Ethics, Wednesday, December 16, 2015

[sith_happened]

Two Jedi stood at the front of the class looking solemn. "Welcome to your final exam," Anakin said, passing out the sheets of paper. "As with everything in ethics, we are more concerned with your thought process than your actual answer. If you can live with yourself and the choices you've made, then you've succeeded in our eyes."

Unless you're fine with slaughtering children or something. Then they'll judge the hell out of you.

"May the Force be with you, and enjoy your breaks."

Comments

Question 1

[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 1

[bestatmystery]

c) Because we're not that one US president nor one of them Stalin types and science has well shown that torture doesn't make folks tell you truths anyway.

Also, why isn't anyone out there investigating with bomb sniffing dogs and robots and things? GO INVESTIGATE government people!

Re: Question 1

[good_for_six]

Isabela had the strangest sense of deja-vu, though she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

d) why don't you try a nice bribe first?

Re: Question 1

[cracksmostly]

Come up with a magical way to get the information.

That wasn't one of the options, Merrill.