But that perception...
when held by people in leadership and decision-making positions is what sometimes leads to great suffering and innocent deaths in "real life" imo....If they're not in the drawing, they don't exist.
when held by people in leadership and decision-making positions is what sometimes leads to great suffering and innocent deaths in "real life" imo....If they're not in the drawing, they don't exist.
There's an interesting Mahayana perspective on this...retrofuturist wrote:Greetings,
It starts to get more interesting when you move onto the gun-man who is about to kill 5 people.
The decision is actually more based on quantity than on quality in this case (imo).Lazy_eye wrote: As for the train problem, the last time I saw this, I said "flick the switch." Now I'm not so sure. It seems to me this choice depends on a questionable assumption that the value of life can be quantified -- i.e., that 5 people are "worth" more than 1. But what if those 5 people turned out to be escapees from a maximum security prison, where they were being held on death row, and the 1 person was Albert Einstein, the Dalai Lama, or a single parent with five small children? We can't know. I'm not sure, therefore, that a simple numerical majority settles the question.
There's so many unknowns in this Universe, with mysteries of how karma works, such as depicted in this Star Trek episode....David2 wrote: It is very possible that a cruel murderer changes his life completely and becomes more compassionately.
THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER
SYNOPSIS...
When Dr. McCoy is accidentally injected with a powerful drug, he goes mad and beams himself down to a planet. On the planet, McCoy jumps through a time portal, vanishing from view.
Kirk and Spock who have beamed down to the planet, in pursuit of McCoy, also enter the portal. They all end up in New York City, in 1930. They can't find McCoy. Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler. Spock builds a tricorder out of odds and ends.
Spock determines that Kirk's new girlfriend must die in order that the future not be horribly altered. Kirk lets his girlfriend get hit by a car. A very unhappy Kirk beams back up to the Enterprise with his crew.
In the essay he also relates a story that might be illuminating of what the Buddha would say about this train morality problem:"Even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the all-encompassing world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves."
— MN 21
The essay does not reference the sutta of the story above. I wonder if anyone recognizes it and can reference the sutta? I'd like to read it.When one of his monks went to an executioner and told the man to kill his victims compassionately, with one blow, rather than torturing them, the Buddha expelled the monk from the Sangha, on the grounds that even the recommendation to kill compassionately is still a recommendation to kill — something he would never condone.
In one way, it may be an "easier" choice: the gun man is not an "innocent" therefore, killing him might be easier. Whereas in the above train problem with the switch, they are all "innocent".retrofuturist wrote: It starts to get more interesting when you move onto the gun-man who is about to kill 5 people.
You have the means to kill him, and by doing so, save the five.
Or do you not kill him, and let him kill the five.
Arguably, that's a much more difficult choice.
Inaction is inaction in making that one person die through pulling the switch and thus being involved and taking part in murder. Somewhere (in VsM ?) it talks about how breaking the barriers means that a person will not be able to make a choice which person would be killed by the robber.Kenshou wrote:In my mind, inaction is a choice too, so I wouldn't be able to feel blameless in doing nothing.