The death of a total stranger for enough money to find a cure for AIDS.

[tyranim]

i would donate that money to a more universal cause. research and development of fully prosthetic bodies (similar to those in the show ghost in the shell, but obviously not quite as advanced, thats kinda hard to do). this would allow a method for people who have aids (or any other incurable/deadly disease) to transfer their minds to a healthy body.

or

research into cloning humans and transferring someone's mind into another body. for the same reason as above

[YoungSot]

Be more specific.  What kind of situations are you talking about?  I can't address this catch-all.

A captain is manning a lifeboat filled with too many people after his ship sank. In order to save some of them, rather than have everyone drown, he makes the weaker ones go overboard. When his passengers were finally rescued some time later, they tried him for murder. If he had not let anyone go overboard, and ended up having everyone die from the lifeboat's sinking, he'd be an innocent man.

True story.

I believe we do all have situations that come up where there is an unavoidable wrong "Lesser of the 2 evils situation". In those cases, it is better to take the "lesser of the 2 evils" Right there, you had 2 choices. Let all of them die, or let a few of them die. Its an obvious choice. Meanwhile, the OP produces a similar, although distinctly different question (I know yours was just an example for a catch all, and not meant to be a direct comparison, but I want to compare anyways).

You still have a lot of people dieing, and you can do something about it.  The big difference is that the 1 person you kill, wouldn't die (unless he happened to have aids).
So instead of-A few involved people die, a few involved people survive-
you have -a completely innocent bystander dies, everyone involved survive.-
The big difference between the 2 is that the 1 guy didnt have to die, therefor he shouldnt be forced to die, and the others, although a much larger group, should be allowed to die.

Before I argue with this statement, are you saying that you believe there are situations where ALL options are morally wrong, and thus you must just choose an option that is "less" morally wrong?

[Nepycros]

Be more specific.  What kind of situations are you talking about?  I can't address this catch-all.

A captain is manning a lifeboat filled with too many people after his ship sank. In order to save some of them, rather than have everyone drown, he makes the weaker ones go overboard. When his passengers were finally rescued some time later, they tried him for murder. If he had not let anyone go overboard, and ended up having everyone die from the lifeboat's sinking, he'd be an innocent man.

True story.

I believe we do all have situations that come up where there is an unavoidable wrong "Lesser of the 2 evils situation". In those cases, it is better to take the "lesser of the 2 evils" Right there, you had 2 choices. Let all of them die, or let a few of them die. Its an obvious choice. Meanwhile, the OP produces a similar, although distinctly different question (I know yours was just an example for a catch all, and not meant to be a direct comparison, but I want to compare anyways).

You still have a lot of people dieing, and you can do something about it.  The big difference is that the 1 person you kill, wouldn't die (unless he happened to have aids).
So instead of-A few involved people die, a few involved people survive-
you have -a completely innocent bystander dies, everyone involved survive.-
The big difference between the 2 is that the 1 guy didnt have to die, therefor he shouldnt be forced to die, and the others, although a much larger group, should be allowed to die.

Before I argue with this statement, are you saying that you believe there are situations where ALL options are morally wrong, and thus you must just choose an option that is "less" morally wrong?

Of course. It's wrong to let a group of innocent people die. It's also wrong to kill innocent people. The captain had to choose one or the other, or people would still have died.

[Pineapple]

i would have to say yes to the offer, but no to the aids thing. the research into finding a cure for aids has already been given an obsene amount of money and they havent done it yet. which makes me think there is a possibility that they just dont care. instead i would donate that money to a more universal cause. research and development of fully prosthetic bodies (similar to those in the show ghost in the shell, but obviously not quite as advanced, thats kinda hard to do). this would allow a method for people who have aids (or any other incurable/deadly disease) to transfer their minds to a healthy body.

or

research into cloning humans and transferring someone's mind into another body. for the same reason as above

Do not question or debate about the validity of this point, since this thread is not intended for it. Should you use the money for AIDS research, the chance of finding a cure is 100%.

[YoungSot]

Be more specific.  What kind of situations are you talking about?  I can't address this catch-all.

A captain is manning a lifeboat filled with too many people after his ship sank. In order to save some of them, rather than have everyone drown, he makes the weaker ones go overboard. When his passengers were finally rescued some time later, they tried him for murder. If he had not let anyone go overboard, and ended up having everyone die from the lifeboat's sinking, he'd be an innocent man.

True story.

I believe we do all have situations that come up where there is an unavoidable wrong "Lesser of the 2 evils situation". In those cases, it is better to take the "lesser of the 2 evils" Right there, you had 2 choices. Let all of them die, or let a few of them die. Its an obvious choice. Meanwhile, the OP produces a similar, although distinctly different question (I know yours was just an example for a catch all, and not meant to be a direct comparison, but I want to compare anyways).

You still have a lot of people dieing, and you can do something about it.  The big difference is that the 1 person you kill, wouldn't die (unless he happened to have aids).
So instead of-A few involved people die, a few involved people survive-
you have -a completely innocent bystander dies, everyone involved survive.-
The big difference between the 2 is that the 1 guy didnt have to die, therefor he shouldnt be forced to die, and the others, although a much larger group, should be allowed to die.

Before I argue with this statement, are you saying that you believe there are situations where ALL options are morally wrong, and thus you must just choose an option that is "less" morally wrong?

Of course. It's wrong to let a group of innocent people die. It's also wrong to kill innocent people. The captain had to choose one or the other, or people would still have died.

I am not committing a morally wrong act by failing to prevent death. Otherwise I'd be held morally responsible every time someone died anywhere, because I could possibly have found a way to save them.
In the example you gave, I'd exhaust all other means of saving us, and then implore the survivors to volunteer to die to save the others (offering myself too). If that didn't work then we'd most likely die.

[tyranim]

i would have to say yes to the offer, but no to the aids thing. the research into finding a cure for aids has already been given an obsene amount of money and they havent done it yet. which makes me think there is a possibility that they just dont care. instead i would donate that money to a more universal cause. research and development of fully prosthetic bodies (similar to those in the show ghost in the shell, but obviously not quite as advanced, thats kinda hard to do). this would allow a method for people who have aids (or any other incurable/deadly disease) to transfer their minds to a healthy body.

or

research into cloning humans and transferring someone's mind into another body. for the same reason as above

Do not question or debate about the validity of this point, since this thread is not intended for it. Should you use the money for AIDS research, the chance of finding a cure is 100%.

fixed

[Thalas]

i would donate that money to a more universal cause. research and development of fully prosthetic bodies (similar to those in the show ghost in the shell, but obviously not quite as advanced, thats kinda hard to do). this would allow a method for people who have aids (or any other incurable/deadly disease) to transfer their minds to a healthy body.

or

research into cloning humans and transferring someone's mind into another body. for the same reason as above

Do you understand what you talk about isn't actually transferring mind but killing and creating a new life.
Memory transfering works on this principle - You copy person's memories and download it to memoryless (souless you could say) body that way you create identical copy of person personality and then you erase person's memories, so there won't be any duplicates. Then his clone will thank you because he isn't aware that he is a clone and that his predecessor died.
On the same principle works teleport - Copy and create new body on some different place and then kill the original person
And the same is with robotic brain, but not with other parts of your body because they don't store any memory

[BluePriest]

Be more specific.  What kind of situations are you talking about?  I can't address this catch-all.

A captain is manning a lifeboat filled with too many people after his ship sank. In order to save some of them, rather than have everyone drown, he makes the weaker ones go overboard. When his passengers were finally rescued some time later, they tried him for murder. If he had not let anyone go overboard, and ended up having everyone die from the lifeboat's sinking, he'd be an innocent man.

True story.

I believe we do all have situations that come up where there is an unavoidable wrong "Lesser of the 2 evils situation". In those cases, it is better to take the "lesser of the 2 evils" Right there, you had 2 choices. Let all of them die, or let a few of them die. Its an obvious choice. Meanwhile, the OP produces a similar, although distinctly different question (I know yours was just an example for a catch all, and not meant to be a direct comparison, but I want to compare anyways).

You still have a lot of people dieing, and you can do something about it.  The big difference is that the 1 person you kill, wouldn't die (unless he happened to have aids).
So instead of-A few involved people die, a few involved people survive-
you have -a completely innocent bystander dies, everyone involved survive.-
The big difference between the 2 is that the 1 guy didnt have to die, therefor he shouldnt be forced to die, and the others, although a much larger group, should be allowed to die.

Before I argue with this statement, are you saying that you believe there are situations where ALL options are morally wrong, and thus you must just choose an option that is "less" morally wrong?

Of course. It's wrong to let a group of innocent people die. It's also wrong to kill innocent people. The captain had to choose one or the other, or people would still have died.

Exactly what nepy said. Its naive to think there will always be a good option to choose. Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of the 2 evils, like what the captain had to do. Although it is easy to say the captain should have offered himself as well, without the full situation (which nepy may be able to give an answer on this)  The captain, if he sacrificed himself, might have just been leaving the crew to die without his guidance.

[YoungSot]

Be more specific.  What kind of situations are you talking about?  I can't address this catch-all.

A captain is manning a lifeboat filled with too many people after his ship sank. In order to save some of them, rather than have everyone drown, he makes the weaker ones go overboard. When his passengers were finally rescued some time later, they tried him for murder. If he had not let anyone go overboard, and ended up having everyone die from the lifeboat's sinking, he'd be an innocent man.

True story.

I believe we do all have situations that come up where there is an unavoidable wrong "Lesser of the 2 evils situation". In those cases, it is better to take the "lesser of the 2 evils" Right there, you had 2 choices. Let all of them die, or let a few of them die. Its an obvious choice. Meanwhile, the OP produces a similar, although distinctly different question (I know yours was just an example for a catch all, and not meant to be a direct comparison, but I want to compare anyways).

You still have a lot of people dieing, and you can do something about it.  The big difference is that the 1 person you kill, wouldn't die (unless he happened to have aids).
So instead of-A few involved people die, a few involved people survive-
you have -a completely innocent bystander dies, everyone involved survive.-
The big difference between the 2 is that the 1 guy didnt have to die, therefor he shouldnt be forced to die, and the others, although a much larger group, should be allowed to die.

Before I argue with this statement, are you saying that you believe there are situations where ALL options are morally wrong, and thus you must just choose an option that is "less" morally wrong?

Of course. It's wrong to let a group of innocent people die. It's also wrong to kill innocent people. The captain had to choose one or the other, or people would still have died.

Exactly what nepy said. Its naive to think there will always be a good option to choose. Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of the 2 evils, like what the captain had to do. Although it is easy to say the captain should have offered himself as well, without the full situation (which nepy may be able to give an answer on this)  The captain, if he sacrificed himself, might have just been leaving the crew to die without his guidance.

I almost added in a line saying "unless he was needed to pilot the boat," but I didn't think it was necessary, as whether or not the captain sacrifices himself is beside the point.

There will always be a morally correct option, because one of the options will be the one that "should" be taken. If you can be in a situation where EVERY option is morally prohibited, then there must be a contradiction of some sort within your moral code. A set of moral rules that are logically impossible to obey is a useless set of rules.

In the given example there are two options:
1. Murder some people. This greatly increases the chance that others will survive. - Murder is morally wrong, therefore this is a morally wrong choice.
2. Do nothing. Everyone will most likely die. - There is nothing morally wrong with people dying in an accident. By itself this is not a morally wrong choice.

Allowing others to die is morally wrong IF you have the option to save them (otherwise you are not "allowing" them to die at all, they are just dying). However, if the only option that allows you to save them is in itself morally wrong, then it's not really an option from a moral standpoint, and thus you have no option to save them, and are no more responsible for their deaths than you are responsible for the death of a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver. Put in another way: saying that "you are morally required (not physically required, morally required) to make an immoral choice" would mean an illogical and impossible set of morals.

[BluePriest]

What would you have done if you were the captain, and THE ONLY choices were have some people go overboard, or everyone die? No looking for other ways to save everyone. You already did that, and there arent any. What would you have done?

[YoungSot]

What would you have done if you were the captain, and THE ONLY choices were have some people go overboard, or everyone die? No looking for other ways to save everyone. You already did that, and there arent any. What would you have done?

Err, I thought it was clear that I'm already assuming that in my previous reply, which is why I say that "there are two options" rather than saying "here are the two primary options" or something.

[maverixk]

What would you have done if you were the captain, and THE ONLY choices were have some people go overboard, or everyone die? No looking for other ways to save everyone. You already did that, and there arent any. What would you have done?

Err, I thought it was clear that I'm already assuming that in my previous reply, which is why I say that "there are two options" rather than saying "here are the two primary options" or something.

That still doesn't answer the question.