Moral Dilemmas (What would you do?)

[PaletteSwap]

The altruistic hero with unwavering mercy is a tired archetype with delusional ideals.

The world isn't that black and white, and while I am against violence, I am not above reactive violence or the murder of those who exploit and prey on other people. Letting your ideals and convictions guide you instead of your intuition and adaptability squanders the gift of having a powerful brain capable of abstract thought.

There's a saying I really enjoy by an anarchist named Derek Jensen;

"Pacifism does not imply love..."

I suppose you'd let a human trafficker or a genocidal dictator live just to satisfy your neat, organized ideals? Delusional. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you resilient.

EDIT: I'm sorry... I just went back to read over some previous comments and realized it's an interactive thread. Regardless, I'm keeping my post up because I had to think too much to write it.

 

[CCVengeance]

And your parents

Even in a post-apocalyptic world I cant be rid of thier nagging. FML.

 

[Eldriken]

Even in a post-apocalyptic world I cant be rid of thier nagging. FML.

I got rid of their nagging by moving out of state. That's why I love caller ID.

 

[The Great One]

@The Great One , does that class tell you if there is a right or wrong answer? I'm curious now. What were the opinions about certain answers, or is this something you threw together off the top of your head that was similar?

There are a bunch of these things online but in class we learned about what this told you about a person their philosophy and psychiatrists sometimes ask these types of questions. We also debated and evaluated ethical ideologies. This was one of the more fun units.

 

[roosTakk]

My answers:

I stopped reading after the 1st question

 

[Zoidberg747]

Since this thread is very weird and unrealistic i'll give you guys a reeeaaaaaallly fucked up one.


It is the post-apocalypse and you are traveling with your family, to a source of guaranteed food and protection from the harsh elements. Unfortunately you're people are starving and need food to make it to their stop, they are very close but many are dropping from starvation and another day of travel without any kind of food would surely kill most if not all of them. You are the leader and there is absolutely no food sources around as wildlife is dead and the earth is barren and covered with ash and death. The only option is seemingly cannibalism.

Your group consists of:
You
Your lover
Your children(2 teenagers)
A pregnant cousin
An aunt who is a doctor
Your brother who may know of more safe places to survive
Your sister and her young child
And your parents

What do you do? If you do nothing they'll all die of starvation or ripping each other out of desperation for food.

Kill yourself and let your family eat you. You no longer have to live in an apocalypse and wont have to make any hard decisions.

 

[Error]

Why would I want to end all diseases?
The earth is already overpopulated , I wouldn't kill my hypothetical daughter and facilitate overpopulation.

 

[The Great One]

Word, and not anything on you, I did that fat guy problem in my philosophy class and I spent more time trying to convince everyone of my point, rather than the merits of both options

Side note, was listening to a radio show, and they were discussing people in terms of imaginative\creativity versus other species. As far as we know, we are the only creatures who can take two totally abstract ideas and create something. One example they gave is you can teach an ape to recognize birds and humans as concept. But only people could take parts of the two to think of something else, in this case, the wings of the bird and the body of the person to make an angel

lol what are your decisions and why? I havn't taken a philosophy class but they sound super fun

 

[Immortal Kombat]

People are selfish by nature because its an instinctive survival technique. I honestly dont believe anyone would know how to react to these until they are put in the moment. Odds are the most selfish route on these questions would win everytime. Your all human, you cant avoid that

 

[Pterodactyl]

Kill yourself and let your family eat you. You no longer have to live in an apocalypse and wont have to make any hard decisions.

You make a compelling argument, sir.

 

[Spinky]

You see a man drop his wallet. Do you keep it or run after him?
You see a woman drop her wallet Do you keep it or run after her?

Not gonna lie... at this moment in time... I would totally keep dem shits.

 

[HeroesNZ]

You're driving a train. You realize that it's gone out of control and that you can't stop it. Down the road there are 4 innocent kids are crossing the tracks and you realize that you can't stop and are going to crush them. You do realize that you can turn to the tracks on your right which for some odd reason your brother is on. Do you head straight forward to protect your family or turn and kill your brother at the benefit of the others?

I'd run over my brother because if my mum found out he was on the tracks he'd be dead anyway

 

[TATAKAE]

So many of us have read comics/books/watched movies/heard stories of that amazing hero who always does the right thing no matter what and is willing to make the right decision at the right time. Some of them won't kill some won't do anything outrageous but at the end of the day they still end up leaving the good guys.

The question is...what if I told you that not everything you read/watch is actually true? I'm sure you've guys have played games like the Walking Dead and the Wolf Among us where if a guy was sticking a gun at your face you would choose the "calm him down" option instead of the "fuck him up" option. Of course not everybody would do that.......

Anyways a few years ago I took a psychology class and one of the units was on moral dilemmas and what it showed about someone's personality and psychological mindset so if you guys are willing I'd like to post some moral dilemmas.

If people like this I'll post more. I have loads of these and some are way harder than the simple one's I'll post here. I always find these so fun because it turns out that at the end of the day, some of us might still be bad people.You might have heard of them before but still, tell us what you would do and why? I'm not going to give you a psychoanalysis. yes I am.

NO YOU CANNOT ADAPT OR CHANGE THE STORY IN THESE DILENMAS. NO, "WHY CAN'T I JUST SAVE EVERYONE?" / "I'LL JUST PULL OUT MY BATMAN AND SAVE THEM"

Think of this as a complex would you rather.
(It requires imagination. Some of these are ridiculously situational ie I don't have a brother/daughter/wife. why would I be in a cave? etc. Instead of thinking about ways to break the story you should be thinking about why you're such a bad person.





1.
You're driving a train. You realize that it's gone out of control and that you can't stop it. Down the road there are 4 innocent kids are crossing the tracks and you realize that you can't stop and are going to crush them. You do realize that you can turn to the tracks on your right which for some odd reason your brother is on. Do you head straight forward to protect your family or turn and kill your brother at the benefit of the others?

1.a
This is for those that chose the "righteous" path and chose not to kill the kids but instead kill your brother at the benefit of their lives. I'm guessing that you have the mentality of "Saving more lives is better'. Ok good for you. What if this time you were just a mere onlooker ontop of a cliff looking down? You see that the car is going down this one path and about to hit the 4 kids but this time you have a very large man standing next to you watching it happen. You realize that you're too small to stop the trolley but if you were to push the man off the cliff he WILL be able to stop the train (Guaranteed) and save the life of the 4 kids, but this will immediately kill him. Do you push him off to save the lives of many? Or does your righteousness only kick in when your hands aren't going to be stained?

2.
You are aboard a plane. As it takes off and over international waters you realize that it has been hijacked by terrorist. They have locked themselves into the pilots cabin and there is no way you can get in (Guns fists ect). You do however see that there is a vent somehow leading inside and that you can somehow pour some gaseous poison in that will kill them. Here is where the dilemma kicks in. If you kill them, the plane will go down and you have just doomed everybody on the plane. You were basically the reason that those 300 innocent people died. If you do not kill them there is a possibility that they will land and use you as hostages for money or other reasons. But of course they are terrorist and you do run the risk of them causing another 9/11 and killing more lives than just those on the plane but in face other bystanders because of your inaction. What do you do?

3.
Aliens. Yes Aliens have come to earth and they have chose you as a special specimen to examine because they lack emotion. They are willing to cure all disease/poverty/hunger on earth essentially making it a living utopia. There is a catch though, you have to torture your 12 year old daughter and they have to watch you do it. You cannot kill her but have to torture her with her awake and aware that you are the one doing it the whole time. After torturing her she will die but not before experiencing her own parent torture her for days. Our biological reaction would be to protect our own flesh and blood but what about the lives of the other 4 children? Woops did I say 4 children? I meant 7 billion other people.

Well those are the simple basic ones.

Idk it's the summer i'm bored. Do you feel like a worse person after answering those questions? Tell me what the fighting community Is like

I feel like your judging all of us. What would you do?

 

[Juggs]

1.
You're driving a train. You realize that it's gone out of control and that you can't stop it. Down the road there are 4 innocent kids are crossing the tracks and you realize that you can't stop and are going to crush them. You do realize that you can turn to the tracks on your right which for some odd reason your brother is on. Do you head straight forward to protect your family or turn and kill your brother at the benefit of the others?

I save my brother.

2.
You are aboard a plane. As it takes off and over international waters you realize that it has been hijacked by terrorist. They have locked themselves into the pilots cabin and there is no way you can get in (Guns fists ect). You do however see that there is a vent somehow leading inside and that you can somehow pour some gaseous poison in that will kill them. Here is where the dilemma kicks in. If you kill them, the plane will go down and you have just doomed everybody on the plane. You were basically the reason that those 300 innocent people died. If you do not kill them there is a possibility that they will land and use you as hostages for money or other reasons. But of course they are terrorist and you do run the risk of them causing another 9/11 and killing more lives than just those on the plane but in face other bystanders because of your inaction. What do you do?

I'm a gambling man. I would just chill, drink some vodka or something, and see where it leads. It could, after all, have a happy ending.

3.
Aliens. Yes Aliens have come to earth and they have chose you as a special specimen to examine because they lack emotion. They are willing to cure all disease/poverty/hunger on earth essentially making it a living utopia. There is a catch though, you have to torture your 12 year old daughter and they have to watch you do it. You cannot kill her but have to torture her with her awake and aware that you are the one doing it the whole time. After torturing her she will die but not before experiencing her own parent torture her for days. Our biological reaction would be to protect our own flesh and blood but what about the lives of the other 4 children? Woops did I say 4 children? I meant 7 billion other people.

Nope, I would never torture my own child, especially if they end up dying in the end. Even if it was somehow guaranteed the aliens would cure everything.

 

[NoobHunter420]

The right thing is somewhat subjective.
Just look at religions l0l

 

[The Great One]

I feel like your judging all of us. What would you do?

I'll tell you after you tell me what you chose and what you voted for. The question this is screwed up and I don't know how to fix it

But I'll at least tell you what I voted for

"We stopped checking under the bed for monsters when we realized they were inside us"
I think it's true no matter how far we come as people we will never get past that animalistic urge to protect ourselves and our kin.

 

[Tony at Home]

In every situation, I do exactly what I did in the ending of Mass Effect 3.

I sit there, and do nothing.

 

[That__John__Guy]

Interesting

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-10900068

 

[Goldi]

These are Sophie's Choice "what flavor of survivor's guilt would you like?" questions.

But even extreme altruism can be explained as self serving behavior...To act morally is to act for one's own happiness or status in society.

It's a fun topic. I think my favorite answer is never choose to inflict harm, it is not a choice that can be justified morally.

Meaning let the Nazi's take both of your children and the train go on the path chance picked without your interference, but I think you can tell the aliens to just fuck off lol

 

[BlackViper415]

AUGHHHH!! My Doomsday-playing brain isn't used to thinking!!!

 

[Sage Leviathan]

How come all these morality questions have the dumbest, most unlikeliest scenarios ever?

Hypotheticals allow humans to understand specific components of ideas (or moral conundrums) easier, and therefore answer questions and give our beliefs some justification.

 

[Sage Leviathan]

Also, humans have at their disposal an infinite number of choices in any scenario. What if our choices are limited?

Well, naturally we'll go with the next best thing. But what is the next best thing among your options? Does what you choose disturb you, or would it disturb people whose opinions you hold in high regard? Moral dilemmas are an intriguing topic in ethics, often focusing on the what ifs and basic concepts. Perhaps it is a much more emotional philosophical branch.

 

[The Great One]

Jon quintos would say

Also, humans have at their disposal an infinite number of choices in any scenario. What if our choices are limited?

Well, naturally we'll go with the next best thing. But what is the next best thing among your options? Does what you choose disturb you, or would it disturb people whose opinions you hold in high regard? Moral dilemmas are an intriguing topic in ethics, often focusing on the what ifs and basic concepts. Perhaps it is a much more emotional philosophical branch.

What would you do sir?

 

[Shaazzyam]

Hypotheticals allow humans to understand specific components of ideas (or moral conundrums) easier, and therefore answer questions and give our beliefs some justification.

My point is, how valid are judgments made on a person's moral compass when you give cosmically impossible situations with limited choices?

 

[Sage Leviathan]

My point is, how valid are judgments made on a person's moral compass when you give cosmically impossible situations with limited choices?

You deal this way directly with concepts, of conflict especially. Take, die, avoid, etc. and, as it were with a moral paradox, set them against what you subjectively find appropriate and love.

Choices are limited to force a weighing of options, a weighing that occurs in everyday life. Of course there are an infinite number of actions we could take to solve a problem, but we tell ourselves often that "we can only do it this way or that."