Question about Morality

[Romial]

Ah, there you go. Nazi shit. But where would we be today without Hitler's beetle?

Heh, the doctor doesn't have to be a Nazi. Could be just like any schmuck like you or me. But holding the people against their will and doing things to them against their will then killing them while trying to find a cure. That's not right...is it?

 

[watergirl]

romial, you are one weird fucko.

no offense.

 

[sterlingclay]

Heh, the doctor doesn't have to be a Nazi. Could be just like any schmuck like you or me. But holding the people against their will and doing things to them against their will then killing them while trying to find a cure. That's not right...is it?

No, of course it's not right, and niether is the situation. (But the world is cruel and I have no doubts this type of shit goes on behind the scenes.) Still a set for the Twilight Zone.

Any schmuck? I'm thinking of Einstein now.

There are two sides to a coin.

digression: don't worry about life; you won't survive it anyway.

 

[Romial]

romial, you are one weird fucko.

no offense.

How am I? Just a simple question.

 

[Johnny Mayberry]

On a long enough timeline, everyone's life expectancy reaches zero...

I don't know what I would do, to be honest...I could make that decision for myself, one way or the other, but I would do everything in my power to get my loved ones a dose of teh cure, once it was created. Before it was created, if given a chance, I would volunteer myself before I saw someone else killed for a cure. It is about choice. I choose death, because someone else was not allowed to choose life.

 

[Unclebill]

Re: Re: Question about Morality

Originally posted by The Heretic
Yes.

No, it doesn't mean that at all. My use of a cure/treatment found by killing other people neither justifies the methods used to find the treatment, nor does it mean that because I take advantage of the treatment that I am responsible for how it was arrived at. The end does not justify the means (the experimentation) and I can take advantage of the end (the cure/treatment) if I didn't participate in the means of arriving at the , and I didn't condone the means, and I tried not to allow the means.

I concur and I also applaud your concise and clear statement of your case.

Originally posted by sterlingclay
Since I don't put people ahead of animals and we use animals for that sort of thing anyway, yes. If the treatment were available I would use it.

But known human testing is kind of absurd, don't you think? Why would that go public? People freak over that sort of thing.

That you place equal value on humans and animals implicitly declares that human testing is in fact legitimate since you endorse animal testing. Thus your statement that human testing is kind of absurd is the essence of absurdity intself.

Originally posted by sterlingclay
...To take a cure for a disease is a given. Healthy people forced into experimentation is insane nazi practice. Why do that during an epidemic?...

In fact, there was a thread some time back addressing the morality of today's society using lessons gleaned from some of the Nazi Germany human experiments so I contend there is some validity to the discussion point raised here as well as in that previous thread.

Originally posted by The Heretic
The inference was that all test subjects die - at least until a cure was developed. As I read it the inference was also that this was not a voluntary or informed consent situation. Romial used the word "killing" so it is not totally clear what he meant by that, but the inference is strong.

But the principle involved is the same, i. e., the medication/procedure is derived from a process in which the loss of human life was experienced; whether the victim count is a few or all is merely a matter of degree, not fundamental principle.

 

[watergirl]

One weird fucko... well, because -


"Lets say there was a terrible desiese somewhere and it began to spread. Killing thousands among thousands of people"

Ok, for starters, what does that mean? thousands among thousands? Do you mean thousands upon thousands, which would be a pretty large number? Do you mean thousands among millions? Which could be a pretty small percentage, depending upon the numbers...

"(one that isn't already alive per say, a ficitional disease)."

Alright. Diseases aren't alive... My recollection of high school science is pretty vague, but I feel pretty confident about that one. Viruses, are they alive? Seems like they meet some of the criteria for that - reproduce, die, mutate... <shrug, I know, I"m nitpicking. Don't worry, I really don't take myself too seriously on this..>


"And a radical doctor was trying to find ways of finding a cure for it. But the only way he could is by injecting hundreds of people with the disease and test out some of his theory's on them, killing them until he gets it right."

Stopping right here, I just find the question goes out the window for me at this point. This is the departure from plausible hypothesis, to twilight zone, as sterlingclay says. If thousands among thousands are already getting the disease, I'm sure some of them would be willing to let Dr. Wacko try his theorIES out on them... and if they die, hey, they were going to anyway!

"Well he finally finds a cure for the disease thankfully."

Yes, yippee, and thankfully. That was the point, afterall. And we really have no context of whether his theories, his experimental treatments, were insane and painful and worse than the disease itself, or whether some of them were just ineffective failures that didn't happen to work, that is, didn't cure the disease that Dr. Wacko supposedly injected, infected, whatever, all those otherwise healthy people with....

"Now the question is...would you allow the same treatment be used on you if you had the disease? If you do, it would mean him killing all those people were worth it and might happen again in the future. But if you don't, well then you're pretty much shit out of luck."

Right, then! Sheesh! So, this disease - is it a 100% fatal thing? Like, communicable by touching, breathing, existing, or is communicable by something more intimate, like sharing blood, or fluids, or even drinking after someone else? I'm guessing totally 100% guaranteed, you're gonna get it somehow, from the "you're pretty much shit out of luck," but then, maybe not, from the "if you had the disease."

This question isn't hard and fast enough for me to think that Heretic's "now I know who to avoid" remark is justified.

Just me, procrastinating real work by blathering on... swiss cheese with my whining, anyone?

 

[The Heretic]

Re: Re: Re: Question about Morality

whether the victim count is a few or all is merely a matter of degree, not fundamental principle.

Agreed. I was not trying to infer that there was a difference of principle - I was trying to make the scenario clear to LC. If one person was murdered then it would still be wrong.

Of course, there are more difficult but related situations where there are mitigating factors; such as "collateral damage" in wartime where "innocents" are killed. In this case, however similar, the choice is fairly clear.

 

[The Heretic]

This question isn't hard and fast enough for me to think that Heretic's "now I know who to avoid" remark is justified.

My remark addressed the sentiments expressed by CuffedKitty that staying alive is more important than any morality involved. The inferrence (a strong one) is that CuffedKitty would do anything to stay alive, compromising any principle or morality.

Further, my comment was in reference to the people I would avoid in real life as possible friends or intimate companions - it is my personal opinion, my choice, and therefore totally justified.

You and everyone else here is free to make your own choices about the people you chose to associate or be intimate with - I chose to have friends that I believe are not so willing to throw their morals out the window just to stay alive.

 

[Hamletmaschine]

Where are we? In Never-Never Land? No HMO is gonna pay for this shit.

 

[watergirl]

That makes sense, Heretic. I misread your original statement, to mean more that anyone who would take such a cure, wouldn't be worthy of your time. But, since everyone else would be dead, it would be a lonely righteous time, I think.

Of course you choose your friends carefully. Everyone has their own ideas of hell on earth, and what they would be able to live through, while keeping their integrity and self-respect...

You give me food for thougth. Thanks.

 

[The Heretic]

That makes sense, Heretic. I misread your original statement, to mean more that anyone who would take such a cure, wouldn't be worthy of your time. But, since everyone else would be dead, it would be a lonely righteous time, I think.

If you read my posts more carefully yet, you will see I have no problem with people taking the cure - indeed I said I would take the cure. What I have a problem with is people who justify the means for arriving at the cure.

Now maybe I misunderstood their stance on this, if so then I take back what I said, but I don't think I misunderstood.

 

[watergirl]

I doubt you misread. Much more likely I did...

so, to clear me up - you would take the cure, and believe that doing so would not imply that you condone or accept the means by which that cure was found?

To me, if I took the cure, which I would - within the conditions in my first post on this (if I could afford it, if it was available, if I heard about in time, if I was smart enough to acknowledge in time that I was sick and needed to see a doctor... )

then if, as Romial proposes, people had been unwillingly infected with the disease in order to test experimental cures on them - I would consider their deaths to be partly on my conscience.

But, if I refused the cure, and so did everyone else - then their deaths would have been in vain, and for nothing.

I'm not saying that it makes sense - but that is my answer.

 

[ericviking69]

In real life

In real life many people have benefitted from research that was performed in ways that we would not accept today....

These are not informed choices...it is just the way it is.

 

[The Heretic]

so, to clear me up - you would take the cure, and believe that doing so would not imply that you condone or accept the means by which that cure was found?

Yes. As I stated in my very first post in this thread; "My use of a cure/treatment found by killing other people neither justifies the methods used to find the treatment, nor does it mean that because I take advantage of the treatment that I am responsible for how it was arrived at. The end does not justify the means (the experimentation) and I can take advantage of the end (the cure/treatment) if I didn't participate in the means of arriving at the cure, and I didn't condone the means, and I tried not to allow the means".

then if, as Romial proposes, people had been unwillingly infected with the disease in order to test experimental cures on them - I would consider their deaths to be partly on my conscience.

But, if I refused the cure, and so did everyone else - then their deaths would have been in vain, and for nothing.

If you just stood by and did nothing to protest or prevent the means used to arrive at the cure, then sure, the deaths would be partly your fault.

However, if OTOH you had nothing to do with the methods used to arrive at the cure, or you did what you could to prevent or protest those methods, then taking the cure puts no onus on you for the means used to create it.

I can understand an emotional feeling of guilt, but logically I wouldn't feel any guilt.

 

[watergirl]

yes, exactly.. and since when does a woman have to be logical?

But, death is such a final, permanent end, which causes so much grief to those left behind - that yes, emotionally, I would feel guilty over it, if I took that cure, even if I had protested and tried to stop the unjust deaths caused by the search for a cure.

 

[sterlingclay]

Re: Re: Re: Question about Morality

That you place equal value on humans and animals implicitly declares that human testing is in fact legitimate since you endorse animal testing. Thus your statement that human testing is kind of absurd is the essence of absurdity intself.

I do not endorse animal testing, but I (like most) have benefited from past animal testing. I believe we are no more than animals, and that morality discussions are strange. Instinct is survival and that will prevail in most instances.

Yes the statement was absurd, as absurd as this whole discussion. That was the point I was trying to make. Sorry about my unclear methods of debate. I was, after all, raised by a woman ;-)