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Does the means justify the ends?

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I wouldn't. You can't quantify life like that.

Yes, and it's a slippery slope of a position, which will allow more and more concessions until it becomes evil. Like what happens when you keep giving away liberty in the name of 'security'.

Reply 21

The Dictator

Original post by viddy9

You wouldn't kill even one person to save 1 million, 1 billion, the entire planet Earth? An interesting view - you're probably in the minority there, although I am in the minority when I apply such utilitarian calculations to a situation in which one person would have to be killed to save five people. Your view is probably the most consistent non-utilitarian one, as opposed to believing that it is justifiable to kill one person to save many at an arbitrary point when the 'many' really becomes 'too many', but not below this point.

Are you a follower of Kant?

I would kill one person to save the entire planet earth, but anything less and I wouldn't bother. The human population needs controlling. A few million less people on this earth wouldn't be such a bad thing...

Reply 22

Kaiju

The means justify the end for the individual perpetrating the act; not for any of the people who may be unwittingly involved.

A con artist would argue that they do, the unfortunate victim would not.
They are both correct.

I don't think it's possible to come up with an objective yay/nay answer for this sort of question.

Reply 23

viddy9

Original post by The Dictator

... but anything less and I wouldn't bother. The human population needs controlling. A few million less people on this earth wouldn't be such a bad thing...

That's completely immoral from my perspective, plus, if overpopulation even is a problem, there are alternative ways it can be dealt with. Firstly, the way resources are distributed on Earth is incredibly uneven: if they were distributed more equally, overpopulation would be less of a problem. Add in some GM Crops, which can massively increase food production, continue the emancipation of women across the globe and expand family planning programs, and it's less of a problem still. If necessary, implement one-child or two-child policies, but allowing millions of people to die is, in my view, morally equivalent to genocide.