I know this is an unlikely situation, but it’s been bothering me a lot lately…
Alright, suppose you are in a situation where you either have to kill one person or else one million people would be killed - would it be alright to sacrifice this one person for one million??? Or should you not kill that one person and have one million people killed?
As far as you can you shouldn’t kill that person but If it must absolutely be then it should be right. However under anarchy such situations decrease -since you can get most people to agree to voluntarily sacrifice for others.
Although as a matter of heroism, you might be justified in dying with him rather than have someone’s blood on your hands.
Is that one person yourself?
No it would not be alright. But that is not the same question as the question of would you do it.
Lifeboat situations can arise in any situation with any code, law, and creed. My advice think of it as an anomoly, phenomena, and massive break in the homeostasis to whatever effects your life; make the judgement as it comes and never blame yourself for it. All you can try to do is act within the best of your ability to the best of your reason AT THE TIME.
Think of the code of law you go by as something that works only within range of a certain homeostasis.
Who’s the one person? Who are the million people?
By the way time permitting you should watch Fail-Safe (1964). It deals with something like this.
I’m just going to jump straight to the gun here. This paragraph is going to appear out of context. So before anyone loses their “shit”, please read the article and put it into context, and properly grasp what is meant. [:)]
Regarding a similar scenario above…
Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums by Walter Block
Block, Walter. 2002. “Radical Privatization and other Libertarian Conundrums,” The International Journal of Politics and Ethics, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 165-175
On the other hand, given that libertarianism, strictly and narrowly construed, does not forbid killing the innocent, but only requires that such a person be duly punished, its claim to promote utility can still be maintained.
…
Here is Rothbard, essentially saying the same thing as Block. (Block, same as Rothbard)
It may well be objected to our theory as follows: that a theory of property rights or even of self-ownership is derivable from the conditions by which man survives and flourishes in this world, and that therefore in this kind of extreme situation, where a man is faced with the choice of either saving himself or violating the property rights of the lifeboat owner (or, in the above example, of the “homesteader” in the boat), it is then ridiculous to expect him to surrender his life on behalf of the abstract principle of property rights. Because of this kind of consideration, many libertarians who otherwise believe in property rights gravely weaken them on behalf of the “contextualist” contention that, given a choice between his life and aggressing against someone else’s property or even life, it is moral for him to commit the aggression and that therefore in such a situation, these property rights cease to exist.
The error here on the part of the “contextualist” libertarians is to confuse the question of the moral course of action for the person in such a tragic situation with the totally separate question of whether or not his seizing of lifeboat or plank space by force constitutes an invasion of someone else’s property right. For we are not, in constructing a theory of liberty and property, i.e., a “political” ethic, concerned with all personal moral principles. We are not here with concerned whether it is moral or immoral for someone to lie, to be a good person, to develop his faculties, or be kind or mean to his neighbors. We are concerned, in this sort of discussion, solely with such “political ethical” questions as the proper role of violence, the sphere of rights, or the definitions of criminality and aggression. Whether or not it is moral or immoral for “Smith” — the fellow excluded by the owner from the plank or the lifeboat — to force someone else out of the lifeboat, or whether he should die heroically instead, is not our concern, and not the proper concern of a theory of political ethics.[5]
The crucial point is that even if the contextualist libertarian may say that, given the tragic context, Smith should throw someone else out of the lifeboat to save his own life, he is still committing, at the very least, invasion of property rights, and probably also murder of the person thrown out. So that even if one says that he should try to save his life by forcibly grabbing a seat in the lifeboat, he is still, in our view, liable to prosecution as a criminal invader of property right, and perhaps as a murderer as well. After he is convicted, it would be the right of the lifeboat owner or the heir of the person tossed out to forgive Smith, to pardon him because of the unusual circumstances; but it would also be their right not to pardon and to proceed with the full force of their legal right to punish.
Once again, we are concerned in this theory with the rights of the case, not with whether or not a person chooses voluntarily to exercise his rights. In our view, the property owner or the heir of the killed would have a right to prosecute and to exact proper punishment upon the aggressor. The fallacy of the contextualists is to confuse considerations of individual, personal morality (what should Smith do?) with the question of the rights of the case. The right of property continues, then, to be absolute, even in the tragic lifeboat situation…
To sum up the application of our theory to extreme situations: if a man aggresses against another’s person or property to save his own life, he may or may not be acting morally in so doing. That is none of our particular concern in this work. Regardless of whether his action is moral or immoral, by any criterion, he is still a criminal aggressor against the property of another, and the victim is within his right to repel that aggression by force, and to prosecute the aggressor afterward for his crime.
Pasted these from another thread, because I’m in a rush. If you want me to tailor the points to the OP, I can do that later if you want.
I think that’ s a bit silly. Lets say theres a scenario where an evil mastermind tells you to kill one person or else another 1 million will be killed. Who’s to say that those 1 million won’t be killed anyway? Killing an innocent is always going to be wrong- there is no justice or compensation good enough for killing an innocent because there’s no way to bring people back from the dead.
I thing no sensible human being (with the exception of Nozick and Kant) would think that for a second. Of course yes! Yet, recognizing such situations is very, very difficult. Thus, if the population level was over-optimal by a million people (I know it can’t be measured, but suppose), then these people are going to die anyway. That would not be the situation you describe, and killing that one additional guy would be wrong: the others are going to die any case.
And to generalize: whenever the actions of a person have led to a breach of the NAP, yet he has been forced to act thus to avoid some other breach, assuming no alternative was rationally conceivable at the moment, than I myself would not consider that punishable.
Forced to act to avoid some other breach? Hm? Can you put that in example form?
I gather you’re talking about:
“An alien holds a gun to your head and says “kill someone or die.” You obey. Are you guilty of murder? No: the guilt rests squarely with the alien, because you were not acting according to you own uncoerced free will. This is essentially the situation we have here.”
"Wrong. You are guilty of murder. You have violated the NAP. Walter Block also addresses this very well. It’s called negative homesteading and is contained within the Abortion lecture, in the second half I believe. As it roughly correlates with evictionism.
In that case the ONLY proper action is to try get the gun and kill / defend yourself against the individual (alien), forcing you against your will. You can’t pass on the negative to someone else." —
I think I remember Block mentioning in a lecture that such a person, should first be paraded as a hero for saving the million people, and then duly imprisoned or killed for murdering an innocent one. I’d say I agree.
So, suppose The Joker forces Gordon to kill a girl. Now, the father of the girls murders Gordon in revenge. Would you punish the father? If Gordon was guilty of murder, than it is entirely within the offended party’s right to take revenge (although liability insurance would pay the father to forgive Gordon). So, is the father guilty of murder, or he should be free to go? Who breached who’s NAP? Moral ambiguity would allow for a never-ending blood feud here, so we must make up our mind.
Or suppose that you have been tied up with a gun placed in your hand, and an other guy has been tied in front of you. The bad guy sends an electric current through you, stimulating you muscles and forcing you to shoot the other guy. Now, it has been showed that in a small percentage of cases, some men have been able to control muscular spasms when electrified. It takes a very strong build and willpower. Does that make you a murder?
“So, suppose A forces B to kill C .” “Now, the guardian of C murders B in revenge.” “Would you punish the guardian of C?”
Revenge is the wrong word.
"Once again, we are concerned in this theory with the rights of the case, not with whether or not a person chooses voluntarily to exercise his rights. In our view, the property owner or the heir of the killed would have a right to prosecute and to exact proper punishment upon the aggressor. The fallacy of the contextualists is to confuse considerations of individual, personal morality (what should Smith do?) with the question of the rights of the case. The right of property continues, then, to be absolute, even in the tragic lifeboat situation…"
Would I punish the guardian of C? You want my personal opinion of what I think should be done?
*"*If B was guilty of murder, than it is entirely within the offended party’s right to take revenge. So, is the guardian of C guilty of murder, or he should be free to go?"
Did B make a choice? B had three options (He can either 1 - kill the person, 2 - be killed, 3 - refuse and try to kill / defend himself against the aggressor), although coerced into them (i.e obviously making the A guilty regardless, as he is using B as his means.)
“In our case, when we ask if someone was the cause of a certain aggression, we are asking whether the actor did choose and employ means to attain the prohibited result. For there to be “cause” in this sense, obviously there has to be cause-in-fact—this is implied by the notion of the means employed “attaining” or resulting in the actor’s end. Intentionality is also a factor, because action has to be intentional to be an action (the means is chosen and employed intentionally; the actor intends to achieve a given end).”
So yes, if B is guilty - i.e 1 - chose to kill the girl, instead of 2 or 3, then the heir, agent / guardian of the girl can legitimately punish the murderer, if they choose to do so.
“(although liability insurance would pay the father to forgive B)”
I don’t know about that.
A breached B’s. B also breached C’s.
No, it doesn’t and here is why. The difference from the above is, (in the above) B has physical control over his body. He is coerced into a position and that is unethical, he has had a threat made against him. He can either 1 - kill the person, 2 - be killed, 3 - refuse and try to kill / defend himself against the aggressor. Only 3 is the proper course of action. If he chooses 1. Then he himself can justly be killed, by heir, PDA etc. if they so choose to punish him.
In this case, the person does not. He may not want to kill the person, but A physically intervenes… it’s not longer a threat (like the first case), here - the person cannot refuse, even if they wanted to. And no, I call bs on your control of muscular spasms when being electrified. Regardless however;
In the context of legal analysis, one important praxeological doctrine is the distinction between action and mere behavior. The difference between action and behavior boils down to intent. Action is an individual’s intentional intervention in the physical world, via certain selected means, with the purpose of attaining a state of affairs that is preferable to the conditions that would prevail in the absence of the action. Mere behavior, by contrast, is a person’s physical movements that are not undertaken intentionally and that do not manifest any purpose, plan, or design. Mere behavior cannot be aggression;aggression must be deliberate, it must be an action.
…
As legal theorists, therefore, we cannot accept an entirely mechanistic picture of the world. Legal theorizing is concerned with the ethical implications of action. It asks whether an actor should be held responsible for the consequences of his actions. And to hold someone responsible for the consequences of his actions is implicitly to invoke the two-fold concept of causality expressed above. For there even to be consequences in the first place, the physical world must be governed by time-invariant causal relations. And to hold an actor responsible for those consequences, we must determine that they can be traced back to his own deliberate use of means to achieve a desired result: his “action” cannot itself be a merely mechanical response to physical stimuli; he is the author, or “cause,” of the results achieved. In other words, like Austrian economics, legal theory must presuppose both time-invariant causation (an actor could not employ means to attain his goal otherwise) and agent-causation in which the actor himself is the cause of results that he intended to achieve by the use of certain means (the actor is not acting otherwise).
…
Hitting someone without permission is an example of the kind of aggression libertarians oppose. If it is illegal to hit someone, however, this means that it is illegal to cause another person to be hit; that is to say, it is illegal to use physical objects, including one’s fist, in a way that will cause unwanted physical contact with another person. Therefore, if A does intentionally (and uninvitedly) hit B, he can be held responsible for the action—the aggression can be imputed to him and he can be lawfully punished for it—because A’s decision to hit his victim was not itself conditioned by strictly physical laws. It was volitional. A—not some impersonal force of nature, and not some other person— was the cause of the aggression against B. A’s aggression is an action.
The general question facing libertarians, then, is whether a particular actor, by his action, intentionally caused the prohibited result—an uninvited border-crossing. Implicitly, the libertarian prohibition on the initiation of force is a prohibition on willfully causing an unwanted intrusion. — Causation and Aggression by Stephan Kinsella & Patrick Tinsley.
Clearly the individual who is being physically coerced, did not intend to achieve those results.
BTW, suppose you are instead in a situation where you either have to kill seventeen people or else eighteen people will be killed - would it be alright to sacrifice the seventeen people for the eighteen people??? Or should you not kill the seventeen and have eighteen killed?
to the OP: logical fallacy of isolation
Potentially he would also need to be boiled alive or some such.
No
I would acquit the killer in a heartbeat. The killer is a hero if ever there was one.
Not up to you to acquit him. You ain’t his victim.