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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cosmicforce who wrote (33168)	10/16/2001 1:58:58 AM
From: St_Bill	Respond to of 82486

Exactly. That's one of the problems with utilitarianism -- the math involved can sometimes be horrific. Utilitarians respond by arguing that the awful math has good consequences in the longer run. Sure, I'm one of twenty hostages told by my captors that if I kill just one of my fellows, the rest of us will go free. What do I do? 19 out of twenty ain't so bad? Assuming I can trust them -- the kidnappers. Nevertheless I refuse and they kill us all. But they learn that these tactics don't work and so they never try it again, saving the lives of maybe hundreds? Nice story. But that's the problem with utilitarianism -- predicting consequences. Some argue that there's a more reliable basis for morality.

To: cosmicforce who wrote (33168)	10/16/2001 10:26:00 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

If you have to torture to death X people to save Y people from an identical tortured death, how does one establish that ratio? Do you simply refuse to do the calculus it because it is absolutely wrong to torture to death, or do you set the ratio high like one to a hundred? I think even torturing one innocent person to death to save 100,000,000 is morally wrong, but I'm not sure that practical considerations should be completely ignored in favor of only thinking about moral considerations. Tim

To: cosmicforce who wrote (33168)	10/16/2001 1:22:21 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

In a (sort of) ideal world, weapons would exist that would allow us to target ONLY those responsible for 9/11. But this ISN'T that world. What do you suggest we do? The Taliban has already made it PERFECTLY clear that they will not voluntarily give up bin Laden or his cohorts. So "We should give them a fair trial, then convict and execute them" doesn't cut it. Our options seem to be military action OR nothing. And I and a large majority of my fellow Americans absolutely DO NOT consider the second choice acceptable. So what do we do? When you make an omelet you gotta break a few eggs.