If one innocent person is tortured so that everyone else can live and the world doesn't end, is that simultaneously unfair but also morally preferable over complete destruction of everything?
If one innocent person is tortured so that everyone else can live and the world doesn't end, is that simultaneously unfair but also morally preferable over complete destruction of everything?
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So my options are:
Lots of people suffering
No people suffering
How is it even a question?
Not really. It's more like:
Everyone ending
One innocent ending to keep everyone else alive
That's more challenging.
More challenging is to remove the benefit of answering as a bystander and hand over an active role, so now the question is would you torture an innocent to keep the world alive. Then question progresses to what if that innocent is someone you care most about to see the extent of their resolve
But living is suffering.
I would say "life is a struggle". Of course it's challenging, it doesn't mean that it's bad.
Regardless, what's your point?
You use the word struggle to give some kind of meaning to the suffering.
My point is that there is no answer to the question because life is suffering.
While I see your point, I don't ascribe to the nihilistic point of view that life has no meaning therefore no reason. I find it dark and disheartening. To me, the fact that we can even have this conversation is a miracle and there's a certain happiness I get from knowing that despite my suffering and yours, we are still strangers who can engage in a conversation and have fun with it (I hope this is how you feel, too!).
I'm more of an absurdist. While there may be no end to the suffering, we can still derive pleasure and satisfaction from life. We can enjoy it if we want find ways to, because that's our natural desire, to seek happiness.
If you want to try looking at life like that, then this question becomes MUCH more interesting. Because despite suffering, this society found a way to continue. The question of whether or not it's moral, or how it's moral, depends on if life has meaning.
All questions kind of depend on that, no?
True, but I think those being explicitly tortured will be suffering a lot more than the average person. We can define it as that for the hypothetical anyway xD
Let's put more of the responsibility in the individuals hands. Would you be willing to carry out the torture of innocents under the belief that your actions guarantee peace?
Yes