Yes, You Have A Moral Duty To Save As Much Lives As You Can

Author: Best.Korea

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#31
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Best.Korea
I can prove to you (and everyone else) that they value their own liberty.
Yes, but valuing liberty over life sometimes results in destruction of life and then the liberty gets destroyed too.
If the end of life was a freely chosen value, it's end is an expression of liberty. No one lives forever, and by the same token it is incorrect to say the dead are being oppressed because they are dead. If there is no mind left there is no self-determination to violate.

One could say it is healthy to value continued life for the sake of other values, I would. However this is not an absolute rule. If it was there would be no moral way to go on a suicide mission to protect liberty (or the lives of others for that matter).
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#32
Best.Korea
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If the end of life was a freely chosen value, it's end is an expression of liberty.
Except we dont know if a person will change his opinion in the future. So naturally, letting him take his life would mean destroying his future liberty in which he is not willing to take his own life. When we compare the two liberties, present and future, it is obvious that the future one is better. So really, precenting suicide is there to allow better liberty to the person later.

Also, suicide is not just self-destruction. It destroys others too. First, it destroys children that a person would have if he didnt commit suicide. Plus, it destroys the labor that would have sustained more life.


it is incorrect to say the dead are being oppressed because they are dead
Well, we could say that being dead is bad. Otherwise, why would murder be a crime?


If there is no mind left there is no self-determination to violate
You cannot violate that which is already violated to the maximum by  being destroyed.


 If it was there would be no moral way to go on a suicide mission to protect liberty.
There would, however, be a moral way to go on a suicide mission to protect life.

Liberty is less important than life, since without life there is no liberty.
#33
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Best.Korea
If the end of life was a freely chosen value, it's end is an expression of liberty.
Except we dont know if a person will change his opinion in the future.
We never do, but others don't get to assume they know better. That gets fuzzy for children, as we have explored.

First, it destroys children that a person would have if he didnt commit suicide.
Not everyone can have children and potential children are not children. Potentials don't have rights.

Plus, it destroys the labor that would have sustained more life.
No one else has a right to someone's labor.

it is incorrect to say the dead are being oppressed because they are dead
Well, we could say that being dead is bad. Otherwise, why would murder be a crime?
Murder is a crime against liberty as much as life. Assisted suicide is not murder, and I certainly don't care what various legal situations exist. I'm (almost always) talking about morality. It is an entirely different moral circumstance to kill someone without their consent.
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#34
Best.Korea
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@ADreamOfLiberty
potential children are not children
Potential children are children. Every one of us was a "potential child" and then also a child.
Without these "potential children", there are no children nor adults nor humanity.


No one else has a right to someone's labor
Without someone else's labor, we dont have our liberty. So what you are saying is that liberty is not a right.


It is an entirely different moral circumstance to kill someone without their consent.
When a person commits suicide, he is also killing own children without their consent. Not having children is the same as killing them. That person probably could have had children, but decided not to. So really, if I can only have liberty under the condition that my parents provide it, and if my parents have right to take away my liberty by aborting me or starving me, then my liberty only exists if my parents dont use their liberty to destroy mine. So when liberty gives you the right to destroy liberty, it all falls apart.
#35
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@Best.Korea
Not having children is the same as killing them.
Then we come to an impasse of definitions. I define killing as the act of ending the life of an organism or functional system. If you define it as not acting to create an organism or functional system we are not talking about the same thing.

Here is a rhetorical question, if not having children is the same as killing children; which is the greater crime: To rape an unwilling woman on a deserted island or to kill all the children you could have?
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#36
Best.Korea
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@ADreamOfLiberty
 I define killing as the act of ending the life of an organism or functional system. If you define it as not acting to create an organism or functional system we are not talking about the same thing.
And what is the difference between ending and not creating, when their results are the same? 


which is the greater crime: To rape an unwilling woman on a deserted island or to kill all the children you could have?
Killing all the children you could have is a greater crime. We could use an example that the man and woman are last humans on Earth. If they are unwilling to reproduce, humanity ends there. If they reproduce by force, some liberty is violated but humanity continues to exist and their children get the liberty and life.
#37
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@Best.Korea
I define killing as the act of ending the life of an organism or functional system. If you define it as not acting to create an organism or functional system we are not talking about the same thing.
And what is the difference between ending and not creating, when their results are the same? 
What is the difference between life and death when in the end death is the outcome?

The difference is the fact of existence.


which is the greater crime: To rape an unwilling woman on a deserted island or to kill all the children you could have?
Killing all the children you could have is a greater crime. We could use an example that the man and woman are last humans on Earth. If they are unwilling to reproduce, humanity ends there. If they reproduce by force, some liberty is violated but humanity continues to exist and their children get the liberty and life.
No need to bring the fate of humanity into it. Your theory holds that any failure to reproduce is equivalent to murder, thus any rape is justified so long as it could conceivably result in children.
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#38
Best.Korea
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@ADreamOfLiberty
What is the difference between life and death when in the end death is the outcome?
The death is the opposite of life. While it is true that life also results in death, it is also true that the result of "life and death" is not the same as the result of "just death and without life". We value life, not death. Therefore, the first option is better in results for us, since only the first option gives life.


The difference is the fact of existence.
Existence, you mean in the present? So I can destroy your future liberty, but not your present liberty? The results of both are same. If you value liberty, why only value it in the present but not in the future? Why deny the future generations of their liberty? If you only value liberty of present generations, then the liberty is a privilege, not a right.
#39
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@Best.Korea
The difference is the fact of existence.
Existence, you mean in the present? So I can destroy your future liberty, but not your present liberty? The results of both are same.
You can't destroy the future, the future is a concept and can't be destroyed. All you can do is act to alter a predictable outcome.

You can plan to destroy my liberty, but that would be destroying my liberty in the present at the moment of execution.


Existence, you mean in the present? So I can destroy your future liberty, but not your present liberty? The results of both are same. If you value liberty, why only value it in the present but not in the future? Why deny the future generations of their liberty? If you only value liberty of present generations, then the liberty is a privilege, not a right.
The results and the path are both morally relevant.

There implication of denying future generations liberty. No liberty is denied if no future generation exists. The potential for life and the potential for liberty exist, but potentials do not have rights, even if we may choose to value them.
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#40
Best.Korea
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@ADreamOfLiberty
No liberty is denied if no future generation exists.
Future generations exist unless you destroy them in the present. Simple really.

Potential has no rights? So rights are only given to those you choose? Werent you also the potential?
#41
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@Best.Korea
No liberty is denied if no future generation exists.
Future generations exist unless you destroy them in the present. Simple really.
Simply false, by definition.

Potential has no rights?
Correct.

So rights are only given to those you choose?
Rights arise from the nature of a cognizant mind. No brain means no mind. No existence means no brain.

Therefore nothing that does not exist has rights.

Werent you also the potential?
No. The moment I existed is the moment the potential was realized.
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#42
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Therefore nothing that does not exist has rights.
No. Future generations exist unless you destroy them. There is no going around this. If I destroyed you in the womb, you wouldnt exist now. Your liberty, and life, would be destroyed. 


No. The moment I existed is the moment the potential was realized.
'No" sounds like great denial of reality, but whatever.

#43
DavidAZ
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@Best.Korea
I think the idea of life, in general, is precious, BUT honestly the lives that are closest to me are the most precious and will take the higher tier in a emergency.

If I can only save 6 lives from a sinking ship, it will be my family and myself.  Anyone trying the climb on our life boat would sink it and I would push them back into the water to preserve my family.  Why would I not sacrifice myself for the one trying to climb in? It is, again, to preserve my family.  They need me as their father/husband and for me to worthlessly throw myself into the water to allow a stranger to climb on would just be stupid.  What if that guy really did just have it coming?

I assume you come from the background as a single young man.  Typically thinking that your best day can be fulfilled by allowing someone else more deserving to live and you die.
#44
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@Deb-8-a-bull
5 people being killed by a out of control trolley makes for a wayyyyy better vid then one
The trolley video I thought was funny is where the trolley gets completely lifted from the tracks and then soars thru a window of a children's hospital. 

Just think of the moral implications of that decision!

82 days later

#45
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I understand the morality of saving lives and preventing death is a very common one, but does anyone know which moral structure this originates?
#46
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@Best.Korea
Do you have rwo healthy kidneys and a good liver? How about bone marriage? Have you got some of that? When are you scheduled to donate these for transplant saving more than five lives? 
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#47
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@Critical-Tim
I believe it originates from moral system of duty to do that which increases the amount of human life to the maximum.

Saving lives increases the amount of human life.
#48
Critical-Tim
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@Best.Korea
Would you consider this a utilitarian moral construct, or a natural law?
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#49
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@Critical-Tim
Its utilitarian, since it deals with the right action being that which, as a consequence, increases human life the most.
#50
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@Best.Korea
A moral structure that is consequentialist is one based on the outcome of a situation. I was referring specifically to utilitarianism which claims the morality of an action is measured by the summation of happiness among all individuals. Moreover, utilitarianism is a consequentialist moral structure. The reason why I say this is you draw the distinction between your idea being utilitarianism since it increases human life, but this is not necessarily true if increasing human life does not increase happiness because they are independent factors. Do you believe that we would still be morally obligated to increase life if life was net negative, or do you think that increase of life is irrelevant and only happiness counts?
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#51
Best.Korea
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@Critical-Tim
Do you believe that we would still be morally obligated to increase life if life was net negative, or do you think that increase of life is irrelevant and only happiness counts?
If you value life more than happiness, then yeah.

But yes, there is a point at which life becomes not worth living, such as living in extreme pain constantly. At that point, many would wish to die and if there was a button that kills them instantly, they would press it.

#52
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@Best.Korea
Do you believe that we would still be morally obligated to increase life if life was net negative, or do you think that increase of life is irrelevant and only happiness counts?
If you value life more than happiness, then yeah.
But yes, there is a point at which life becomes not worth living, such as living in extreme pain constantly. At that point, many would wish to die and if there was a button that kills them instantly, they would press it.
Do you think it's morally acceptable given that situation?
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#53
Best.Korea
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@Critical-Tim
As long as we place value on life, it is not acceptable to destroy life under any circumstances.

However, realistically, If it were me, I would prefer to die than to live and suffer all the time in such extreme pain.
#54
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@Best.Korea
As long as we place value on life, it is not acceptable to destroy life under any circumstances.
However, realistically, if it was me, I would prefer to die than to live and suffer all the time in such extreme pain.
Do you then believe morality is not always realistic, and what do you mean by that?
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#55
Best.Korea
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@Critical-Tim
Every moral standard has certain weakness. Morality is based around moral values. Those values can be: preventing pain, increasing life, not decreasing life, increasing happiness, increasing freedom...
#56
Critical-Tim
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@Best.Korea
Do you think that morals should be based or dependent on factors such as you listed, and that we should only follow morals when they align with those values? I suppose that you believe your judgment is good, in which case, you must believe that it is not always good to follow morals being you recognize an inherent flaw with the moral structure you are referring to. If morality is meant to be the judgment of what is good and evil, then why do you not believe morality always follows along those lines?

Do you think a moral structure is not true moral if it is not continuously the determiner of what is good and evil?
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#57
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@Critical-Tim
Morality is meant to be a judgment of what is good and evil.

However, sometimes it places too large burden on people that they cannot fullfill, sometimes it results in something absurd.

The best moral standard is the one that has least absurdity tied to it.

Do you think a moral structure is not true moral if it is not continuously the determiner of what is good and evil?
I think true morality works in all situations, or at least in the greatest number of situations.
#58
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@Best.Korea
I believe that you are right to assume that if a morality is true it should work in the greatest number or in all situations.
Thank you for sharing.