Inspired by the ‘ducati’ pile on right over there, I decided to join the ranks of the thousands who ask the stupidest question and make the most outrageous - could not be made to happen polls etc. on the SDMB
Whee, here I go…
The set-up:
Choice = a human that is the absolute in every way the average of the whole world population at this instant in time.
Other choice = Your most loved, most favorite, best-est in every way important to you pet you ever had that is not human. ( Magically lives in its prime again and will continue to do so for the rest of a normal life span for it’s kind no matter if it already died in the past or way before is was supposed to.)
The magic problem or decision that is forced on you:
You have to, must do, can’t get out of it no how, kill one or the other.
Both are behind a sheet that allows you to see what is there in shape but nothing else like which way they are looking, etc… No color, NADA.
Neither knows they are about to be instantly killed with no known suffering.
I’ll go first… My pet lives…
Your choice.
Funny one liners are OK.
Calling me crazy is OK.
Please have the stones to vote no matter your other comments.
Guess it depends if you’re into deontological or consequentialist ethics.
I really don’t have the strength or the real background to get into the nitty gritty concerning the grey areas of those binary categories. But that’s more or less what this thread is about… whether it’s “permissible” to kill something for the sake of something else (“more important” classes of life, etc), or whether it’s always morally wrong to kill anything and so you choose nothing. The only real difference is that you’re assuming that people will adopt a speciesist resistance and say “humans are always more important than non-human animals, even if you love them,” and so on. I’m not sure that’s actually a really convincing choice, but whatever gets a good conversation going is good enough.
Yep. It may be an arbitrary moral value, but it’s the moral value held by the society I’m part of, and I also happen to agree with it. The pet goes, the human lives, and I rail against the injustice of it all until I’m old and grumpy and no longer remember what it is I’m railing against.
My dog. I have already gone through the grieving process, so I imagine it would be easier for me if she were to re-die. I’m mentally prepared to kill my current dog if she should get terminally ill or suffer from a significant lack of quality of life due to some physical condition, or if she should seriously harm another person (or perhaps a pet), but I’m not prepared to senselessly kill an innocent person. Also, I remember Pet Sematary.
My brain will enter into a repeating loop and I will be frozen into immobility for a period of time. While I am in that state, it would be advisable for others to put me into a transporter set to maximum dispersion.
Shit, I can’t even choose my favorite pet, yet alone decide whether to let it live or not.
The human dies. I don’t know him/her, so there is almost zero emotional impact on me. Thousands of people I don’t know die every day. This person will be one of them.
You need a form for a one word answer? Really?? Would a passing mod please take the word ‘poll’ from the title please, it seems to be freaking people out & I would hate to be accused of being incoherent again, some more, see other thread some place…
