One of the awesome little monsters Bri and I found in an alley.
Spark of Life.
I have the strangest dreams sometimes. I mean, not strange in the random, crazy, acid trip kind of way, but strange in that I am presented with intense moral dilemmas with no easy solution and consequences for choosing either path. Last night I had to either brutally kill an innocent person with a crow bar, or let him accidentally destroy information that would eventually lead to cures for major diseases. Weird, I know, but I did it. It was vivid and gory. I felt the bar in my hands as I awoke, a quote running through my head. Philosopher Jeremy Bentham - “It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.” Who the hell am I? Utilitarian dreams?! Another similar quote, from The Wrath of Khan.Spock - “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Had this been a real situation, does looking at it from this semi-naturalist point of view justify my actions? Is the difference between right and wrong ultimately subjective? It didn’t feel like I was saving anyone. I just felt like a murderer.
I guess ultimately it’s not anyone’s place to play God, not to bring Theology into it. It wasn’t my place to stop his mistake. Peter Singer - “If I have seen that from an ethical point of view I am just one person among the many in my society, and my interests are no more important, from the point of view of the whole, than the similar interests of others within my society, I am ready to see that, from a still larger point of view, my society is just one among other societies, and the interests of members of my society are no more important, from that larger perspective, than the similar interests of members of other societies… Taking the impartial element in ethical reasoning to its logical conclusion means, first, accepting that we ought to have equal concern for all human beings.”
…Just some thoughts.
