Killing to save another

[Perseus]

What do you think about this? Do you think it is right or wrong to kill to save another?
I have mixed views about this. In reality, I probably would, but I tell myself I would just injure them, but people tell them selves all sorts of things. All in all, one person ends up dead if you kill to save another, and what right, as humans, do we have the right to take another's life?

To the people who post, type in proper English. None of that stupid stuff and contribute to the thread, don't just say, "Yeah, what he said." Because that is just a waste of space(that is endless :P) and does not help the discussion.

[Sage]

It honestly depends on what people are involved for me. I wouldn't kill my best friend to save a random stranger, though I may kill a random stranger to safe my best friend. Is it selfish? Perhaps. But I'd the rest of my life with a murderous guilt over my head either way regardless of what I choose.

[Whisper]

This is very open to interpritation
you haven't stated if they'd both be strangers or one would be someone you care about, or both
you haven't even given a type of hypothetical example of your thinking for a basis
or anything really
just would you kill one to save one

yada yada...

could you specify please

and backseat modding
...dude..

[Perseus]

Oh, sorry. To kill someone to save a saved one. And, to kill to save someone you don't know.

[Skeln]

It depends on the situation for me. First of all, it just as well oculd be considered self-defense if the person you killed was going to kill the person you saved.

Like I said it depends on the situation. If someone was going to jump off a cliff and told you killing a certain person would make them not jump...well it's not right to kill someone then. You nmeed to contact someone who can handle the situation properly for that.

[Death]

Killing would ordinarily be wrong but if you are doing it to save a life, that's different. It depends on the situation. Say that there's 2 people who are ill and are going to die but you can sacrifice the life of 1 of the people (so they die instantly instead of in a week or so) to save the life of the other. To not do this would be evil. If you were sacrificing a mass murderer to save a good person, that too would be good - by sving the mass murderer, you will only be causing more deaths which is clearly evil. Also, it would be good to sacrifice an 85 year old to save a 25 year old since the former has already lived most of his/her life anyway.

Also, lets say that there is this island which has 1,000,000 people on it. There's a big building on this island with 1000 people inside and you are in the army and flying a helicopter above with a bomb (you found this bomb in a place hit hard by terrorists and you were in the process of handing it in) and you suddenly find out that the building with the 1000 inside has another bomb inside that will explode in 10 seconds. There's no time to get people out and if it goes off, the 1,000,000 on the island will die. You can either drop the bomb on the building and kill 1000 innocent people and destroy the bomb (saving 999,000 lives) or do nothing and let the bomb kill 1,000,000 people (saving 0 lives). Obviously, the good option is killing 1000 people so that many more can survive. It's for the greater good. Abstaining from the situation would be evil.

It isn't always good to kill to save a life though. There could just as easily be evil or neutral circumstances (kill a stranger to save a loved one or kill a dtranger to save a stranger, etc (these are neutral)). Interesting question though.

[INFERNO]

Killing a random person to save a random person I'd likely not do. I'd probably have no reason for having the saved one live.

Killing a random person to save a loved one I'd be more inclined to do. However, it does not mean that I always would.

Killing a love one to save a loved one would depend on the rankings of how I liked/loved them each.

Despite each of those, the situation must be taken into context. If the person is dying no matter what (i.e. few months to live), then there is little need for killing someone else who is harming them.

Also, another situational factor is how the person to be saved is being threatened and/or harmed, the geographical location, relative locations of others, etc... .

[Sage]

This reminds me of an interesting thought I read about a while back.

If you had control over a pipe of deadly gas, and had to be directed to either a room with five people or a room with one person, which room would you direct it to? You have no knowledge of what any of these people are like.

If you directed it to the room with one person, then another question for you. Do you believe it is moral to kill a healthy man to give his organs to five ill patients who would die without the transplants? Is it not using the same logic, kill one to save many?

[Shogun]

To be honest that was too broad of a question, it's way too circumstantial, to be honest, probably 99% of people would say that they would save a loved one over a stranger, is that selfish, yes, is it wrong, yes, is it right, yes. Idk, it's hard to explain b/c of the fact that it just depends. That probably didn't help but.... W/e lol

[Zero Beat]

I don't really know, i guess id most likly if i knew the person i was killing no. But if it was to save a loved one AND id know the person, id go to the last resort. *BANG* <--( He killed himself)

[Camazotz]

Honestly, it wouldn't matter who I saved. Both are going to die eventually, so I'd probably pick the younger person because they could use their youth to help out more than saving an old man who would die soon. If I must, I would kill one to save many.

[lamboman43]

Killing a random person to save a random person I'd likely not do. I'd probably have no reason for having the saved one live.

Killing a random person to save a loved one I'd be more inclined to do. However, it does not mean that I always would.

Killing a love one to save a loved one would depend on the rankings of how I liked/loved them each.

Despite each of those, the situation must be taken into context. If the person is dying no matter what (i.e. few months to live), then there is little need for killing someone else who is harming them.

Also, another situational factor is how the person to be saved is being threatened and/or harmed, the geographical location, relative locations of others, etc... .

I would have to agree with most of this post. The part I disagree on is killing a loved one for a loved one. It would, for me, have to depend on how old the one needing saved was. If my great Grandpa of 75 was going to get hit by a car along with my sister i would save my sister. Since I can only get one at a time it would be her since she was the youngest.

[sebbie]

Its a difficult thing to answer because we do not know what the full ripples of our actions will be. How do we know that a person who we save wont go on to commit evil acts which could have been prevented by letting them die.