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The person who risk deaths to save 100 people is indeed more heroic than the person who save 2 people. Are you saying there's no difference between 1 or 100 pe
by kiba 15y ago
The person who risk deaths to save 100 people is indeed more heroic than the person who save 2 people.
Are you saying there's no difference between 1 or 100 people?
- chc 15y agoHeroism is a question of character, not just results. For example, an assassin who gets cold feet when he sees his target's bodyguards is not as heroic as a police officer who takes a bullet to save the assassin's victim, even though both decisions save the person's life. It requires a greater degree of selflessness to value two lives over your own than it does to value a hundred lives over your own. A fairly large number of people would consider sacrificing themselves to save half the world — that many lives lost is such a tremendous tragedy, it almost seems like an obligation. But few people would seriously think about exchanging their life for a stranger's — they'd say sorry, too bad, you got unlucky.
- sliverstorm 15y agoOn the other hand, the level of sacrifice and risk is usually quite great when you consider heroic acts that saved hundreds of people.
- spiffage 15y agoI'm saying that a person taking the same risk to save just 2 people is more heroic, even though peoples' intuition is the opposite. Risking yourself to save 2 people takes guts and a serious commitment to the greater good. Doing the same for 100 people takes guts, but is kind of a no-brainer.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoI think you're on the verge of discovering that a utilitarian philosophy isn't the only way to look at the world. It's just so ingrained in us that it's hard to look beyond it.
- aidenn0 15y agoReally? I find that utilitarianism is not at all the common way of looking at the world. It is trivial to come up with ethical examples that utilitarianism disagrees with the gut-instinct version.
- CWuestefeld 15y agoIt is trivial to come up with ethical examples that utilitarianism disagrees with the gut-instinct version. That's true. But the typical formulation for utilitarianism -- "if a trolley is hurtling down the track, certain to kill 5 people ahead of it, is it OK to divert it onto a different track if that will result in killing a single person?" -- is very difficult to talk someone out of. The idea that minimizing the number of deaths overrides any absolute prohibition on taking a person's life is pretty much impossible to overcome. Hence my conclusion that utilitarianism is, or has become, the default mode of reasoning.