Quote Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla View Post
The point is that all human life if of equally value, morally it is wrong to sacrifice one life for another. If the hypothetical city has 100,000 habitants then that baby's life has been weighed 100,000 times and been deemed of less worth than that of another human being.
I'm not sure I follow you. To me it's simple: 100,0000 is a vastly greater number than 1. The child isn't deemed of less worth than another person, it's deemed of less worth then 99.9999 other people. I also assumed that in your example the child would die anyway, either when the besiegers storm the city and kill everyone or when he/she's sacrificed to save the rest.

Do you believe that it's impossible for any action, by itself immoral, to be justified by it's consequenses? (i.e. Immanuel Kant's example of how it's wrong to lie to a known murderer)