People vs. Property an ethical dilemma

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by GGG

That was the whole point of the exercise. At what point is it okay to kill someone to protect property.

There is simply no way to answer to this question with so many variables. The answer is always "It depends". Therefore, it was a stupid question.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

There is simply no way to answer to this question with so many variables. The answer is always "It depends". Therefore, it was a stupid question.

I would argue that there is no circumstance where it is acceptable to kill someone to preserve property only.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by GGG

I would argue that there is no circumstance where it is acceptable to kill someone to preserve property only.

Even if the property has important cultural significance? If a person was going to destroy the inside of the Sistine Chapel or burn the Mona Lisa would it change your mind?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Even if the property has important cultural significance? If a person was going to destroy the inside of the Sistine Chapel or burn the Mona Lisa would it change your mind?

I don’t think that changes things, really. If you had to choose, would you rather murder someone or watch the Mona Lisa burn?

That’s not to say the value of a life can’t be subjective or debated, considering we have those debates around abortion and assisted dying. But the value of a life over and inanimate object seems universally higher no matter how you split it.

The Mona Lisa will never cease to exist regardless of what happens to it. The original painting itself could be lost, but we will always know what it was. Houses can be rebuilt, objects can be replaced. But life just is what it is, once it’s over it’s over, there’s nothing else.

[81MC]

One Mona Lisa.

7.5 billion idiots and counting.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Even if the property has important cultural significance? If a person was going to destroy the inside of the Sistine Chapel or burn the Mona Lisa would it change your mind?

I don’t think so. You are still killing someone for something that could be recreated to 95% of its glory.

The only hypotheticals that could come close aren’t very practical. Like could you burn down a city without killing anyone and have the people of that city starve but not die. As Cecil notes above those types of edge cases break universal rules.

But for regular property or even special property, No.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by GGG

...
But for regular property or even special property, No.

An enemy army invades and tells people to move out from their homes as they will start bomb-shelling them in a minute. Still a "no" for you?

This moral standing on categorical imperatives is childish. All this effort not only to spare a life of evil but to morally justify the reasons for evil to exist.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

An enemy army invades and tells people to move out from their homes as they will start bomb-shelling them in a minute. Still a "no" for you?

This moral standing on categorical imperatives is childish. All this effort not only to spare a life of evil but to morally justify the reasons for evil to exist.

The people remain in there homes and therefore it’s unethical to bomb. Why are they leaving.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by GGG

The people remain in there homes and therefore it’s unethical to bomb. Why are they leaving.

Jesus?

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

This whole page all meaningless drivel. You're all just flying by the seats of your pants, declaring things ethical or unethical, baldly asserting what has value and what doesn't, based on your gut instincts. It's maddening. Right now you're all failing Phil 100.

If you can't justify why you think something is right, or why, in your view, something has moral value, you might as well not post.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Jesus?

Well before starting a war you really should know what the intent of the other side is. Millions of people are likely going to die in this conflict so diplomacy should be used up until the end. Once it’s clear that the other side is willing to use lethal force you engage them.

I have hard time buying any kind of strike first position.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by GGG

..
I have hard time buying any kind of strike first position.

This is close to absolute pacifism. Pure and useless. Something to muse about in front of a beautiful fireplace with rare malt in a crystal glass. The ethical dilemma of life vs. property is not solvable in theory when no circumstances are known, when it's not your property and when it's not your life.

[Nage Waza]

If one can burn the Mona Lisa and walk away, then pretty much everything is up for game and at risk of crime. So yes, at some point lethal deterrence has a role.

What if instead of the Mona Lisa, it was the electric system? Or your water?

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

This moral standing on categorical imperatives is childish. All this effort not only to spare a life of evil but to morally justify the reasons for evil to exist.

This idea of “a life of evil” is pretty childish itself. If we agree that killing is the greatest “evil” or that killing is generally unethical or a higher degree than destroying or damaging property, then a situation that arises where you kill someone to stop them from destroying property (where no actual lives are lost) would make you the evil/more unethical person in that situation.

Depending on whatever theory you want to apply, there are of course reasons where killing is an acceptable (such as the trolley problem, or other issues where one is sacrificed for many).

By killing the bomber, you remove the further ability of life. We can’t possibly know their thoughts or their circumstances, so you can only judge the situation based the value of life vs property, in which case, life inherently produces more happiness and has more potential than property.

You can list any number of possibilities to justify the reasoning behind whether a condition is good or bad. Maybe the bomber reforms and builds ten houses for families who can not afford them later in life, maybe the house was going to collapse the next day when the family returned, killing all of them inside it, etc. So it’s completely pointless to list any number of conditions regarding before and after, because that isn’t the question. The question is, is it ethical to kill someone to protect property? And if you believe the value of life is greater than the value of property, then no, it is not.

Coming up with different conditions or situations that change the ethical nature of the problem is fine, but you should be able to apply clear and simple reasoning to the base problem and work from there. Throwing up your hands and saying “it can’t be solved!” isn’t really sensical. Of course it can be solved, you just solve the base problem and solve for each condition as it’s applied based on proper reasoning.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If one can burn the Mona Lisa and walk away, then pretty much everything is up for game and at risk of crime. So yes, at some point lethal deterrence has a role.

What if instead of the Mona Lisa, it was the electric system? Or your water?

there's a difference between destroying property that has no health ramifications and destroying property that will cause death, I take an axe to a car with no one in it is different than me taking an axe to a life support machine keeping someone alive

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

If one can burn the Mona Lisa and walk away, then pretty much everything is up for game and at risk of crime. So yes, at some point lethal deterrence has a role.

What if instead of the Mona Lisa, it was the electric system? Or your water?

That’s a slippery slope fallacy though because nothing indicates that the destruction of the Mona Lisa would lead to the destruction of other works of art, and especially no indication that it would open everything else up for greater risk of crime. There’s just zero logical argument to support that. You’re also suggesting that the two options are “lethal deterrent” and “walking away” which, in reality, is obviously not the case, so the argument makes zero sense.

The electrical system or the water system are different cases, but the question would be: can you reasonably expect (based on the extent of the damage) that people will die as a result of either of these being destroyed? Than the answer is yes, you kill the bomber, because two lives are inherently more valuable than one. Do you know no one die? Then no, because these problems can obviously be mitigated, so you revert back to the value of life over property.

If you consider the suffering element that might be caused by either of these things, you could ask another way: Is it ethical to kill 10,000 people to improve the quality of life of 10,000,000 people? Or is it more ethical to leave the people alone, knowing their quality of life will not be optimal?

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

...The question is, is it ethical to kill someone to protect property? And if you believe the value of life is greater than the value of property, then no, it is not...

"Life" by itself has no universally-determined or universally-agreed value. The deviation of this value would be extremely broad, because it exists only empirically; thus, subjective and impossible to prove objectively. You and GGG argue that ANY life has the same value, which supersedes the value of ANY property. I argue that this position is nonsensical, unsupportable and self-aggrandizing. Value of bomber's life plummets to zero at the moment he points that grenade at someone's house. (I could bring the argument of your little sister playing in the backyard, like you did, but we are trying to keep it civil, right?). What the bomber might do after he is released from prison for good behaviour is irrelevant. It could be disenchanted teenager, an anarchist, a religious fanatic, a cheated husband, a mentally deranged drug addict or a serial killer - also irrelevant. At that moment, property owner's decision to react is made in milli-seconds and is acceptable/understandable, whatever it is. Ethics has no time to enter the decision-making process. Nor it should.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

"Life" by itself has no universally-determined or universally-agreed value. The deviation of this value would be extremely broad, because it exists only empirically; thus, subjective and impossible to prove objectively. You and GGG argue that ANY life has the same value, which supersedes the value of ANY property. I argue that this position is nonsensical, unsupportable and self-aggrandizing. Value of bomber's life plummets to zero at the moment he points that grenade at someone's house. (I could bring the argument of your little sister playing in the backyard, like you did, but we are trying to keep it civil, right?). What the bomber might do after he is released from prison for good behaviour is irrelevant. It could be disenchanted teenager, an anarchist, a religious fanatic, a cheated husband, a mentally deranged drug addict or a serial killer - also irrelevant. At that moment, property owner's decision to react is made in milli-seconds and is acceptable/understandable, whatever it is. Ethics has no time to enter the decision-making process. Nor it should.

Ethics and morality are the undercurrent of our decision making, saying they have no place in the decision making process is (as you said), nonsensical and unsupportable. That doesn’t mean every decision someone makes (especially at the heat of the moment) is ethical, people make unethical decisions with no ill-intent all the time. This entire thread is talking about the ethics of the decision, keep up! lol

And your idea that as soon as a bomber throws a bomb, the value of their life goes to zero, is also nonsensical and unsupportable by any argument, otherwise I assume you would have already presented an argument that shows that is universally true. The value of our life is not determined by individual actions. I guess you could argue that the value is determined by the cumulative good va the cumulative bad, but then someone could just as easily say that the bomber built ten houses for free before he bombed the one house, and you’d have to accept the good outweighed the bad (and thus, he still held a valuable life).

I think you’re failing at approaching this position because you’re too caught up in details and you’re confusing ethics and morality with decisions you might make. What if my little sister was playing in the backyard? Well, assumably she would be killed, so that’s an entirely different situation than life vs property, that’s life vs life and property, so ethically it’s at least neutral I’d think. The purpose of changing the bombers identity isn’t a lack of civility, it’s to change your perception of the bomber to allow you to make a better logical judgement. Saying “bomber evil! life has no value!” is pretty poor reasoning and pretty mindless, it’s fairly easy to justify all of your actions by pretending you acted against your own subjective view of evil and things without value.

I don’t know why you’re taking this personal and talking about self-aggrandising or having to keep things civil. It’s a philosophical discussion, there are no real stakes. Nobody is sending a bomber for you to make a decision on, relax. Working through these things just helps people understand the ramifications and the moral weight of decisions when there are real stakes.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Then no, because these problems can obviously be mitigated, so you revert back to the value of life over property.

How do you revert back to it when you haven't established that it's so?

The question is, is it ethical to kill someone to protect property? And if you believe the value of life is greater than the value of property, then no, it is not.

Your beliefs are irrelevant if you can't base them on some principle or theory. And unless the principle is "preserve life no matter what because life is an absolute ultimate good", which no one seems to be saying, there's no principle being defended here.

Is it ethical to kill 10,000 people to improve the quality of life of 10,000,000 people? Or is it more ethical to leave the people alone, knowing their quality of life will not be optimal?

I know the answer Bentham would give, and the rationale he would give. But I have no freaking clue about you or anyone else in here.

The value of our life is not determined by individual actions.

What is it determined by, then? And why do you think so?

Working through these things just helps people understand the ramifications and the moral weight of decisions when there are real stakes.

Couldn't agree more. If only people would actually do this.

EDIT: I should say that I'm responding to your posts and not Yooh's because at least you're partway to making a point. Yooh isn't even in the ballpark, he's in "not even wrong" territory.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

That’s a slippery slope fallacy though because nothing indicates that the destruction of the Mona Lisa would lead to the destruction of other works of art, and especially no indication that it would open everything else up for greater risk of crime. There’s just zero logical argument to support that. You’re also suggesting that the two options are “lethal deterrent” and “walking away” which, in reality, is obviously not the case, so the argument makes zero sense.

The electrical system or the water system are different cases, but the question would be: can you reasonably expect (based on the extent of the damage) that people will die as a result of either of these being destroyed? Than the answer is yes, you kill the bomber, because two lives are inherently more valuable than one. Do you know no one die? Then no, because these problems can obviously be mitigated, so you revert back to the value of life over property.

If you consider the suffering element that might be caused by either of these things, you could ask another way: Is it ethical to kill 10,000 people to improve the quality of life of 10,000,000 people? Or is it more ethical to leave the people alone, knowing their quality of life will not be optimal?

we said yes to that a century ago when we went all in on cars.