I’ve seen a variant of this in David Gemmel’s books. The choice being debated there was should a city kill a single newborn to pacify an invading army, the alternative being the city being sacked and everyone put to the sword.
Wish I could remember Druss’ answer.
You seem to be using “guilt” as a synonym for “The fact of having done wrong” here, as opposed to “Awareness of having done wrong.” But for that to be the case, I’d have to agree it is, actually, a fact, which I don’t. That kind of thinking is for what Nietzsche calls “slave morality”.
I subscribe to a different moral code, one where you don’t get to pin the results of your own actions onto others, just because you force them to be a participant in some sick game. My inaction might be a factor if I were a willing participant in Glapsviðr’s game…who then refused to choose. But central to my objection is that I did not get a choice. I was coerced by Grímnir, I am an unwilling participant, effectively a hostage to his will. As such, any action or inaction I have in this matter is Haptaguð’s active choice and his alone.
So yes, I am free of guilt. You can’t force your slave morality on me, I refuse to accept it. I’m not saying I’m amoral, understand. I have a strong moral code. It just doesn’t buy into the same premises yours does.
As to the “responsibility” or “conscience” version of “guilt,” I can assure you, if I told Alföðr to get bent, I wouldn’t feel any worse for it.
Not the same 100 people, though - 100 people you hand-picked, remember. Unless everyone you know by name is in that stadium, you’ve condemned specific people who would not have died at all, rather than 10000 people who would suffer what is, literally, an Act of God.
This only works out in a moral sense if you have some sort of calculus in your head that goes “more deaths” ALWAYS >> “less deaths”. I don’t.
The nature of the deaths matters too.
That’d kind of be the heart of it for me. “Deaths by my actions” >> “Deaths by my inaction” >> “Deaths I had nothing to do with whatsoever”
It’s a parallel with how I feel about so-called “collateral damage” in warfare. One civilian death >> many soldiers deaths, every time.
I’m answering the question exactly as phrased in the OP, which says:
See, here’s where the question becomes interesting for me:
Kill the 10,000 in the stadium, or 100 of your friends and family members (or, say, Facebook friends), as enumerated by Odin. There, I would selfishly save my family and friends. When it’s 10,000 random people vs. 100 random people, like I said before, there’s no moral dilemma–for me. None whatsoever. Whether I am unwittingly forced to make a decision that shouldn’t concern me at all, it doesn’t matter. 10,000 random people > 100 random people. What’s the cost to me? But phrase it the way above, and there’s no way I’d save the people in the stadium.
And that’s where it gets uninteresting for me. Those people are in your monkeysphere; of course you’re going to save them. It would take either a freaking saint or a literal sociopath who’s only concerned with the numbers to sacrifice 100 friends and family for 10,000 strangers.
Then in neither case the question is interesting for me, I guess. If saving the 100 people you know is a foregone conclusion (I wasn’t sure it was or wasn’t, which is why it seemed somewhat interesting to me), then the 10,000 outside the monkeysphere (learn a new word every day) vs the 100 outside the monkeysphere is equally as easy a choice. (For me, of course.)
Well, at this point I’m only going to be restating things I’ve already said, and it’s clearly just an issue of personal moralities at this point, so I’m probably going to move on from this thread and just be glad such a hypothetical is unlikely to ever arise.
Of course you’d feel worse. If you refused to play Odin’s game in such a coarse fashion, he’s likely to change gears and do something slow, grisly, painful, and if you’re lucky lethal to you–and, just so nobody gets confused about his motives, kill 10,100 random persons while you’re pleading for death.
What a shithead this guy is.
“You can take option A or B. Wait, you picked A? You’re supposed to pick B! Fuck you, you little prick!”
Yeah, that’s beyond the scope of the hypothetical in the OP. No fair.
Hey, my death wasn’t in the hypothetical.
Not that it matters. Skollvaldr can do as he likes. I won’t play his game. Same reason I’m a misotheist - I refuse to accept my human design flaw…
…you know, the tendency to bend at the knees.
Basically, there’s nothing you can say to convince me that I should be in any way responsible for what an all-powerful madman chooses to do. It’s all on him. All.
Screw Zapata. Better to live on your knees than die on your feet.
Oh, man I’d pick 100 “innocents” easily!
The neighbor who puts his green been out the night before so city wildlife spreads his garbage around? :: SMITE ::
The guy who walks around only socks whose stinky feet stink up the whole office? :: SMITE ::
The co-worker who voted for an unqualified schmuck of a candidate on the grounds that “he was better looking than the other guy”? :: SMITE, RESURRECT, AND SMITE AGAIN ::
And then smite her kids to be sure that kind of stupid doesn’t escape via DNA.
See? It’s easy.
But he had such a cool mustache!
Spoken like someone who’s never had their feet kicked out from under them. I’ve been unfree, if I didn’t bow meekly to Botha why should I bow meekly to any other tyrant?
Because being alive is a hell of a lot better than being dead.
Quoth Iridescent Orb:
Wait until the front wheels of the trolley are past the switch but not the back wheels, and then throw it. It’ll derail and might injure the folks on board, but probably won’t kill anyone at all.
Likewise, I’d talk with Odin to try to find some other entertainment he’d find acceptable. Would he be as appeased by a million video game avatars, perhaps? Or maybe just turn a bunch of random or selected people a weird color-- That’d be pretty funny. If he insists on something bloodier, maybe poke out the left eye of every cow on the planet, or something: That’d certainly have people scratching their heads, and would also be to his own glory.
If I’m absolutely forced to choose one of the two options in the OP, though, I’d choose the hundred, and make the selection criterion as random as I could possibly manage. I don’t bear moral responsibility for Odin’s actions, and I can’t bear responsibility for a roll of a die, but I am responsible for any decisions I make myself, even choosing to target drug dealers or whatever.
Not always, no.
Odin isn’t a madman. He’s an Ass.
Also, I don’t believe your resolve would stand up under even the worst HUMANS can do to you, much less old Bolverk.
Tell him to go a government building in Pyongyang and indulge himself.