Monkeyboard wrote:
Although the train thing is an interesting ethical dilemma and the spin offs are even better.
A train is heading towards 10 people no way to stop it etc.
but you are standing on a bridge and if you push the fat guy in front of you (which will stop the train) would you do it?
Naw, cause in real life, you can't stop a train with a fat guy. And in real life, you're gonna be hard pressed to find a fat guy in possession of a nuke that can kill millions of people.
I could've taken the time to be a bit more clear/philosophical in my post, but I'm sticking with the basic thrust of what I said. Unlikely hypotheticals. Which can be fun and thought provoking, but not for any practical / real-life-based philosophical purposes.
--Is killing someone wrong?
--Yes.
--What if a man has a Rocketeer jetpack that's malfunctioned, and he's speeding toward the last elephant left on the planet. But that elephant is about to die of old age anyway, and there's a whole village of starving people that it could feed--thus saving the lives of everyone in the village. But if the man on the jetpack hits the elephant, it will explode into tiny inedible pieces, leaving the whole village to starve to death. BUT! You have a baseball bat! And you can smash the guy on the jetpack as he goes by, throwing off his course, sending him careening into a missionary family...killing all four of them, but saving a hundred villagers and allowing the elephant to die naturally.
So NOW what do you do? Huh? Huh?
