Religion, moral and values.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think the point of the dillemma is that if the governor decides not to to sacrifice the child and the city gets massacred, the latter is still the doing of the besiegers, while the former would have been on the hands of the governor.

Another analogy would be that you're driving a bus, carrying 50 passangers across a bridge. The bridge begins to shake violently and is about to collapse. You've come to a halt, but realise that you still have time to drive the bus across the bridge to safety. However, in the chaos a motorcycle driver has fallen from his bike and now lies unconcious before the bus. Because of all the debris there is no space, and no time to move around him.

Personally I would both sacrifice the child and drive over the unconcious motorcycle driver. Both of them would die regardless of what you chose, chosing sacrifice is nothing more than damage control. Refusing to do so because you're unwilling to get blood on your own hands is, in my opinion, self-righteous cowardice.

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.

That is what makes the sacrifice so very wrong.

Your hypothetical motorcycylist is somewhat different, as you have been placed in a situation where you have to make an immidiate decision, where the cyclist is already going to die on the bridge, and without an antagonising force. Running over him is still morally wrong, but perhaps easier to forgive.

Of course, in that case you could always try to get out and move the cyclist, or get everyone off the bus and tell them to run. Both are better choices than running him over.

[Ironside]

Let me expand the example.

An army besieging a city gives the governors of the city an ultimatum, kill one single child or see the entire city destroyed. The besiegers are trying to get the city to commit an evil act, the people who agree will be selfish, immoral. They want to save their own lives. If the whole city accepts sacrifice then they will all die, but they die clean and the besiegers lose. If they kill the child the besiegers win.

Ok, adding that our ever truthtelling demon (that wiped out stronger cities before) also says that the child in question will be spared and risen up in a nice family. Spicing it up, killing the child will give the demon the killers soul, since the soul will be damned.

I'm sure that it will be statues of the killer will be rised up in the city, telling moral lessions about his soul damned deeds.

[Kralizec]

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)

[Viking]

Incidentally, I just handed in an over 3000 word long essay on Smart's utilitarianism yesterday..

While you could argue that you have valued on life as being less than 100 000, the baby (I'd rather prefer a person in this example) is being sacrificed for each and every inhabitant of the city. To further underscore this fact, you could end up sacrificing the 100 000 population in favour a 10 million one in a different war. This 10 million population may further be sacrificed in different cases - et cetera. You would end up wondering just who it is that you are doing these sacrifices for. In theory, it does not have to be anyone at all - you are just doing maths.

So while deontology poses a dilemma, so does utilitarianism.

[Beskar]

"A Single Death is a Tragedy; a Million Deaths is a Statistic"