Help me with my Ethics homework

easy. kill the oldest one and save the other 49. I'd be haunted by it either way, so I might as well save some lives. Better to be haunted by one ghost as opposed to 50.

it's not very ethical to cheat on your homework

would the situation change if all 50 were children or all 50 were women?

There is not right or wrong answer to this, but I'm curious as to how other people feel to the ultimate question: "when, if ever, is it okay to kill someone?"

assignment's done, it just sparked me to seek other opinions from people not in a graduate program for public affairs...  yes even if that is 15 year olds.  I think the real question is interesting for all demographics.

how is she cheating if there is no right answer to the problem?

please just leave.

kill a person,  its the obvious choice.
i admit it would be hard to do (since ive never murdered anyone before) but think about how much worse it would be if you let 50 people die, when you could have save all but 1 of them.
 

if the ONLY two options given to you are to shoot 1 or lose 50 then clearly you go for the 1. Personally I think there are many other options but if that is your assignment then so be it.

Reasoning:

Either way your hands are now dirty. By getting yourself invlved in the situation you are now responsible for the deaths of either 1 or 50 citizens. If you kill the one you save 49. If you throw away the chance to save 49 then all 50 die, so that the one you were going to kill anyways is dead no matter what. Chances are that one of them would be willing to sacrifice for the survival of the other 49. Ask around and if noone volunteers to be executed than kill the oldest or the weakest. And feel good knowing that you just saved the lives of 49 innocent people.

But there are other ways to deal with it. As mentioned though I believe your assignment calls for a black and white scenario (no pun intended).

here was part of my answer:

I initially thought about virtue ethics because to me, pulling the trigger on one person to save 49 is becoming better by doing on act.  But then I though, is killing one person even a good act?  Is it making me better?  No, it is not making myself better.  I have probably destroyed myself in the process of killing one person.  Was it a good act?  No, I still killed someone.  What about the quality of my person?  Am I being good by saving 49?  Perhaps.  Was my action in the situation called for?  Probably.

Then perhaps I should think longer of the consequences of shooting one person to save 49.  What will the decision tree look like?  In other words, who do I kill?  Do I have a suspicion of who fired the original shot?  Even if I did, weren't these people just trying to defend themselves from a violent war lord?  If me, an innocent observer for a NGO kills someone, perhaps then I and the NGO will loose the trust and respect of the citizens.  Perhaps these citizens are understanding of the cruelty of the warlords, but are not willing to accept that of the NGO.  Me shooting someone would make the villagers feel even more morally lost in who they can trust to maintain their principles.  Perhaps any one person I choose to shot will be a specific village leader or protagonist that will only push the villagers to become angry at the NGO.  OR, that one person becomes a messiah for the villagers to rally around and inspire them to rebel against the warlords.  But, perhaps in this new rebellion even more people will die then if 50 passive people died that day.

Or, what is my duty as a NGO worker?  Are we a peacekeeping organization?  Are we a watchdog group like Amnesty International?  Furthermore, what is my role as an "observer?"  Am I like a wildlife cinematographer who has to watch a penguin starve and not intervene because it would compromise the integrity of the situation?  Or do my own morals ask me to intervene and save 49 people?

fuckin easy ass question

it was a joke dumbass

haha ethics!

morality is a luxury.

If you are a utilitarian, this is only an easy problem. If you look at this with the categorical imparative it is not as easy.

For the first formulation, universalize the maxim. That would mean that if everyone shot people, the world would not be a good place. Therefore, it is immoral by this formulation

For the second, find ends justifing tje means. The end would be saving 49 people. The means of gettimg there is shooting a person. Kant who would say that you are using that person to get to the ends so no, the ends do not justify the means

I don't think this would be moral under virtue ethics. Killing a person does not fall under platos forms of a good human

Ethics does not answer any questions or solve any problems. It merely provides a lens for which to look at the problem through and every form of ethic holds a different lens.

Some would argue you can't just "do the math."  Please see Nozick and the separateness of persons argument.

If, on the other hand, you believe in utilitarianism, which imo is a very crude ethical theory, then you can simply add the lives of the saved.

 

are any of them mexican?