Ethics of life-and-death situations

Ethics
1

Suppose that two individuals who are in desperate need of some life essential resource, such as food, both happen to spot (at relatively the same time where it is unclear who saw it first) enough food (that we will assume is abandoned property) to ensure that exactly one of them will live. We will assume that both individuals accurately perceive this situation as, with high probability, the only opportunity for them to eat before their demise. Understandly, they will struggle for the sustenance. We will assume that the struggle ends with one individual fatally injuring the other.

What should be the legal repercussions in this situation?

How is the individual who slayed the other morally accountable?

Needless to say, the act of killing under these circumstances should be much less severe as opposed to killing for food when there are many other viable avenues to obtain it. Nevertheless, I am still unsure about the details of the argument to resolve this situation.

Disclaimer: I am not a former marauding derelict who has made an unlikely ascent to a standard of living, which affords internet access, a firm grasp of ethics and the luxury of spending time on messageboards. This question is not based on personal experience but curiosity.

2

Your situation is outside the realm of morality. Morality only applies to normal human circumstances, not to emergency situations.

3

What should be the legal repercussions in this situation?

How is the individual who slayed the other morally accountable?

While I hesitate to comment on the moral ramifications, in terms of legality, homicide (qua initiation of force) is homicide, regardless of the other factors. It should be treated as any other murder case. Correct?

4

There are already a few threads like this… search for “Ethics of Emergency”.

I agree with IamM, and would elaborate as follows…

First, let’s assume that Objectivist ethics and politics are derived from reality. This means they’re derived by looking at reality and various ways of behaving, and the various outcomes and seeing what works and what doesn’t and so on. Having looked at reality, one draws out certain principles that fit all the situations one confronts, and bundles them into a related body of rules: say Ethics or Politics.

Let us assume that this is done scientifically – which means, unemotionally, objectively, looking at real cause and effect, by a process similar to observing the physical world to draw up principles of physics or chemistry and so on.

Now, since it’s your example, the question you have to answer is: does your example belong to that observed body of reality from which Objectivist ethics or politics was induced?

If it does not, then one cannot expect Objectivism to be the answer to the situation. If this is something one is going to encounter routinely, then one would need to create some new principles of action.

In other words, Objectivism’s rules of politics have been derived by asking: how best to act and live with other people in a context where one has much to gain from various types of trades with them, in the long run, even if not in the short run. If one changes the basic assumption and say: let’s assume a situation where no type of cooperation is possible or fruitful (and not just through lack of creative thinking by the people involved), then one would be outside the realm of Objectivist ethics and politics.

There are some who will say that this is wishy-washy, and that Objectivism’s “rational self-interest” principle would demand that one acts in a specific way. If you search for “Ethics of Emergency” you’ll find some threads with more discussion.

5

While I hesitate to comment on the moral ramifications, in terms of legality, homicide (qua initiation of force) is homicide, regardless of the other factors. It should be treated as any other murder case. Correct?

This is true but even in law and I believe in ethics there are different degrees of murder. There is murder resulting from self-defense. There is unintentional murder. There is pre-meditated murder. There is murder that results from temporary insanity. (I guess a good example of this is killing a motorist who just committed vehicular homicide of your children.) This aspect of my question was where would this circumstance rank amongst these. In retrospect, this aspect is pretty pedantic and not as interesting.

In other words, Objectivism’s rules of politics have been derived by asking: how best to act and live with other people in a context where one has much to gain from various types of trades with them, in the long run, even if not in the short run. If one changes the basic assumption and say: let’s assume a situation where no type of cooperation is possible or fruitful (and not just through lack of creative thinking by the people involved), then one would be outside the realm of Objectivist ethics and politics.

Thank you, this response was extremely helpful.

6

Questions of legality kind of depend on the existence of a large society, division of labor, etc. So, people being dependant upon lucky discovery caches of food isn’t exactly a normal situation in such a society. Even in the case of two bums and a dumpster, you can see that they must have rejected many other possible courses of action (like, I don’t know, GETTING A JOB) before being reduced to starvation. They have no more excuse than any other murderer.

7

It should be noted that murder is typically a legal term used to describe a particular type of homicide. Specifically, murder is usually defined as the “unlawful killing of one human by another, with malice aforethought.” As such, the terms self-defense and/or justifiable do not go together with the term murder, but rather with the term homicide, which simply means the killing of a human being by another human being.

8

Even in the case of two bums and a dumpster, you can see that they must have rejected many other possible courses of action (like, I don’t know, GETTING A JOB) before being reduced to starvation. They have no more excuse than any other murderer.

I agree with you.

However, I was thinking more along the lines of the real-world application of several self-sufficient individuals with a reasonable understanding of ethics being abducted from society and transported to a secluded island with limited resources and no established overarching authority to secure the inalienable rights of man for the purposes of some unethical and nefarious Skinnerian behaviorology experiment or as part of an unsettling plot of a twisted Japanese cult film like Battle Royale.

But as you guys already informed me, such a (silly) scenario would be out of the context of the Objectivist Ethics.

In case of raging derelict combat and in most other, more probabilistic circumstances, I agree that one must also evaluate how responsible the individuals are for their current predicament. Actions that warrant self-responsibility include but are not limited to neglecting accessible education resources, living an improvident lifestyle, failing to develop any marketable skills and the like.

9

I understand why this is out of the realm of Objectivist ethics, and even how it should be considered why the individuals in this scenario are responsible for their current scenario.

But in a case such as this, how is one supposed to act? Without ethics, simply because the ethical system does not apply? I don’t get it…

10

I understand why this is out of the realm of Objectivist ethics, and even how it should be considered why the individuals in this scenario are responsible for their current scenario.

But in a case such as this, how is one supposed to act? Without ethics, simply because the ethical system does not apply? I don’t get it…

Well, if an existing principle does not cover the situation one encounters, then one would have to act on whim or create some new ones “on the fly”.

11

I understand why this is out of the realm of Objectivist ethics, and even how it should be considered why the individuals in this scenario are responsible for their current scenario.

But in a case such as this, how is one supposed to act? Without ethics, simply because the ethical system does not apply? I don’t get it…

I think the main problem with lifeboat situations is that they are so heavily context dependent that they are largely meaningless unless you are the one literally in the life boat. For example, “What should you do if a 8 foot tall bunny was shooting at you with an AK-47?” To sort it out, even a little bit, without being in the exact rediculous circumstance you would have to ask a good deal of questions. Is he shooting on purpose? Is he pink or green? Have I had any LSD recently? Do I Have a weapon handy? Is he aiming for me? What time is it? Is his clip almost out? Does he have any friends? etc, etc.

I don’t know if it is correct to say that objectivist ethics do not apply in a lifeboat circumstance. If you are literally in a lifeboat, objectivist ethics might save your life. There just are not any general principles that can properly be applied without full knowledge of the circumstance. So, in short, ethics still are still used but because of the extraordinary complexity and nature of the situation, principles are not likely to be derived.

12

There just are not any general principles that can properly be applied [to emergency situations] without full knowledge of the circumstance.

Why/how are you sure of that? I don’t see how emergency situations are inherently more complex than non-emergency situations, unless there is assumed (or proven) to be a valid basis for believing that emergency situations can’t have guiding principles.

13

Why/how are you sure of that? I don’t see how emergency situations are inherently more complex than non-emergency situations, unless there is assumed (or proven) to be a valid basis for believing that emergency situations can’t have guiding principles.

In normal life, there are always choices available to act in a proper long term way. It doesn’t work to say I was hungry so I stole someone’s big mac. Emergency situations put a limit on time and options available.

For example, I am not prone to tresspassing or breaking and entering, but several years ago, before cell phones were a commonality, I saw a child on a bike get run over by a truck. After checking to see if he had a pulse, I walked to the nearest house, knocked on the door but no one answered. So i opened it(it was unlocked), went in side and called 911 while the owner was yelling at me to get out of her house. After I showed her the child outside, she forgave me and didn’t press charges.

From this, you can’t get the principle that it’s ok to trespass. Only that maybe it’s ok to tresspass if someone is going to die soon and no public phones are nearby and no one else is available who offers to call. It’s just too convoluted and specific to be useful. Your choices are limited by the particualar circumstance.

If someone put’s a gun to your head and tells you to pull the trigger and kill someone else, it doesn’t make you a murderer. You don’t have a choice. In these scenarios that people dream up, you are always stuck between some limited number of immoral choices. Regular life doesn’t require you to break ethical rules. It’s a given that you have other choices. And emergency situations might, but you can’t know for sure without all of the details.

14

I saw a child on a bike get run over by a truck. After checking to see if he had a pulse, I walked to the nearest house, knocked on the door but no one answered. So i opened it(it was unlocked), went in side and called 911 …

From this, you can’t get the principle that it’s ok to trespass. Only that maybe it’s ok to tresspass if someone is going to die soon and no public phones are nearby and no one else is available who offers to call.

“Maybe?”

Personally, I would say that maybe it is proper to trespass if

  • someone (whom I wish to live) is going to die as a result of an emergency
  • there are no rights-respecting means of saving the life
  • trespassing is a means to saving the life
  • trespassing can be compensated for

and that it would be improper to not trespass under the given circumstance.

If nothing else need be considered in such a situation, then the “maybe” is out of place, and perhaps there is a basis for coming to some sort of principle.

15

“Maybe?”

:slight_smile:

To clarify, I didn’t mean maybe for the circumstance that I was in, just that because each situation is so context dependent the particulars would determine the morality and in another similiar situation where I, say, had a cell phone, it would be improper.