☣️ A Mad Scientist With A Bio Weapon Is Plotting To End The World! ⚠️

arckrai (62) in philosophy • 7 years ago

I've thought of another dilemma today, and it includes a mad scientist and a super bio-weapon

I'm starting to like creating these scenarios and asking your opinion on whether you agree with them or not. I think it may be a running thing that I do every week to add a little fun rather than talking about other philosophical topics which people may find monotonous.

Scenario

The scenario for today will be that there is a mad scientist is locked away in a laboratory was developing a super bio-weapon that would eradicate the US in its entirety. The scientist has hidden the encryption key to his lab within the body of an unknown individual in a fully occupied 100 story apartment building. There are maybe thousands living in this block, and you have two options which you can take.

However, the scientist has developed a way for the bio weapon not to affect the building, so the occupants inside will still remain safe.

First: Kill and disembowel the occupants of the building in an attempt to stop the scientist before he gets the chance to finish developing his weapon.

Second: Let those inside the building live while the whole country gets eradicated.

My Thoughts

My initial views were that the right thing to do is to kill all until the key is found. Maybe I'm a utilitarian here, but it seems if you don't kill them then the rest of humanity will have to pay for it.

I don't know what a view of a deontologist would be. They may see it as it would be wrong because thousands of innocent people will be killed.

The other argument would be utilitarianism. Innocent people are being killed here but would it be right to massacre everyone in the building to save a whole of a country. Do you take the utilitarianist view and save the masses by killing a minority or do you let the injustice play out, so you have no blood on your hands?

I guess you could still be held morally accountable for it as you had the opportunity to annihilate the tower to save the nation but let's face it, who will be there to hold you accountable.

What Would Immanuel Kant Say?

In this case, Kant would universalise this. We are acknowledging the dignity and free will of the person we kill. Our action is motivated by respect for the dignity of each and every person.

The motivation for killing lies precisely in the disregard for the dignity of killing the victims in the block and for us to kill we would have to undermine others people importance and put ourselves and everyone else above.

All in all, morality is subjective, and I question whether or not all behaviours should or could be justified in that sense. The entire modern world we live in is built on the broken backs, lost lives and forgotten dreams of an incomprehensible quantity of individuals and in the end would this bloodshed be any different than the ones we have caused throughout the history of humanity.

What Would You Do?

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7 years ago by arckrai (62)

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teme (28) · 7 years ago

That bio weapon could be kim jong un....ha ha ha

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arckrai (62) · 7 years ago

That is a possibility, haha

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builderofcastles (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

This is another one of those things that is just stupid to answer.

Because the mad scientist can't exist unless the collective consciousness of the world wants a reset. (remember the flood of Noah?)

So, what would happen if this mad scientist unleashed it, is really nothing. A freak rain storm wipes it out. Or a freak heat wave. Or it hits a small village, which dies, but no one leaves to spread it.

Further, the spread of the disease is weird. Flu viruses often spread world wide within a month. And things that you would also think should spread world wide, don't.

So, since The US are mad scientists and working on this very thing in remote bases in third world countries, we should put a stop to it. However, while there are people who think that war, or killing the "enemy" is the way to stay safe, then there will always be this research. Thus, you really have to heal these people's fears/pain. And you should keep such people out of power.

Next, there are so many ways to look into the human body. Many in the area of naturopathy medicines have fantastic methods of just looking through the body. So that the person with the code could easily be found. And then, we could probably read the code without opening the person up.

edit: I forgot to say why this is stupid to answer. What this does is it makes you paralyzed to living life. Every action has/could have dire consequences. The only way forward is to deal with the very high probability ones, and then just do your best in each moment to do no harm.

And killing someone else, to stop someone else from killing them is stupid.