Ethics, Tuesday, April 21, 2015

[sith_happened]

If you thought a little thing like weeks of unrelenting trauma was going to stop your final exam, you didn't know Anakin very well. He at least look vaguely sorry about it between texts on his comlink (that was only half to avoid talking to Obi-Wan).

Smooth, Anakin. Very smooth.

It was Obi-Wan who cleared his throat and began speaking after the exams had been distributed. "It is traditional for this class to end in a written exam," he said. "No choice listed on these sheets is wrong--" though he and Anakin might disagree about which ones were least wrong, ahem, "--as we are primarily interested in your reasoning. Please be thorough."

"And legible," Anakin added. He coughed. "And if anyone feels the need to talk about this weekend, or last, for that matter, we're around after class."

Comments

Question 2

[sith_happened]

A rebel who has threatened to explode several bombs in crowded areas has been caught. Unfortunately, she has already planted the bombs and they are scheduled to go off in a short time. It's possible that hundreds of people may die and the authorities cannot make her divulge the location of the bombs by conventional methods. In exasperation, some high level official suggests torture. This would be illegal, of course, but the official thinks that it is nevertheless the right thing to do in this desperate situation. What do you do and why?

a) Torture her to get the information. There's no time left to be reasonable.
b) Torture her and her family to get the information, then blow up her planet. If you're going to do something illegal, might as well be really, really thorough.
c) Continue working through the the legal structure of the judicial system and hope for the best.

Re: Question 2

[thegreywaren.livejournal.com]

A. Who cares about illegal if it's gonna solve the problem?

Re: Question 2

[not_a_moonie]

A. Not like torture is awesome happy funtimes, but better one person gets hurt than hundreds get dead, right?

Re: Question 2

[spin_kick_snap]

C. Even if you want to ignore all the moral and ethical considerations of TORTURE, information obtained under torture is notoriously unreliable. What's to stop her from lying creatively and well? Yes, she may break, but how long will that take? And until then, all the information gained is suspect. Torture is also dangerous; a miscalculation and she could die. She could also be prepared for that possibility and will choose to kill herself first. Then we have NOTHING. Use these arguments to dissuade the official since 'morally wrong' clearly isn't going to cut it, then focus our efforts on finding the most likely areas and clearing those.

Re: Question 2

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

C - I hate this option only marginally less than the other two. I understand that the risk is great in every situation. But I want to make it clear that, with this many lives at risk, I'm not refraining from torture for her sake alone. She could very well lie just to get the torture to stop. Even worse, she could send people off even farther from the targeted areas out of spite. Better to continue to try to reason with somebody who has less valid reason to actively loathe us, and then make certain she sees proper justice, whatever it might be, when the situation is resolved.

Re: Question 2

[sarcastic-vamp.livejournal.com]

(B) There's something to be said for tying up all loose ends.