Morality test.

[Brighteye]

But surely as the government of your country you have a duty only to look after your own citizens? You have no mandate to care for others and therefore you can kill the whole world if it protects your citizens.

Unless, of course, you do have a mandate to respect the lives of foreigners because of international treaties. In which case you have no right to take the lives of anyone in the town. You must let them live, even if the terrorists will escape.

 

[silver 2039]

I would bomb the town into the ground without a second thought. My people come before foreginers. There is no other option to prevent the attack thus regretfully this must be done.


Edit: On second though no I wouldn't (evil warlord mode turned off). By massacreing a town I would simply inflame the population giving the terroists a larger recruitment base. It would be a pointless venture and a war crime to boot. I would proably atttempt to use precesion guided muntiions to seal of tunnel entrances and exists. Yeah thats a good soloution and then send in special forces to pick them up afterward. Bombing a civllian area isn't a path one should go down.

 

[Eukaryote]

Option 3. Because these terrorists will attack again and agian and in the long term I'd save lives.

 

[Azash]

This poll is biased.

 

[mdwh]

Very simple piece of maths here, presented with a completely fixed situation where all parameters are known. Is population of foreign town less than 3000? If yes, then destroy it. I value a life neither more or less for it being that of a foreigner, and hence save the maximum number of lives possible.

It's not so simple - what about the war which follows?

 

[Aneurism]

This poll may as well have been stated like this:

You are the head of the Israeli government, 7 of your soldiers have been kidnapped by a terrorist organization hiding just inside the Lebanese border. 2 of them have already been killed and the rest could be killed any time. These terrorists are most likely foreign nationals supplied and armed by third party countries like Iran.

What would you do:

a) Send in a special operations force to capture or kill the terrorists who took your soldiers

b) Bomb the village you believe the kidnapped soldiers are in, and then send in some special operations forces to hopefully extract your prisoners and capture or kill the terrorists

c) Bomb all the border area in hopes of killing the terrorists

d) Bomb the entire infrastructure and all the cities of Lebanon with total lack of regard for human life, in the hopes that it will teach the terrorists and Lebanese civilians who may have harbored them a lesson they will never forget.

 

[Aneurism]

Many things in the Bible seem crazy to me, but nothing's more unbeliveable than hell! Does it make sense that a rightous a loving god would allow such a place to exist? I think not, that seems like an oxymoron to me! It was probably cooked up by missionaries thousands of years ago to scare pagans.

I agree with your hell theory.

 

[philippe]

i would not bomb the town, but after the attack i would do a joint effort with the other country to bring those terrorists to justice and get in cooperation with the other country to halt any future attacks.

 

[Tycoon101]

By logical extrapolation you are therefore saying it is alright to blow up the planet to stop the terrorists.

Yes, because the Terrorists will not rebuild society. If we destroyed much of the human population then we could get a fresh start and rebuild society to eradicate crime. By purging the world, we would be setting ourselves on a much better track.

 

[Ayatollah So]

There are only two ways this could be justified. Either the town is uninhabited, or there's been an agreement beforehand with the people of that town that if it will save more lives than it will kill, then it's ok to use such tactics.

But if such an agreement makes sense for all parties, I think it is OK to act as if the agreement has already been made. And what we are doing now is publicly discussing such an agreement. In the real world, MrCynical's point about uncertainty is extremely important. Real world experience shows that military planners usually underestimate the civilian casualties their actions will inflict, and overestimate the effectiveness of a strike. So, I'd say we should have a rule that says that you can attack the town only if, in your best estimate, the population to be killed is far less than the number to be saved.

Such a rule will give us the best survival chances overall, given that we can be either "in the town" or "in the targeted country" on different occasions.

 

[dh_epic]

Okay, I'm assuming for simplicity's sake that I have a choice between these two options and their implications:
- Bombing the town has a 100% chance of causing the death of all people in that town (all of which are civilian foreigners) and all terrorists underneath the town, as well as the complete and utter destruction of the city's infrastructure
- Not bombing the town has a 100% chance of causing the death of exactly 3,000 of my own civilian citizens this year, followed by the deaths of all of the terrorists involved
If the town has less than 3,000 people, I would bomb it. Then at least I won't have made martyrs out of the terrorists (as they would have if they successfully attacked my citizens and then were killed), and fewer civilians will have died. The world may hate me for it, but I would do my best to show foreign nations my reasoning and what little choice I had - try to inspire some empathy, that is. And also send plenty of aid to the country I bombed.
If it were more than 3,000 people, though, I would not bomb the town, because I would still minimize civilian casualties. Also, although I would make martyrs out of the terrorists, I think if I did bomb the town, the international (and domestic) outrage would be too much, especially if it was significantly higher than 3,000 in the town.

[edit]Oh yeah, treaties and existing diplomatic relations and all that stuff. Err, I don't really feel like adding that factor in. I guess you could say that I assume that all of this is completely neutral.[/edit]

This is mostly the way I was thinking when I put in my vote for the second option. It's really a roundabout way of saying -- do you consider all human life equal?

But I also wanted people to think long term. So yes, I wanted them to think about the diplomatic fall out as much as I wanted them to think about what kind of message this sends to terrorists around the world. Which are they more concerned with?

This poll is biased.

See above. This poll IS designed to make you ask the question "do I value my own citizens more than foreign citizens?"

You can definitely confound the poll. In fact, I'd welcome people to launch a spinoff poll, and pick one variable to play with.

Maybe everything is the same, but the terrorists WOULD get away, making it questionable as to how many more deaths they might cause.

Or maybe you'd still catch the terrorists after their next attack, but you know that the country they are hiding in is ruled by a dictator who hates both you AND the terrorists.

It's just very interesting to see peoples' rationales. We already know that a good 1/5 of this community does not consider all human life equal.

 

[toh6wy]

Yes, because the Terrorists will not rebuild society. If we destroyed much of the human population then we could get a fresh start and rebuild society to eradicate crime. By purging the world, we would be setting ourselves on a much better track.

Um, he said by your logic, you would support blowing up the world to destroy terrorists. That means there would be no fresh, new start at all because everyone would be dead.

 

[nc-1701]

I would bomb regardless because as the leader of my nation I believe that it would be the equivelant of high treason to allow an enemy to kill my civillians when they got have been stopped.

So I do not believe its the right thing to do.
I would however still do it as it would be my honor and imperative to protect my citizens at all costs.

 

[jimbob27]

Seems the real question is about race. If you know where their hideout is after they do the attack, I'm assuming you wouldn't have any problem capturing them after the attack has taken place.

Supposing the population is exactly 3000, you're basically asking whether you'd rather see 3000 of your own people die, or 3000 from another country.

3000 people are going to die either way, the real question is whether or not you value the lives of 3000 foreigners more than 3000 of your own countrymen.

I'd set up the special forces in their hideout and arrest them afterwards..... Theres always the chance the terrorist bombs fail or something.

 

[salty mud]

If, as you say, the terrorists kill 3000 of MY citizens, I'd bomb their village if their is LESS than 3000 civilians in that town. I would aim to kill the terrorists, but at less cost than the damage caused in my own lands.

Very difficult question. Good Poll!

 

[shortguy]

I would not bomb the town, because there is a grave likelihood that such an attack would precipitate more deadly conflict in the immediate future.

 

[dh_epic]

This is how I would interpret the poll so far:

- Roughly 2/5 of Civ Fanatics think that it's alright to harm life to protect life.

Those who are against harming life to protect life may do so because they value human life in general, especially noncombatants as protected by international law. Others have practical concerns that violence will only provoke further war and violence, thus failing to acquire the security we so desire.

- Roughly 1/5 believe that some lives are worth more than others.

This, too, may represent a moral or practical viewpoint. There is an aspect of duty, believing that a civil servant must do everything for his/her country, first. Many see loyalty to their country as a moral responsibility higher than loyalty to humanity. Others see it as a practical concern, understanding that they will be judged by their fellow citizens, and thus need to think of popular opinion.

Frankly, I still find the idea that someone would kill numerous foreigners to protect fewer nationals quite immoral. I didn't try to construct this poll with a right answer, but I can't help but feel like this is the single wrong answer.

 

[Brighteye]

dh_epic, are you religious?
Why do you think it's wrong to kill more foreigners to save more of your own civilians?
Why do people accept utilitarianism? How do you prove that all lives are worth a set value, and that it is acceptable to kill some to save others?
As I've pointed out in a different thread, would you then willingly die to save the life of one man, who has more productivity ahead of him than you do? Would you die so that everyone in the country had 10p more a year? That's a huge increase in the greater good.

As the head of your country you have accepted a duty to protect your citizens. You have no duty to care for other humans until you accept such a duty by being part of an international treaty to that effect.

 

[mdwh]

As the head of your country you have accepted a duty to protect your citizens. You have no duty to care for other humans until you accept such a duty by being part of an international treaty to that effect.

Well the head of the country is also supposed to represent the country's wishes, and you don't know that everyone in the country would favour such an action. In fact, chances are many of them won't. (Plus of course, more harm may come to those citizens if a war results, which would be highly likely, or it encourages more terrorism.)

 

[Eukaryote]

I agree with your hell theory.

Thanks dude!