It is a hypothetical question designed to test one of the most basic ideas of moral judgment - should you perpetrate a small crime against an individual in order to prevent them from perpetrating a much larger crime?
You absolutely can not know whether they would kill anyone in the future, but the assumption of the exercise is that you know. From there, you can change the variables of certainty to test how far people will go. What if you are 100% certain they are guilty but only 70% certain they will kill again? What if they do in fact kill many people in a future terrorist attack? Does the government get the blame for letting them go? Here is a concrete problem. KSM admits guilt and wants to die a martyr. Let's assume for the purpose of the exercise that waterboarding is torture and that he was tortured, rendering anything he said later inadmissible in court. Do we let him go or allow him to plead guilty and execute him? On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 7:24 PM, Maureen <[email protected]> wrote: > There is a vast difference in legal and moral. > > Legally, in order to hold him, you have to prove his guilt. You > cannot prove guilt for a crime that has not yet been committed. > > Morally, you could assume that killing the one would be preferable to > allowing the death of thousands and thereby arrange for him to remain > captive or be killed before he can carry out that act. But using the > legal system to accomplish this undermines the bedrock of the system, > which presumes innocence. > > Logically, your statement is a fallacy, but you can never KNOW that he > will kill again. > > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Robert Munn <[email protected]> wrote: > > No, I am suggesting a specific moral dilemma. Can you free a guilty man > > knowing that he will commit an act of terror that will kill a thousand > > people? I am making two assumptions in this question - you know the man > is > > guilty but national security prevents you from presenting evidence to > that > > effect, and you know that he will commit an act of terror that will kill > a > > thousand people. Do you let him go? > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:286611 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
