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Specific Type of Moral Dilemma

Mangafranga

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M
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Dec 9, 2006
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I am trying to find real life instances of a particular type of moral dilemma. My google fu is currently failing me. I want examples of killing to save, and the killing is of people on your own side. I want to exclude cases where you only kill the enemy. The two I am thinking of are:
1-bombing an area where you know your men are
2-a fire on a ship or submarine meaning that it is an option to seal off the area with men still inside.
If anyone happens to know offhand of any cases I would love to know about them.
 
I would suggest the firebombings and nuclear bombings of Japan, as civilians aren't really "the enemy" so much as a way to affect the enemy, but I think you mean specifically an ally.

I'd check Korea. The history of that war might involve such an incident... Beyond that you could check antiquity.
 
Mangafranga said:
I am trying to find real life instances of a particular type of moral dilemma. My google fu is currently failing me. I want examples of killing to save, and the killing is of people on your own side. I want to exclude cases where you only kill the enemy.
Click to expand...

if the 'enemy' doesnt have to be human you can use disease as the enemy

otherwise, i would say a hostage situation is a good bet. either like a hostage at gunpoint propped up against the chest of the terrorist or an inacessable room full of terrorists and hostages that could be bombed. Hell if you want to go for emotional someone really evil could use their child as a human sheild to do something naughty.

thats all ive got
 
Dark Jaguar said:
I would suggest the firebombings and nuclear bombings of Japan, as civilians aren't really "the enemy" so much as a way to affect the enemy, but I think you mean specifically an ally.

I'd check Korea. The history of that war might involve such an incident... Beyond that you could check antiquity.
Click to expand...
Yeah I meant an ally. Thanks for the suggestions on further ways to look for this.

nails3jesus0 said:
if the 'enemy' doesnt have to be human you can use disease as the enemy

otherwise, i would say a hostage situation is a good bet. either like a hostage at gunpoint propped up against the chest of the terrorist or an inacessable room full of terrorists and hostages that could be bombed. Hell if you want to go for emotional someone really evil could use their child as a human sheild to do something naughty.

thats all ive got
Click to expand...
By enemy I mean one of your own "tribe." I was looking for real life examples of these type of hypothetical situations. The hostage situation one is good. It reminds me of the case of the theater hostage taking with the Russian's pumping some sort of chemical in to disable the hostage takers. It ended up killing a lot of the hostages, although that probably wasn't the intention. Thanks.
 
I thought of the Russian hostage situation too. I think they knew there was a risk of killing some of the hostages with that gas, but they decided that was an acceptable risk.
 
Governments will deny spies who are caught are spies sometimes, which can lead to their execution. (It also happens even if they admit it, but at least then there's some hope of being held for a future prisoner exchange.)

In hostage situations, though, normally the government won't risk a raid of some kind unless the likelihood of death (if they wait) outweighs the chance of death (if they raid). Those calculations are highly fraught with error, though, as are the results of any raid. They storm a plane of hostages on a runway, 8 innocents are killed out of 47. Worth it? Who knows?

I can't think of any movie-like situations, though, like "We have to destroy this plane of passengers in flight because they have a biohazard on board that's gotten out", or "We have to destroy this stadium of people because there's a guy in there who's gonna order a nuclear strike on a city but we don't know who."
 
On another forum I was referred to this article, which some may find interesting.

"Kill One to Save Many? Brain Damage Makes Decision Easier
Patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex adopt a utilitarian policy when making difficult moral judgments"
RenaissanceBiker said:
I thought of the Russian hostage situation too. I think they knew there was a risk of killing some of the hostages with that gas, but they decided that was an acceptable risk.
Click to expand...
Yeah I have to look into the details on it.
Beerina said:
Governments will deny spies who are caught are spies sometimes, which can lead to their execution. (It also happens even if they admit it, but at least then there's some hope of being held for a future prisoner exchange.)


In hostage situations, though, normally the government won't risk a raid of some kind unless the likelihood of death (if they wait) outweighs the chance of death (if they raid). Those calculations are highly fraught with error, though, as are the results of any raid. They storm a plane of hostages on a runway, 8 innocents are killed out of 47. Worth it? Who knows?

I can't think of any movie-like situations, though, like "We have to destroy this plane of passengers in flight because they have a biohazard on board that's gotten out", or "We have to destroy this stadium of people because there's a guy in there who's gonna order a nuclear strike on a city but we don't know who."
Click to expand...
I'm starting to think that even though the scenarios I presented might have been likely to have occurred in war situations, it is not likely that they will have been reported, or at least reported widely (such that I can find them easily by the time the essay is due.)

This is for a philosophy essay, which maybe I should have mentioned, though I am not really interested in discussing the issues (others can go for it, of course.) My specific issue is that we are presented with scenarios which are supposed to tell us what our moral intuitions are. But I would like to supplement the intuitions of the person imagining the situation and the intuitions (as told by actions) of the person in the situation.
 
Ayn Rand used to point out that these "lifeboat scenarios" are hardly the thing to base living normal, day-to-day life on.
 
there are numerous instances of intense bombing of occupied europe by the allies in ww2.
 
Manga:

Kurt Vonnegut (heard of him?) had some observations on this matter in 'Slaughterhouse Five'
 
Macoy said:
there are numerous instances of intense bombing of occupied europe by the allies in ww2.
Click to expand...
I have been reading going through the list of cities bombed in WWII to find such an example. Not a fun thing to do, if I can put it like that. I found one, and will probably use that as an example in the essay.

On another forum I got a suggestion about firing on ones own troop position to prevent an enemy advance. I found an example of that too.

The bombing by allies and the firing on own position are probably the right examples for the essay. I am going to stop looking for more stuff on this now, it is just a small section of the essay so I can't spend too much time on it, and I really don't want to overload myself with reading about too many horrible events.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. If anyone wants to derail the thread, go for it.
 
A couple of possibilities you can look into. First; POW's were in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing. I don't think Allied intelligence had identified that fact at the time, so may not fit your need.
Second; Bringing supporting fire (artillery and airstrikes) very close to friendly troops. While this is not deliberately killing your own men it does materialy increase the chances of a blue-on-blue incident. The logic is that many more lives are saved by effective supporting fire than are lost to friendly fire.

Robert
 
How about not reporting the USS Indianapolis as missing because it was on a secret mission?

"Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in 12 minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. 13-footer. You know how you know that when you're in the water, Chief? You tell by looking from the dorsal to the tail. What we didn't know, was our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, Chief, sharks come cruisin', so we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know, it was kinda like old squares in the battle like you see in the calendar named "The Battle of Waterloo" and the idea was: shark comes to the nearest man, that man he starts poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark go away... but sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. And, you know, the thing about a shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'. The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all come in and they... rip you to pieces. You know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men. I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand. I know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday morning, Chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player. Boatswain's mate. I thought he was asleep. I reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up, down in the water just like a kinda top. Upended. Well, he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon, the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us. He swung in low and he saw us... he was a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper. Anyway, he saw us and he come in low and three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and starts to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened... waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water; 316 men come out and the sharks took the rest, June the 29th, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb."

Quint from the movie "Jaws"
 
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