Can you respect things when you're a foetus?
I'm quite comfortable in my ethical opinion that my life is worth more than someone else's right to ownership. So if me stealing from them to live wouldn't cause them to suffer unduely, then I think I'd be on pretty firm moral ground to do so.
Well, yes, but I don't think that's a hard moral question.
However, if you were at starvation point and so was everyone else and someone found an apple - would you club them to death to get it? Lot's of people say of course not - but then until you're in that situation you don't know what you would do
But where is the line? Who knows?
And I'm fairly sure when the going gets tough people will become desperate and change how they would make these judgements under rational circumstances. It's a lot easier to justify killing someone for food when you're starving than when you've just had a 3 course meal, afterall. and mindless killing, looting and rape is much more prevalent anywhere where there are tough circumstances, people naturally change the way they think.
And that change in our own way of thinking might not be so terribly far away, just four days.
Yes, I think this is the point essentially I was trying to make in this post, people think differently under pressure, and make decisions differently. But purely based on empirical evidence of environments where shit has hit the fan - look at new orleans for an example in a developed country - I think that many people would forsake a lot of their moral objections if they were desperate
I'm not making a moral judgement at all - I'm saying that all the pat answers about how I'd never take a life or wouldn't act selfishly if my life depended on it are being posted by people sitting behind keyboards - properly fed and not in fear of there own lives. If they were faced with it in reality a fair number would twist the knife into someone's guts without a thought
But the point is that in reality these decisions are hardly ever taken in rational circumstances. Rationally very, very few people in this country will ever face a real kill or be killed situation or be so hungry that they are prepared to smash someone's skull in. As such the answers are false - because they can't imagine the circumstances where it might become true
As an aside I think the rape argument is a bit off beam. People need to sometimes to kill either to stop people killing them or to eat. I'm not convinced that there's very often a need to rape someone.
ETA - you've slightly changed your post and added the final paragraph, so I think we may be in some agreement
Sorry this first bit was a response to IWS's post when he said his right to live was greater than someone elses right to ownership. Should have made it clearer!
The rape thing is often about power, it's not to do with a need to rape, but again just looking empirically at South Africa over the past week there have been plenty of women who have been raped because things in SA aren't brilliant atm. Especially when there are gangs it becomes a pack mentality where they kill, rape, plunder etc. It probably was a bad example but again, what are people capable of when they're pushed to the edge? I dread to think about it, but until I'm in that kind of situation how can I really say what I would or wouldn't do?
That's a decision based on your ethics though. An ethical decision can involve an immoral action. Indeed, it's impossible to do most things without commiting an immoral action, because practically every action you take infringes on another life somewhere down the line. It's still a decision made on your ethical judgement of the situation though. I'm sure everyone has come to a conclusion about what would be ethical, and done the opposite at one time or another, of course. But the question, "will you care about it?" Of course, that's why we feel guilty. But I'm not sure whether the OP is asking about things that go against our personal ethical judgement, or the ethical opinions of society at large. In the case of the second one, in certain cases, I wouldn't think twice about it, and would have a huge grin on my face at the time.
I see your point. And I think that's true. The Soviet Army which raped it's way through Germany and the Serb militia in Bosnia went home and led pretty law abiding lives in the main. Some were probably bad, others just turned a blind eye, did it because the enemy were 'untermenschen' or because the others were doing it, or because they could and at home they feared punishment.
To be fair though, the Milgram Experiment is more about what happens if someone in 'authority' orders a person to do something against their will, or if autonomy is removed, or if they don't accept responsibility for their actions (I was told to do it m'lord).
Think it sums it up quite well.
This isn't a life or death situation.
But yeah, human beings are brutal creatures.
I'm a bit unsure about where you are getting the 99% from?
before the experiment Milgram consulted with 14 psychology majors and they believed only 1.2% of the participants would administer the lethal shock - is this where you are getting 99%
The result of the actual test was that 26 of the 40 participants would conduct the lethal shock - 65 %
Later tests seem to show that the percentage is consistent - 61 - 66% in later tests.
But other than the mistake with the percentage the test is, as mentioned, about following orders and is part of the same kind of experiments as Stanford Prison. Usually post war experiments investigating just how something like the holocaust could have happened.
A better comparison it this experiment than 'them and us' would be whether a soldier should threaten, torture or execute a prisoner because he's been told to by a superior officer - without having seen any evidence of guilt himself.
But it also shows that normal people are willing to torture someone to death.
The 99% is a bit of hyperbole
why i said it's an entirely metaphysial issue but my non-existence would respect her choice
it's like all the paradoxes of time travel lol
Haha