I think everyone should have a killbox. You give one to little girls at age five so they can protect themselves from males, and you give them to males (however many are left) at age 30 or 35, so they can protect themselves against their own raging hormones of their younger years. Seriously if you gave them to little boys, they would exterminate the human race.
I’d probably use it…though maybe you should be concerned about someone with OCD getting the thing. I’d probably accidentally kill the StayPuft Marshmallow Man a few times before I got to Mullah Omar. :smack:
You’re technically correct that there’s no absolute, transcendent right and wrong, but this is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The expedient sense of ‘unnaceptable or dangerous’ is what people mean when they talk about right and wrong in the sense of crime and punishment.
I mean, take a different example: if someone is repeatedly punching you in the face, do you just stand there and take it, because maybe they think they’re right?
Also, there’s no reductio ad absurdum happening here - because the scenario of children being abused and killed is sadly not a ridiculous, unrealistic hypothetical I had to cook up for the purpose of trying to win an argument. It occurs in the real world. - and in any case, reductio ad absurdum is an entirely appropriate and valid rebuttal to arguments which frame themselves in firm absolutes.
To my earlier idea of dictators, I’d also use it on invading armies. That should cut down on military adventurism and save the lives of innocents.
Also, depending on how precise the death request has to be there are some constructive uses I can think of for it. For example, if “the people who kidnapped that girl on the news” works.
“This just in; the mysterious ‘Box Man’ has released a statement demanding that the individuals who kidnapped Jane Smith immediately release her unharmed and turn themselves in to the police, or he will ‘push the button’.”
[QUOTE=Shodan ]
What difference does it make? He’d just come back to life again in three days.
[/QUOTE]
So you put a rock on the button. 
The angels will roll the rock away. Duh!
I’m thinking you’ll realize the BIG mistake you’ve made the day Samantha vanishes in a puff of torture because she stole Keyllyn’s boyfriend, and by stealing I mean looked at him in a not altogether rabidly antagonistic sort of way for about 5 seconds. And by boyfriend I mean the guy Keyllyn has a crush on who’s not as of yet aware of Keyllyn’s existence.
Teenage girls are murderously insane towards each other, is where I’m driving at.
Well, I don’t have kids, so I’m just guessing. And it I had a lawn and a killbox, any kid who set foot on it would never do so again.
Yes. It would be the end of the human race. Also at risk in this case:
Teachers who assigned homework when it wasn’t terribly convenient
Parents who tried to impose any piece of unpopular discipline
Celebrities who (in the perception of the teenage individual) have transitioned from fashionable to boring.
etc.
Clearly, I’m the only one who can be trusted with this box…
Anyone who touts the mange cannot be trusted with the killbox.
And the first rule of the killbox is, you don’t talk about the killbox!
I’d destroy it while I could trust myself not to use it. In my mind, there are people in this world who deserve to die, but my doing it would make me a murderer, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself as such. But get me sufficiently angry, and I might temporarily forget that. All it takes is a split second.
And afterwards, I’d be very tempted to take rachellellogram’s solution.
Upon further thought, I’d be tempted to try tapping the button very, very lightly and see if it can be used to kill only part of a person. Such as “kill Bob’s cancer”.
Are you suggesting there is a conflict between perceiving a physical threat and moral judgment? Because I don’t judge lions, tigers and bears, but I most certainly see the wisom of avoiding them.
Maybe I am a fool, as Grumman points out (because yes, I think it’s just as wrong to kill baby-rapers as well as babies). But I really don’t care because my worldview gets me through the day and I can live with myself when the lights are out and the world around me is quiet. If I’m a fool then I’m a reasonably content one. But frankly I think the self-righteous are foolish because they reject alternative interpretations of their world. Mind you, I don’t think that’s evil, just demonstrably narrow-minded.
I don’t think that you’ve fully thought this out.
No, I’m saying that the question at hand isn’t whether we can divine the internal motives of potential box victims, but whether or not we feel the box has any practical utility.
That is a judgment, in any way that matters. If the box could bring about the demise of anything, would you use it to destroy the Malaria Parasite? Would it matter that we can’t understand the motives of individual Malaria parasites (or that they have no motives)?
Fair enough. I think its practical utility is to demonstrate whether one person can accept taking the life of another as long as they get to control the anonymity and level of cruelty of their actions. My position is that it is always wrong to kill someone who is helpless simply because their actions are offensive. I don’t believe that means it’s always wrong to kill if someone is in the process of doing harm or if such an act is imminent.
I swat mosquitos because they irritate me, not because I think they’re morally reprehensible. I think it’s probably wrong to do it but I don’t care, I’m a bastard that way. But I’d no sooner hunt them to extinction than I would large predators. Rather, I prefer to avoid them. When it comes to people, I prefer to avoid the irritating ones. That’s a double standard, but I can live with it.
OP is presenting a product: The harder you push down on the button, the more gruesome/painful the death will be. There is no reward involved for you other than their death. I simply could not use it as a means to exact revenge or mete out justice and I stated my evidently outrageous position because it was solicited by the poll. I’ll amend it now: I could use it to euthanize someone who wanted that service.
Fair enough. I think we’re probably not far off being on the same page.
Hoe would you respond in this specific scenario:
Innocent people keep turning up dead and mutilated in some quite specific way that makes it obvious a serial killer is at large. Police haven’t any useful leads but suspect, on the basis of the frequncy of attacks, that the iller will strike again soon.
A wizard appears and offers you the box (and let’s say you have reason to believe him). If you press the button. The serial killer will die, halting his presumed future murders. What do you do? Is your decision in any way based upon the difficulties of knowing someone else’s moral framework?
BTW, I was asking about the malaria pathogen, not mosquitoes. Something that has no useful purpose except to cause harm.
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya]
I don’t believe that means it’s always wrong to kill if someone is in the process of doing harm or if such an act is imminent.
[/QUOTE]
So yeah, a quick light flick of the button and the threat of the killer (or rogue lion/tiger/bear) is neutralized. The only judgement is that there is sufficient reason to believe the danger is present, the moral climate of the killer’s mind doesn’t enter into the equation. Barring the effect of the “imperious curse” it must be assumed the killer is not in a helpless position and is thus not victimized in the same way as a condemned prisoner who is restrained, and thus no longer posing a credible threat. The next question is the one that bugged Sgt York: if killin’ is wrong, is it wrong to allow others to kill? Or should some killin’ be done to prevent even more killin’. I think I’m ok with neutralizing active physical threats, not ok with execution.
Plasmodium’s purpose is no more useless than our own. It’s dangerous to me, I avoid it. If it threatens me, I fight back. It is fairly easy to argue humanity poses a vastly greater threat to life on the planet than plasmodium, and that plasmodium is the paladin that can mitigate the scourge of the hairless apes.
I’m still making this all up as I go along. When I’m certain about a truth I’ll write it down and start recruiting disciples. Don’t hold your breath.