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 Class Forums - Spring 2009
 PHIL 110-007 - Figures in Western Philosophy
 A Question of Morality		  Forum Locked
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Chris Sheridan
Fledgling

10 Posts
Posted - Apr 24 2009 :  4:47:46 PM  Show Profile
Although there are exceptions. Kill one, save several? Why not? I think all criminals should be hacked up and harvested, no matter what they did. You better not shoplift. And I call dibs on Charles Manson's kidneys.

k bye
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Chad Luedtke
Fledgling

9 Posts
Posted - Apr 25 2009 :  2:37:50 PM  Show Profile
I think it is wrong to just kill someone for his or her organs. I completely agree with giving away your organs once you have lived your life, but to kill someone for organs is absolutely ridiculous! I don't see why someone should die even if he or she is not going to make a difference in society!

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Mary Moeller
Newcomer

1 Posts
Posted - Apr 29 2009 :  8:30:36 PM  Show Profile
This is a horrible question! Who cares if he has no family? He has a right to live. The only way it would be OK would be if he gave his life willingly, but that is still a sticky situation.

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Ellen Stewart
Apprentice

26 Posts
Posted - Apr 30 2009 :  01:49:28 AM  Show Profile
You said “he has the right to live.” I’m just wondering, what exactly gives him that right? Where does the right come from? Is it a man-made right, something he’s born with, or something God-given? Is it absolute? If so, are all rights absolute or only certain ones?
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Dan Negron
Newcomer

3 Posts
Posted - Apr 30 2009 :  2:12:02 PM  Show Profile
I have to say that regardless of the circumstances, and regardless of how badly the person's organs are needed, it would be barbaric to kill him or her. I simply seems to me that killing a man, no matter how little he contributes to society, would be inhumane.

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Joseph Haag
Moderator

172 Posts
Posted - Apr 30 2009 :  3:28:06 PM  Show Profile
quote:
Originally posted by Dan

I mean, if people are giving back to our society we should go ahead and just let them go. But if people don't have friends, loved ones, or a job and are simply a waste of oxygen, then I think we should bag the and kill them and take their organs. Doing this would be putting a wasteful life to use in, say, helping a dying child who actually has a future and people who care for it.
So in response to the question I asked earlier (about what exactly the qualities that constitute a "good" person are) you would say that people have value only if

1) they contribute to society (economically, I presume)

2) have people who love them/like them

Would you, then, consider a crack baby who obviously does not contribute economically to society and whose mother doesn't love him, and who is too young to love anyone else a "waste of oxygen"? Should we simply kill him and harvest his organs for "better" babies who have parents that love them?

Don't we need better criteria for whether or not someone gets to live or die then just whether or not other people like them?

Better yet, isn't there more to life then simply winning the approval of others or making money? Is that really the only purpose for life?

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Paul McMullen
Fledgling

16 Posts
Posted - May 01 2009 :  1:06:24 PM  Show Profile
The problem with that, Joseph, is that a crack baby's organs are too small. Babies in general are too little, along with their organs, to be of any use in this connection. Killing babies is barbaric, but say killing a person with no worth that could save several, now that is not barbaric. Now what is a good person, one who has worth? I'd say its just someone who offers something good to society and has people who love him or her. A crack dealer offers nothing of worth to society, so take him. Rapist and murderers, take them. People who have done horrible things and in prison for what they have done. Why waste money and time trying to reform them? Just make them actually worth something to someone. Their organs could save people so take ’me. Some people deserve to die and others don't.

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Chad Luedtke
Fledgling

9 Posts
Posted - May 02 2009 :  3:31:05 PM  Show Profile
quote:
Originally posted by Ellen Stewart

You said “he has the right to live.” I’m just wondering, what exactly gives him that right? Where does the right come from? Is it a man-made right, something he’s born with, or something God-given? Is it absolute? If so, are all rights absolute or only certain ones?
He definitely has the right to live! It is a God-given right everyone is given at birth. He has not done anything wrong that would justify our depriving him of this right.... The fact that he is useless doesn't mean he now has the lost the right to live!

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Aaron Gallagher
Newcomer

2 Posts
Posted - May 02 2009 :  4:48:15 PM  Show Profile
i believe it would be highly immoral to act on your original proposition. It's impossible to decide if killing one is worth the lives it would save, or that the lives being saved are "worth" being saved to begin with.

What if the man with no family is a strong contributor to society and the person who receives his kidney is someone who will soon commit an arson?

Using someone's organs should be agreed to those whose organs they are, and should not take place until that person's life has run its natural course, no matter how long or short it may be.

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Joseph Haag
Moderator

172 Posts
Posted - May 02 2009 :  6:57:26 PM  Show Profile
"A crack dealer offers nothing of worth to society, so take him"

This may sound gruesome to you all, but I agree with this. Ever wonder why drugs are not a problem in Singapore? It's because they hang their drug dealers!

So this changes the argument entirely:

What if, instead of killing a man who has no friends, family, or job and harvesting his organs, we kill a convicted drug dealer, or a convicted rapist/child molestor, or a convicted murderer and use his or her organs to save those who are dying? Let's evaluate this not in terms of what a person isn't doing or doesn't have (a job/friends) but in terms of what he or she is doing and how much he or she is messing up the rest of society.

I'm sure we've all seen what kind of damage these crooks do to our communities/kids. I say get rid of them.

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Ellen Stewart
Apprentice

26 Posts
Posted - May 02 2009 :  7:34:13 PM  Show Profile
Joe, although I have a lot of faith in our legal system, there are reasons we use the death penalty so sparingly. There's this problem of it's just being so permanent! Seriously though, a major problem with killing all of the convicted criminals is the fact that they aren't all guilty. Innocent people go to jail; sometimes innocent people even confess to crimes they didn't committ for various reasons. If you just kill all the convicts, or all of the people convicted of heinous crimes, you will also end up killing innocent people. It's truly frightening how many death row inmates have been exonerated due to DNA testing.

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Ellen Stewart
Apprentice

26 Posts
Posted - May 02 2009 :  7:39:44 PM  Show Profile
quote:
Originally posted by Chad Luedtke

He definitely has the right to live! It is a God-given right that everyone has from birth. He has not done anything wrong that would justify our depriving him of this right.... The fact that he is useless doesn't mean he now has the lost the right to live!
So a person can lose the right to live? Is that also ordained by God or is it ordained by society? If there is a God-given right to life, then isn't it an absolute right? And wouldn't you argue that an absolute right cannot be taken away?

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