Murder - For the Greater Good

[GenSeneca]

The trolley problem is an old but simple problem.

Simple because you only have to murder one person to save many? By agreeing to murder even ONE innocent person, you're trying to claim the following is a "moral" principle: "It's moral to murder innocent people to save the lives of innocent people" It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see the contradiction in such a "moral" principle...

'But Seneca, the trolley problem states that just one person needs to be murdered to save the lives of many, so how did you arrive at the conclusion that it establishes the morality of murdering multiple innocent people?' That's a valid question. If it's "moral" to murder one person to save the lives of ten people, then it logically follows that it would still be "moral" to murder two people in order to save twenty, three to save thirty etc... Therefore, "it's moral to murder innocent people to save the lives of innocent people" is the only possible "moral" principle that can be established.

Your game is many paragraphs which I don't want to wade through.

I think you did read it, all of it, and said to yourself, "I would support that if it were actually being proposed", so you don't want to argue against it.

If you really want an answer, here it is:

What I'd like is a real answer... If you think it would be wrong to execute these people, despite the huge benefits to society that would result from their deaths, then please explain why. Something tells me you don't think it would be wrong at all, nothing about it violates your moral code, you just don't see it as being politically viable, hence your claim that's it's a "silly game" or fantasy.

Whether you actually think it's a good idea or not, try running it past your Progressive friends as if you do support it, just to see their reactions. See if any of them object to the proposals, see if any of them can offer an argument as to why such laws should not be considered. I think you'll be surprised at how receptive your fellow Progressives would be to such a proposal.

[insanity on] Great idea. Yeah kill all the felons and 1 percenters. [insanity off]

Your sarcasm suggests otherwise but I don't think you are joking with that answer. It puts you in a tough spot because you don't want to argue against a proposal that you agree with, so you have chosen to avoid the question.

 

[GenSeneca]

Didn't work for the pilgrims. They soon found that clan sharing created lazyness and resentment.

All collectivists have the same straw man argument against a society based on volitional consent. They offer a false choice between forced collectivism or total Anarchy, suggesting that anyone who disagrees with being forced into being part of the collective is arguing for everyone to do everything all by themselves and never cooperating with others in any way. Each of us would have to grow and hunt our own food, build our own homes, make our own clothes, etc. because otherwise you need to be part of a collective (society) to provide all those things. What they can never, and would never, admit to being a possibility is spontaneous order - as mentioned by the article Cash posted.

If men are left free to decide who they share what with and when, society is organized through spontaneous order and prosperity abounds. Forced collectivism places a central authority in charge of those decisions, men are no longer free to decide who they share with, what it is they're forced to share, and they certainly aren't allowed the option of refusing to share. Volitional consent is replaced by the use of force. Mutually beneficial exchange is replaced with forced sacrifice. And prosperity becomes the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Cruella]

If men are left free to decide who they share what with and when, society is organized through spontaneous order and prosperity abounds. Forced collectivism places a central authority in charge of those decisions, men are no longer free to decide who they share with, what it is they're forced to share, and they certainly aren't allowed the option of refusing to share. .

In the case of the Pilgrims, those that did work the hardest became resentful towards those who didn't or couldn't do as much, so they stopped working hard, there was no incentive.

Kind of like those that get used to Uncle Sam (tax payers) paying the bills and don't want to work because they don't have to. They are quite happy letting someone else pick up the tab.

 

[Lagboltz]

Simple because you only have to murder one person to save many? By agreeing to murder even ONE innocent person, you're trying to claim the following is a "moral" principle: "It's moral to murder innocent people to save the lives of innocent people" It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see the contradiction in such a "moral" principle...

'But Seneca, the trolley problem states that just one person needs to be murdered to save the lives of many, so how did you arrive at the conclusion that it establishes the morality of murdering multiple innocent people?' That's a valid question. If it's "moral" to murder one person to save the lives of ten people, then it logically follows that it would still be "moral" to murder two people in order to save twenty, three to save thirty etc... Therefore, "it's moral to murder innocent people to save the lives of innocent people" is the only possible "moral" principle that can be established.

I think you did read it, all of it, and said to yourself, "I would support that if it were actually being proposed", so you don't want to argue against it.

What I'd like is a real answer... If you think it would be wrong to execute these people, despite the huge benefits to society that would result from their deaths, then please explain why. Something tells me you don't think it would be wrong at all, nothing about it violates your moral code, you just don't see it as being politically viable, hence your claim that's it's a "silly game" or fantasy.

Whether you actually think it's a good idea or not, try running it past your Progressive friends as if you do support it, just to see their reactions. See if any of them object to the proposals, see if any of them can offer an argument as to why such laws should not be considered. I think you'll be surprised at how receptive your fellow Progressives would be to such a proposal.

Your sarcasm suggests otherwise but I don't think you are joking with that answer. It puts you in a tough spot because you don't want to argue against a proposal that you agree with, so you have chosen to avoid the question.

I heard of the trolley problem years ago. It is an investigation of personal ethics and was studied by many researchers in ethics and posed in many guises to many test groups who reacted differently depending on how the problem was posed.. So it is not a "silly game."

Your "proposal" is an unrealistic (silly) government political concept involving large scale genocide, not a personal ethics problem. As I said earlier, Pantheism and Taoism guide my life, not Progressivism, so I simply cannot wallow with you in your genocidal concept of Progressivism.

As far as reading your "proposal", I read the first few paragraphs to see that you were proposing genocide. After that I didn't read much more than the bold faced headers of each paragraph. I read very little of your later post except to see that it was more of the same and had a graph of something financial; most likely to show how much money would be saved with genocide.

My original goal was to press you into admitting that Randian Libertarianism has flaws, and I was completely surprised that you would allow a bus load of kids to be killed. That took the discussion to an unforeseen more repulsive phase.

It should be obvious to you that nobody including me would back genocide. That is not in the gray area. I know I pissed you off to the extent that you are spending a lot of time trying to back me into a corner. To save you time in pursuing your goal, I simply don't know what I would do in borderline gray area situations outside the ones mentioned. That's my final answer.

 

[Gipper]

In the case of the Pilgrims, those that did work the hardest became resentful towards those who didn't or couldn't do as much, so they stopped working hard, there was no incentive.

Kind of like those that get used to Uncle Sam (tax payers) paying the bills and don't want to work because they don't have to. They are quite happy letting someone else pick up the tab.

Yeah and reports indicate a very large and growing percentage of Americans are supported by the welfare state. This can't continue and is obviously (well it is obvious to those of us not infected by liberalism) not sustainable....BO, his party, and the MSM apparently are clueless.

Just another example of the consequence of liberalism.

 

[TheJPRD]

I have a perspective on Libertarianism that I believe was shared by more than one of our founding fathers.

I believe that some of our founders would have supported an individual's right to use drugs, to abort an unborn child, to prostitute oneself for money, and to own a 155mm howitzer if the individual could afford to buy one. Having said that, those founders would have supported the rights of any and all other citizens to ostracize such individuals from the social and cultural lives of comunities, to refuse to hire such people, and would certainly have opposed having other citizens pay for the healthcare and welfare of such losers. Unless those drug users and abortionists could afford to pay for their vice on their own, or were supported by their families, they'd slowly die because of their moral failures. Our nation today does more to care for the losers in society, the criminals, and the morally corrupt than it cares for law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying citzens!

Those losers who'd attempt tp steal money or harm decent citizens would not be confronted by unarmed, politically-correct targets for their thievery and molestations. They'd be confronted by men, women, and children who might blow-out their worthless brains in defense. I consider myself a Constitutional Conservative, but I could easily find refuge and comfort in such a Libertarian society.

 

[dogtowner]

I have a perspective on Libertarianism that I believe was shared by more than one of our founding fathers.

I believe that some of our founders would have supported an individual's right to use drugs, to abort an unborn child, to prostitute oneself for money, and to own a 155mm howitzer if the individual could afford to buy one. Having said that, those founders would have supported the rights of any and all other citizens to ostracize such individuals from the social and cultural lives of comunities, to refuse to hire such people, and would certainly have opposed having other citizens pay for the healthcare and welfare of such losers. Unless those drug users and abortionists could afford to pay for their vice on their own, or were supported by their families, they'd slowly die because of their moral failures. Our nation today does more to care for the losers in society, the criminals, and the morally corrupt than it cares for law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying citzens!

Those losers who'd attempt tp steal money or harm decent citizens would not be confronted by unarmed, politically-correct targets for their thievery and molestations. They'd be confronted by men, women, and children who might blow-out their worthless brains in defense. I consider myself a Constitutional Conservative, but I could easily find refuge and comfort in such a Libertarian society.

They would believe that charity was not the job of government but would do all they could to aid the less fortunate in their community as its the Christian thing to. They would also be of a mind to teach that man to fish as opposed to giving him fish. So yes, it would be socially unacceptable for people to be parasites.

And yes, so long as what you spent your money on did not infringe on the life liberty or property of another then have at it. But as soon as you failed that test, justice would be served. Swift and sure.

 

[GenSeneca]

My original goal was to press you into admitting that Randian Libertarianism has flaws,

Randian libertarianism? You do know she rejected Libertarianism, right? As for flaws, contradictions point to flaws and there are no contradictions to the morality of reason... It's immoral to murder one innocent person just as it's immoral to murder entire swaths of innocent people. Your "morality" is one big contradiction after another, it's completely inconsistent.

Pantheism and Taoism guide my life

Where, in either of those, does it say it's moral for you to impose your will on others by force? Tao seems pretty clear that you shouldn't do such things, not sure about Pantheism, but clearly you have no qualms about using the power of government to impose your will onto others by force... If you did actually follow the Tao consistently, you'd be one of those pie-in-the-sky Libertarians you seem to hate so much.

I was completely surprised that you would allow a bus load of kids to be killed.

I was not surprised to hear you would consider it moral to murder an innocent person, that's very Progressive... Progressives have no respect for the rights of individuals.

That took the discussion to an unforeseen more repulsive phase.

It's repulsive that anyone would attempt to claim that a cold blooded act of murder could be considered moral.

It should be obvious to you that nobody including me would back genocide. That is not in the gray area.

It's not obvious at all... You're willing to murder one innocent person to save 10, so why not murder 10 to save 100, or murder a 1000 to save a million? The problem isn't that it's a "gray area", the problem is the fact that your "morality" has no discernible consistency.

I know I pissed you off to the extent that you are spending a lot of time trying to back me into a corner.

You lack the ability to piss me off... You backed yourself into a corner due to a total lack of consistency in your "morality". I can answer any question you pose, and do so with ease because my morality is entirely consistent, but when you're asked obvious follow up questions - you can't answer... You freeze up and cop out, you can't admit, much less address, any of the contradictions inherent to your "morality". You may not like my answers but I always have one ready and it's always consistent, that is not the case with you and yours.

 

[GenSeneca]

Your "proposal" is an unrealistic (silly) government political concept involving large scale genocide,

[Prog On]
OMG, You're right...Suggesting, gen--cide , wtf was I thinking?

I see your point and now realize that my proposal needs to appeal to a broader audience and not just other Progressives...

No problem, we Progressives are all about Compromise... So I think you'll find my changes make it much more "realistic" in the sense that it could easily be supported by a majority of voters.

We simply pass a "one-time-emergency" law that forces the top 1% to hand over some of their $66.5 Trillion in wealth by way of taxation. That newly liberated wealth would then be redistributed based on need. It would be trickle up wealth instead of trickle down poverty.

Murder? That's silly talk... We just want to pass one little temporary law that finally allows We The People to reclaim our fair share of the nation's wealth. There's certainly nothing controversial about redistributing wealth through taxation... We'll even be magnanimous and offer to let the 1%ers keep a full 25% of their wealth, you know, show them that we're not greedy, that we don't resent them for having wealth, and we should let everyone know just how much we regret having to ask that the 1% make such a sacrifice but explain to the people that it really is in the best interests of the country as a whole.

That "one-time-emergency" tax would net our wise and benevolent government just under $50 Trillion... Enough to solve all our nation's problems.

We can even throw a bone to the Conservatives and Tea Party radicals to get them on board... First order of business will be to pay off the entire $16 trillion dollar national debt... Can anyone refusing a chance to instantly eliminate the entire US debt consider themselves a fiscal conservative? I don't think so... and we still have $33 Trillion left over!

It would cost about $20 billion for the government to effectively eliminate homelessness in the United States, a Housing and Urban Development official told the New York Times on Monday.

We could still end all homelessness, end all hunger, end all poverty, drastically reduce the wealth gap across the entire United States and still have at least $30 Trillion left over.

That one crazy Capitalist Randroid dude mentioned using a government surplus to start a sovereign wealth fund... According to him, that $30T would net a cool $1.5t per year at just 5% interest... That's a full 43% of the federal government's annual budget, which would not only eliminate the deficit and balance the budget but create a sizable surplus, and that 43% would come from earnings on investments made in his precious "free market", rather than coming from so called "coercive" taxation. How could he, or anyone else, object to any of that?

There... No more murder... Just a proposal for a one-time-emergency-and-we-promise-totally-temporary-tax on the top 1%... So is the proposal now "realistic" enough that you're willing to discuss it?

[Prog Off]

 

[Lagboltz]

It's immoral to murder one innocent person just as it's immoral to murder entire swaths of innocent people. Your "morality" is one big contradiction after another, it's completely inconsistent.

You ignoring a big difference --- one person acting once when a mortal emergency situation arises, vs. a program of governmental genocide when there is no large scale immediate mortal emergency.

You are also conflating those two scenarios. In this case the concept - making a choice to save kids - should not be shared with genocide.

Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more concepts, sharing some characteristics of one another, seem to be a single identity.

Where, in either of those, does it say it's moral for you to impose your will on others by force? Tao seems pretty clear that you shouldn't do such things, not sure about Pantheism, but clearly you have no qualms about using the power of government to impose your will onto others by force... If you did actually follow the Tao consistently, you'd be one of those pie-in-the-sky Libertarians you seem to hate so much.

Nothing in my beliefs says that it's wrong to sacrifice a felon for a bus load of kids. That's your belief. I don't hate libertarians, I just think some of them are absurd.

I was not surprised to hear you would consider it moral to murder an innocent person, that's very Progressive... Progressives have no respect for the rights of individuals.

It's not obvious at all... You're willing to murder one innocent person to save 10, so why not murder 10 to save 100, or murder a 1000 to save a million? The problem isn't that it's a "gray area", the problem is the fact that your "morality" has no discernible consistency.

Dicto Simpliciter (Sweeping Generalization) Making a general statement without qualifying it so that it appears to include all cases.

If progressivism allows genocide, then I'm not progressive.

You lack the ability to piss me off... You backed yourself into a corner due to a total lack of consistency in your "morality". I can answer any question you pose, and do so with ease because my morality is entirely consistent, but when you're asked obvious follow up questions - you can't answer... You freeze up and cop out, you can't admit, much less address, any of the contradictions inherent to your "morality". You may not like my answers but I always have one ready and it's always consistent, that is not the case with you and yours.

Naw. You backed yourself into a corner. I answered all your questions that make sense. You improperly generalized the trolley problem to genocide and posed questions as though they were within the original realm.

Petitio principii (Begging the question) This fallacy occurs when the premises are at least as questionable as the conclusion reached.

 

[Lagboltz]

[Prog On]
OMG, You're right...Suggesting, gen--cide , wtf was I thinking?

I see your point and now realize that my proposal needs to appeal to a broader audience and not just other Progressives...

No problem, we Progressives are all about Compromise... So I think you'll find my changes make it much more "realistic" in the sense that it could easily be supported by a majority of voters.

We simply pass a "one-time-emergency" law that forces the top 1% to hand over some of their $66.5 Trillion in wealth by way of taxation. That newly liberated wealth would then be redistributed based on need. It would be trickle up wealth instead of trickle down poverty.

Murder? That's silly talk... We just want to pass one little temporary law that finally allows We The People to reclaim our fair share of the nation's wealth. There's certainly nothing controversial about redistributing wealth through taxation... We'll even be magnanimous and offer to let the 1%ers keep a full 25% of their wealth, you know, show them that we're not greedy, that we don't resent them for having wealth, and we should let everyone know just how much we regret having to ask that the 1% make such a sacrifice but explain to the people that it really is in the best interests of the country as a whole.

That "one-time-emergency" tax would net our wise and benevolent government just under $50 Trillion... Enough to solve all our nation's problems.

We can even throw a bone to the Conservatives and Tea Party radicals to get them on board... First order of business will be to pay off the entire $16 trillion dollar national debt... Can anyone refusing a chance to instantly eliminate the entire US debt consider themselves a fiscal conservative? I don't think so... and we still have $33 Trillion left over!



We could still end all homelessness, end all hunger, end all poverty, drastically reduce the wealth gap across the entire United States and still have at least $30 Trillion left over.

That one crazy Capitalist Randroid dude mentioned using a government surplus to start a sovereign wealth fund... According to him, that $30T would net a cool $1.5t per year at just 5% interest... That's a full 43% of the federal government's annual budget, which would not only eliminate the deficit and balance the budget but create a sizable surplus, and that 43% would come from earnings on investments made in his precious "free market", rather than coming from so called "coercive" taxation. How could he, or anyone else, object to any of that?

There... No more murder... Just a proposal for a one-time-emergency-and-we-promise-totally-temporary-tax on the top 1%... So is the proposal now "realistic" enough that you're willing to discuss it?

[Prog Off]

Naw, I am satisfied with Obama's tax plan, but he really needs to sharply cut spending.

 

[dogtowner]

Naw, I am satisfied with Obama's tax plan, but he really needs to sharply cut spending.

thats anathema to him