would you kill a man?

These are a bunch of hypothetical questions to make you think. It is posed many times in many different forms in many different places and always made me personally wonder what I would do. These are kind of dark questions but if you look at it a certain way it makes you think...

REMEMBER TO ANSWER HONESTLY AND THINK ABOUT IT
1a Would you ever kill a man?
1b If he endangered your life?
1c Your families life?
1d if that man killed one of your family?

side notes: Could you take a life to avenge another? would it truly help you cope? would it be a selfish act? what would it prove?

2a Could you kill someone if it meant saving 3 other people?
2b to save a million other people?
2c could you kill a child to save a city?

Side notes: you could do it to an innocent person and look them in the eyes? Could you live with that decision? Can you ever recover?

3a would you sacrifice yourself for someone you love?
3b for an idea?
3c for a stranger?

Now that the questions are posed if you look at them the lesson is clear. What would a man do? Would he do an "evil" act to do a "good" thing? Does the good outway the bad? Or is there no diffrentiating either of them? Or maybe it shows us life isn't good and evil or right and wrong but of decisions and consequences. After you answer meditate on this and answer it after sometime thinking of it and give me your insights. If you had already meditated on this as I had so many times before just add your insight under your answers.

Another idea is how far are you willing to give your life for someone other than yourself? The questions 3a-3c pose the question if you see your life more valuable than someone elses, would you watch someone die knowing you could of saved them but chose to live another day.

Sometimes truths can be learned in the grimmest ideas

1a- Possibly, depends on the situation. For protection yeah, just because I dislike them or their ideas no.

1b- yes

1c- Certainly

could I take a life to avenge another? There is only one time I could think of doing this. If someone ever killed my mom, it would take a lot of restraint on my part to not return their actions upon them. I know that sounds hypocritical and "not Jedi-like", but that is just something I could never get past. I think it would help me cope, yes it would be selfish, nothing to prove really-I'd just feel better.

2a- No, unless this person was a robber and the people were his hostages.

2b- I don't know. Too many unknowns here.

2c- no. Only way that would be a yes is if the kid was older and a terrorist or something. Innocent child-then no.

3a- Some people yes. Others no, but I would be willing to take risks to save them.

3b- no. Again I put myself in some danger, but not lethal danger. I'm willing to take a few kicks, punches and fights for my beliefs and ideas, but that is about it. you can't do much with those ideas if you are dead.

3c-No. Again maybe put myself in some amount of danger, but not get myself killed.

1. Sure, if I had too, but as much as practically possible I'd try everything not to kill and instead detain or disable. No I wouldn't avenge anyone with killing, even if it did help cope, yes it would be a selfish act if I did (which I wouldnt), and it would prove a few things but none of them of any usefulness.

2. No I believe in a more complex and direct association of responsibility. I'd do everything in my power short of killing an innocent person irregardless of the resulting damage.

3a. mortal sacrifice, yes
3b. mortal sacrifice, no
3c. mortal sacrifice, possibly

Like Cynthia said some of these questions aren't very specific, so they're hard to answer.

For your first questions, I would say yes to the first three. I'd kill someone in direct defense of myself or my family. I would say no to the fourth part though, I would not look for revenge or vengeance.

As for questions two, yeah I would kill someone if that person was going to kill 3 other people, but if it was a kind of "Kill this person, and these three people will live somehow" blah blah, I wouldn't. It would be the same answer for the other two parts of that question.

As for three, I'll just answer those simply.

A. Yes
B. Maybe
C. Possibly.

I would also say thanks for asking this, I think it is important to think about, especially if, like myself, someone takes the whole jedi defending others thing seriously. I mean of course I take it to mean as being charitable and looking to help others, but I do also see as if I am in the situation where I can save someone's life, I am going to do it.

1a) Possibly
1b) Depends
1c) Depends
1d) There's a good chance, yes.

Could you take a life to avenge another? would it truly help you cope? would it be a selfish act? what would it prove?

Not really revenge. For lack of better way to say it, you can fuck with me once, not twice. Death simply eliminates the possibility of a second time.

2a,b,c I would want to, but I think I'd have to be in that situation to know for sure.

you could do it to an innocent person and look them in the eyes? Could you live with that decision? Can you ever recover?

I have done things which aren't in my personal wellbeing's interest before, so I guess i'd manage.

3a: Yes
3b: Take a risk yes, die willingly No. I like life better than ideas.
3c: same thing.

Now that the questions are posed if you look at them the lesson is clear. What would a man do? Would he do an "evil" act to do a "good" thing? Does the good outway the bad? Or is there no diffrentiating either of them?

Good and evil are irrelevant concepts.

Another idea is how far are you willing to give your life for someone other than yourself? The questions 3a-3c pose the question if you see your life more valuable than someone elses, would you watch someone die knowing you could of saved them but chose to live another day.

It all depends on the value you put on things. People you know, people you don't know, cities, etc. Sacrfice San francisco and save chicago, or sacrifice chicago to save san francisco.

I like to avoid these rubbish situations where I have a choice between a shit decision and another shit decision.

Hmmm, this is something I've always thought that we cannot honestly answer till we are in the particular situation ourselves, sure we have an opinion on the matter, but will you're emotions or instincts kick in and overpower you're conditioning?

My opinions on the matter are as follows

1a) Depends on the situation
1b) yes - if i could not find a less fatal solution
1c) Yes - though much as the above I would prefer to disarm[allot less paperwork in the aftermath]
1d) Can't honestly say... would like to say no as I don't believe in vengeance or that form of justice, but in all actuality I could see my morals cracking in that instance, Most of all without being there I can't say

2) the many before the individual philosophy never bides well with me, when given two choices, I prefer to pick the third where both happen, the many and the individual survive, but given the chance to kill hitler, or stop a mass murderer, I wouldn't think twice if it prevented death and pain in the future

3a)Yes
3b)Definitly depends on the idea... I tend not to shed blood over ideals as most the time there are flaws in all of them
3c)Yes

To answer these questions while sitting comfortably in a chair in my living room looks a little different to me than responding to them while someone shoots at you ... so my universal answer to this question is: maybe, depends on the time and place and definitely on the weather conditions

anduril wrote: To answer these questions while sitting comfortably in a chair in my living room looks a little different to me than responding to them while someone shoots at you ... so my universal answer to this question is: maybe, depends on the time and place and definitely on the weather conditions

^this.

As for me, with my rage previously having put me in several situations where I had the opportunity to do so, I can say with relative certainty that I would probably never kill another, unless it was 100% necessary to prevent immediate mortal injury to myself or someone else. In all other situations, I have proven to myself that I would only use the exact amount of force required to stop them. In the kind of hypothetical situations you posed, it doesn't matter what we think we'd do. When you get in that situation, you react and do whatever your instinct is. Mine just happens to not have it me to kill.

These questions are really designed to see how much we value human life. You could ask "would you kill one child to save a 100 million people?" "what if that one child was Hitler?" and continue along those lines. Human sentiment plays a lot into what we believe the value of human life to be. Most anyone you ask the first question to would of course never kill a child, since society tells us that children are innocent, even if that child grows up to be one of the worst human rights violators of all time. What is a life worth to you? 1 billion strangers? 1 million? 10? what if you know that person? what if it's the most important person in the world to you and killing them spares the rest of the planet from sharing their fate? Or maybe just not saving them? Is it the same?

WOW, what a question.:ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy:

Of course some of us have and do serve our Country in the Armed Forces and Police Forces.

Many of us have seen and done many things they we would never have dreamed that we would.

We have stood in the way to protect others, some have taken life to prevent others from losing theirs, we have protected those who needed support.

Where does that put us ????

But would you kill a man ???

Would you need to kill a man ? is a different question.

Its easy to say "NO"

But the situation changes the question!!!

Who?, Why?, When?, What?.

In the comfort of my home with my security protected by others different thoughts, given a change of circumstance and charged with protecting others different thoughts again.

Lots to ponder.

keithmewes wrote: Of course some of us have and do serve our Country in the Armed Forces and Police Forces.

Many of us have seen and done many things they we would never have dreamed that we would.

We have stood in the way to protect others, some have taken life to prevent others from losing theirs, we have protected those who needed support.

Where does that put us ????

I tend to think in that circumstance you are acting under orders - so it's not your decision to make, its your intepretation of how the orders apply. Having good orders/ROE etc means you shouldnt have too much to intepret and instead just be keeping up the situational awareness of who is who and what is what. This also means the responsibility for the actions you take are associated directly with the chain of command - and the closer that the orders are followed the less responsibility the shooter (etc) should have, and the more the responsibility can be pushed back up that chain for making and having the orders/ROE etc.