Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Jonathan Sierk (h1)

To bring up a topic I found very interesting that we discussed in class, do the means justify the ends. The conversation my group had on that day took a weird turn when I brought up a silly question to delve into this discussion question. If you transported back in time and met Hitler as a baby would you off him to save the lives of all those people? Would those means justify the ends? In our little group we all agreed that yeah maybe that would be the beneficial thing to do for humanity, but in reality none of could actually do it. The question then turned into; well if you did off him would his spot in the grand play of the universe just get filled by someone else. There were plenty of people hungry for power during that era, and lots of people searching for a leader. In our group we came to the conclusion that the answer to this big question of, do the means justify the ends was that it’s situational. Yea that’s not a real concrete answer (what really is in this world) but it stood true to at least the three of us in the group. If no one ends up hurt or things don’t end up on bad terms then yeah the means seem justified. However vice versa it’s harder to make a claim that the means are justified. I’ll throw this question out to anyone that feels like answering. Would you get rid of that baby who’s done nothing to get rid of that horrific event in history?

1 comment:

  1. Ah, the Jeb Bush question!

    Would I kill baby Hitler? Depends... am I the only time-traveler? If there are others, are they obliged to respect and not interfere with the normal development of history? If there are but I choose to violate that prime directive, will other travelers follow my precedent? Will I place my own existence at risk?

    But... if you believe you SHOULD do the deed but wouldn't be able to bring yourself to do it, you may be a theoretic (if not actual) utilitarian.

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