An undercover officer dilemma.
Suppose an undercover cop was assigned to infiltrate a gang - a particularly gruesome gang. In order to join the gang they make you pass an initiation, which consists of them kidnapping a person and having you kill them. Would killing them be morally wrong?
Before you answer please consider the following facts that might have weight in your decision.
- The undercover officer had no idea about the initiation test, they were unaware that they'd be required to kill an innocent person to join.
- There are too many gang members present for the undercover officer to fight back and possibly save the kidnapped victim.
- If the officer refuses, the gang will kill both of them.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Before you answer please consider the following facts that might have weight in your decision.
- The undercover officer had no idea about the initiation test, they were unaware that they'd be required to kill an innocent person to join.
- There are too many gang members present for the undercover officer to fight back and possibly save the kidnapped victim.
- If the officer refuses, the gang will kill both of them.
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Comments (51)
Under duress moral considerations take a backseat in my opinion. Things are beyond your control. The best the cop can do is end it for the victim in a quick and merciful manner.
I think we need to differentiate freedom in a legal sense, that is freedom from duress, full control of faculties etc, from metaphysical freedom of will. The former is used to determine whether actions are legally binding or carry consequences. The latter is the basis of morality.
From the standpoint of morality, you always have a choice. It's making a choice that demonstrates your free will, not the other way around. Choosing to refuse is still a choice, even it it gets you killed.
Of course the gang members are also responsible, but responsibility is not a zero-sum game. It can rest with many people simultaneously, or just with one.
If we excluded situations of duress from moral judgement entirely, morality would no longer be a general rule for conduct, and the definition of duress would turn into a subject of moral philosophy, where I do not think it belongs.
Undercover officers already know that they have to assume an identity whereby they might be asked to perform illegal or immoral activities associated with whatever group they are penetrating.
If they have no idea about such tests, then they have been inadequately prepared. I pity those in such circumstances being put in such a moral, life- threatening spot. It is difficult to see how anyone could judge any decision or action taken as being immoral.
It could be argued that an undercover role in itself is immoral. I think it is a case of whether the final outcome is worth all the deceit and the means to reach that point.
Quoting hachit
I think you meant you would say 'Yes, killing them would be morally wrong'.
So would you then say that an undercover officer is morally wrong simply for taking the job which involves lying ? Because in your world, lying is always wrong.
How then would this tie in with 'All people should be respected' ?
Under the assumption that preservation of life is the primary marker for moral agency:
Being intelligent enough to be a law enforcement officer, and therefore having knowledge of extant immoral atrocities of gangs, the officer should never have volunteered to infiltrate such gang in the first place, knowing full well the possible requirement for his participation in similar atrocities henceforth expected of him as a “prospect”.
While it is reasonable to suppose a freely acting person’s moral credo would not prohibit some gang related atrocities, in the interest of an objectively greater good, it is hardly moral in any case to arbitrarily extinguish a human life. Under the conditions of ignorance of an expectation for the officer having to take a life in order to save his own, he is necessarily obligated by his duty to his moral law, to self-sacrifice.
All this talk about miscellaneous moral dilemmas, but never a consideration of the requisite “moral feeling” necessarily associated with them. Their proper examination is sufficient to qualify the moral worth of the dilemma itself.
Yes, in my world is always wrong.
(Again, prarifrasing Kant) all human deserve to be treated as an individual person with there what's and needs.
To lie to someone undermines there judgment.
Is there job wrong, yes because lie is part of the job.
I prefer to say nothing than to lie.
I understand you point.
So a try to understand this when a cop lies it sends a message saying sometimes liying is ok. If living is sometimes ok, but when is that sometimes. To people like me is like saying liying is not a big deal, wich I think is not true.
But the officer's self sacrifice, by the terms of the dilemma, accomplishes nothing. Sacrificing a life for no gain seems contrary to preservation of life being the primary marker.
I don't think that merely the fact that the officer pulls the trigger, rather than allows others to kill the victim, should change the outcome of the moral judgement.
Quoting hachit
I don't think that is an entirely accurate application of Kant's philosophy. Kant accepts e.g. self defense as part of the general rule on killing. Kant states that moral judgements must be applicable in general, but not that they must have the simplest possible form.
Perhaps by the terms of the dilemma, but the dilemma itself is merely an occassion for the exploration of the predicates of moral behavior. With respect to that behavior, self-sacrifice is the epitome of the obligation to never be the cause of the arbitrary extinguishment of a human life. Even if you lose yours, you have fulfilled your obligation not to take a life.
Of course, there is nothing given which makes that specific moral obligation in itself absolutely necessary. It is only upon the determination by an autonomous free will, which declares such obligation, that the adherence to it is mandatory in order to fulfill that particular self-imposed moral duty.
I agree with your critique of the application of Kantian philosophy.
No it isn't all kant philosophy. I included him because there are two ideas in agree with. (The principal of universalization, and the mere means principle).
The first is as you said
The second is you should consider that everyone else is human to.
The rest comes from the bibles teachings. Things like sin is a seed that if you grow it it will spread into parts of your life you thought it would not affect.
But because the bible is not applicable to everyone, I try to make a secondary argument without it.
This seems a bit difficult to swallow. If someone were to force you to do something i.e. you have no choice in the matter, as is the case in the OP, would you hold yourself responsible for your actions?
Before you answer that question you have to remember that what you're doing is not your wish but someone else. You are used only as a means to an end, like a weapon as it were.
Albert Camus.
Perfect.
But would not resisting that outside influence be the epitome of freedom, proving that you are indeed not just a means to an end, but an actor with free will?
In the real world, outside influences abound. The thief might steal because they are hungry, or addicted to drugs. Their decisions might be constrained by a difficult childhood, poverty, or their peers. Where does freedom end and coercion begin? The law sets somewhat arbitrary boundaries, but it has the advantage of being able to tailor those boundaries to a specific purpose. The ability to engage in contracts, for example, is not the same standard as criminal responsibility. Morality, though, would need a general line to be drawn. But in a deterministic world, how can you draw such a line? Is not everything part of the same causality?
I don't doubt that gangs as vile as this exist. The purpose of this sort of exercise is to bind the subject to the group by drinking from the trough of guilt and moral degradation. Should the undercover agent carry out the murder, as ordered, he or she will survive to face further impossible moral choices. I can imagine that a Mexican drug cartel like the Sinaloa gang might trap people through this sort of maneuver.
Just as vile but small local gangs (operating in a neighborhood near you) are known to require a felony crime of new members -- at the very least, an armed robbery or rape. Purse snatching won't suffice.
The morally appropriate approach would be to seduce a member of the gang to become a prosecution witness for what goes on in the gang.
One can always suggest ways to avoid the dilemma, maybe install a mechanical break on the trolley and check its function prior to driving it, but that's just avoiding the truth attempting to be uncovered with the thought experiment.
Personally I'm exploring how far you could push a hero and some readers still think that they could be considered a hero. But the previous implications would feed into that.
May I offer a nice Tuscan Chianti and perhaps a Hoyo de Monterrey to accompany, so to celebrate the good man’s martyrdom? My treat, of course.
Surely in the real world.
I understand that this is an extreme hypothetical situation. I get that part.
It may not even be all that artificial. I gather that gangs and cartels at least sometimes perform rituals which are similar to the hypothetical.
I agree, while scenarios might not play out exactly as I've described, I do think its close enough to reality to pass off as realistic in a story setting - which is what I was trying to accomplish. While likely not intended, I did enjoy reading the following line:
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's pretty much what I was aiming for. The vision I have for this story is fairly dark, and it's about a hero, if the reader sees this person as such but that's my goal, attempting to pull himself back out of that trough. Thanks for the non-sugarcoated observation :)
You mention a distinction between metaphysical free will and a legal free will. Are you saying that the latter is being constrained and not the former? What exactly do you hope to achieve through this?
Are you saying that despite the gang’s influence the cop still has freedom to choose?
In my opinion the situation is such that free will, even the metaphysical free will you mention, is absent in the calculus. The cop simply has no choice but to do as told. I think there’s a precedence regarding such a situation. If I remember correctly only the top Nazi members were executed for the Holocaust; the soldiers who actually did the killing were pardoned or their sentences commuted because they were just “following orders”.
I'm not sure that is correct. When the allies closed in on Germany proper, they had a list of top Nazis who they sought, and if found, arrested. Some (like Hitler, Goebbles, Goring, Himmler, and a few dozen others) committed suicide. Some escaped (Eichmann, Mengele and others). Those who were not tried for various crimes against humanity were subject to the not very thorough denazification program. It isn't that the allies didn't care about punishing nazis, it was that there were too many less-than-top-level nazis to deal with--hundreds of thousands, if not a few million. Plus, having pulverized much of Germany, having killed many Germans, having won the war, having occupied Germany, the allies had their hands full and were, I gather, anxious to be done with the whole thing.
"Just following orders" was not an acceptable alibi at any of the trials, Nuremberg on down to the present. It didn't work for Eichmann at his trial in 1961. (Eichmann was responsible for organizing much of the Holocaust effort; he was a high level administrator, not a low level operative.) It didn't work for those who were tried immediately after the war. It didn't work for lower level SS officers who were, at one time or another, tried. It isn't an acceptable defense in those cases where prosecutions continue (even in 2019) of the occasional now aged concentration camp guard who is identified and brought to prosecutorial attention.
What saved most of the Nazis from trial--from low level operatives to the SS Einsatzgruppen who followed the Wehrmacht into the USSR and conducted huge Jew-killing operations by firing squad (3 million?) to mid-level Gestapo was the inordinately complicated task of combing out and sorting all these people. There were around 8,000,000 Nazi Party members. Not all party members were engaged in criminal activities, and many people who were engaged in criminal activity were not party members. The Nazis kept very good records, and the mass of records was so great no single investigative team could plow through very much of it quickly.
By the early 50s the occupation was wound down and investigations and prosecutions were turned over to the German Courts. Not surprisingly, the German courts were not terribly anxious to to pursue all the potential cases.
What about the degree of blame assigned to Nazis. Hitler is literally blamed for the whole thing. Doesn't this show that moral responsibility is graded according to the degree of autonomy one has in one's actions?
I always felt this was a false dilemma, or at least the wrong name for the actual dilemma. Acts are about consequences. An act is designed to bring about some change, how could it's morality ever be divorced from the those changes? At the same time, it's impossible to judge the entirety of the consequences of an act. So far as we know, all acts lead toward the heat death of the universe. Where are we supposed to draw the line and judge?
The actual dilemma the question hints at is whether consequences for individuals can be relative to the consequences of other individuals, or whether they are always absolute. That is what the Trolley dilemma is about.
Quoting TheMadFool
Yes. The cop is under duress, but still has the theoretical freedom of will. What I am trying to achieve is, ultimately, to show how the notion of free will interacts with a deterministic universe.
Quoting TheMadFool
He technically has, as there is more than one way to resolve the situation. His hand is not literally forced.
Quoting TheMadFool
I would argue that this position necessarily leads to the conclusion that metaphysical free will is "absent in the calculus" for every possible situation, since outside influences are deterministic.
Quoting TheMadFool
You remember the Nuremberg trials, but individual soldiers could be prosecuted. Germany has recently put one of the last surviving KZ guards on trial. "Following orders" is not a legal defense under German law. But either way, that is a statement about law, not morality.
An undercover author infiltrates a particularly gruesome gang of dangerous, babbling thinkers.
No initiation required; although will be put to the test eventually by a bitter crank. His laser sabre language cutting right to the chase.
The question remains would the real assignment ever have been discovered.
Given the lack of feedback to a variety of responses, it would only have been a matter of time.
Or would it ?
Taking advantage of the group's fascination with yacking speculation, addiction to drug-fuelled opinion, the undercover agent would slyly glean material for the dark story.
Brains picked and observations mined for golden nuggets.
How moral is that ?
I feel used and abused :gasp: :naughty:
Nothing new there then :roll:
No offense to you or anyone else here, but the "golden nuggets" are found in the works from Kant, Bentham, J.S. Mills, Carl Jung, etc. While I won't claim to be an expert in the field of ethics, and I have no doubt many of you know a lot more about this subject than me, I'm confident I know enough from reading the aforementioned great thinkers to create my story. I'm interested in what people think about this scenario, would killing the kidnapped victim be considered moral? You could have two people with the same education and understanding of this topic have two completely different answers because they give different factors different weights. I'm only interested in what I asked for.
I will say this though, if you think you have a golden nugget with respect to the major or minor disciplines, don't post it on a public forum. I'm particularly pleased with the dilemma I've thought up, I think it's an interesting twist on the trolley problem. Imagine the side track option where you kill the one worker is modified to where the one worker is simply further down the main track and the side track only lets you bypass the 5 workers. Your choice is between killing the 5 plus the one further down the track or bypassing them and only killing the one person who was going to die either way. It's also a bit more realistic imo, is the horn out on the trolley too? Even the mechanical break? They won't hear it coming? Or hear you yelling? It also makes it much more personal, you're directly killing someone, you're not just driving a trolley. Sure there's the modified trolley dilemma where you're asked if you'd push a large person in front of the trolley in order to save the five, but that doesn't include the first thing I mentioned that my dilemma introduces, the fact that no matter the choice one specific person will die.
Maybe I've stumbled across a very good moral dilemma that might make it into an ethics book later on, or maybe I've overestimated my own creativity. It's almost assuredly the latter, which is why I didn't have an issue posting it on a public forum where anyone could read it.
As you say, Hitler is literally blamed for the whole thing (see: great man theory of history). In a different context, American presidents like to take the credit for a good economy, and they are blamed for a bad one. It's absurd. There are far too many powerful economic players for the president to claim much credit or take much blame.
The Nazi era sprang from deep roots. Authoritarian government, antisemitism, rigid social systems, elitism, militarism, and so on and so forth were present before Adolph Hitler's parents were born. The new unified German State of the 19th century was not particularly liberal, even if some progressive programs existed.
What Hitler managed to do was precipitate out a new political party from the turgid turbid mess of Germany following WWI. He led. Lesser but very able leaders gathered around him and more minor leaders and many followers flocked to the Nazi Party. Hitler didn't have to invent very much. The SA, for instance, the brown shirted storm troopers, were essentially the Freikorps--unemployed demobilized soldiers with nothing to do. The Krupp family's huge armaments business in the Ruhr anticipated future business well in advance of Hitler. Big Business in Germany didn't especially like decentralized, competitive free enterprise. They appreciated the Nazi's approach, for the most part.
Had Hitler not committed suicide, had he been arrested, he would certainly have been executed. There were many more who were not arrested, not tried, not convicted, not executed for war crimes, who ought to have been. Hitler didn't pull off his various evil works single handed.
These are the sorts of questions that divide the Kantianists from the Utilitarians. The former will allow the universe to burn to the ground before they allow a moral rule to be violated, consequences be damned. The latter would just add up the pain and tears from option A versus B and then choose.
I think that it would be hard to judge a man harshly for choosing either option, but I think we can all agree that the true morally corrupt were the gang members. Of course, these hypotheticals need not require there be a morally corrupt agent. You could have asked if it were ok to cook and serve several babies in order to save a dozen others who had been shipwrecked.
I disagree. If you avoid a moral judgment based upon the negative consequences, you're not Kantian.
This is my understanding as well. Kant believed that morality resided in the act itself. An unjust killing could never be justified no matter the consequence. While the calculations of Utilitarianism may seem cold, they at least allow for wiggle room in extreme circumstances. That's not to say that Utilitarianism isn't without its flaws, at some point you might find yourself putting a dollar value on human life and weighing it against all sorts of things you might find distasteful.
It's not straight forward, at least not for me. Which is why I wanted some opinions outside of my own.
I think your basic idea is correct. A Kantian, because he considers himself, first, a deontologist, and second, affiliated with the moral, or categorical, imperative, certainly would accord with the volition the duty to his moral obligation demands, regardless of the consequences to himself, recognizing that a Roasted Universe is merely a metaphor for an extreme circumstance with vanishing probability.
Besides, Kant just expresses his philosophy on how to be as morally inclined as possible, not that anyone is actually forced to be that way, and indeed, there is not all that much evidence to say anyone actually does. Moral in their own way, maybe, but without realizing the authority of pure practical reason.
According to Kant, the morality of an action is based on the maxim behind that action. Also according to Kant, if you intend an end, you also intend the means, which includes consequences that are not directly the end of your intent. Since a maxim is the principle according to which an end is selected, it follows that it also includes the consequences of that intention. Therefore, consequences do matter.
Quoting Taneras
Not in the act, but in the intention that governed the act. For Kant, what makes a killing unjust is an unjust intention. If the intention cannot be justified, then neither can the outcome because it just so happens to have a "positive" outcome (whatever that may be). Kant does not say that consequences don't matter, since intentions are nothing if not intended consequences. What makes Kant's philosophy seen "unconcerned with consequences" is that it does not account for the suffering of any one individual.
Quoting Mww
Unless the rule that this consequence to oneself should be avoided can be made a general rule. Kant argued that suicide is immoral, for example, which is clearly a "consequence to oneself".
Opens up a door I don't want to walk through. Here I am supposing there's ''good'' reason for blaming one person, in this case Hitler, for the evils of WW2. I'm doing so mainly because he was the authority who signed all those people into gas chambers and firing squads. This does put the actual executioners of Hitler's will in a favorable light - they were simply means to Hitler's ends.
Yet I wonder if there ever would have been so many deaths (6 million?) if the soldier's didn't share some, if not all, of Hitler's worldview?
You say the restriction on the cop's freedom is a legal one and not a metaphysical one. However, legality is about practical ethics, which is probably more real than any other form of morality. If I'm physically limited in my choices then metaphysical free will is no longer of significance.
Consequence could just as well be self-conceit, or an over abundance of personal happiness, as self-destruction. The subjective moral maxim is thus regulated in its form, by its attribution to a universal law, such that both being overly happy from egotism about an action and overly dead by suicide, is tempered by practical reason.
My use of “consequence to himself” was in response to a condition correct in principle but not in reasonable possibility. In reality, *every* moral volition has a consequence of some kind and degree, which is why consequence itself should never ground the principle from which the volition follows.
I would put it like this: Kantian moral philosophy is concerned with the consequences a given maxim would have if implemented as a general law. It is not concerned with the consequences of any specific act following that maxim.
So, consequences matter, but only in determining the moral imperative, not in applying it.
Quoting TheMadFool
Let's bring WW2 and the Cop & Gang Story back together. There were at least a few million Germans in the policeman's shoes. "I, a good German, must either cooperate with the murderous Hitler regime or I will be murdered."
Hiding Jews, for instance, could get one killed. Openly opposing the regime could result in arrest, torture, death, or a trip to a concentration camp (like Dachau). Too much complaining could result in at least a trip to Gestapo headquarters and threats of worse things to come. The vice grip of control over Germans tightened over the course of the war.
There were 70 million Germans--80 million if you count annexed Austrians and the Sudeten Germans. How did the Nazis control everybody? A highly efficient civil service and police establishment, tight control over information, served to isolate dissenters. One either ran with the herd (with a reasonable level of enthusiasm) or one tended to get pushed to the edge where one would get picked off by informers, spies, the Gestapo, observant party members, and the like.
Plus, a good share of the 80 million Germans herd did not need to be coerced into the Nazi corral. They were willing members of the Gang. Who, in this vicious gang requiring the cop to kill or be killed, was responsible? The Top Thug, or the whole gang of thugs?
Probably the Top Thug was more responsible than everybody else. The TT had probably built up the gang by similar acts of coercion. But the rest of the gang can't be dismissed as victims, surely. There would be too many acts of criminal commission.
A maxim is a subjective principle that justifies a volition of will, such as, e.g., the principle that my utterance of a known falsehood for personal interest is never good, hence serving as the form of a law, that such false utterances to that end evolves universally in order to adhere in everyone else. What I mean is, the maxim is never implemented as a general, or universal, law; it is a subjective principle only and can never be a universal law, even if it can be universally lawful among all moral agents as individual rational subjects. Consequently, the moral imperative, the “command of reason”, the volition of the will, thereafter, is formulated *as if* this particular subjective principle were indeed a universal law, *as if* all rational agents do actually hold with the same principle, and the will that holds with that principle can do nothing else but subscribe to an action that conforms to it. In this case, the moral imperative would be, never permit a false utterance of which personal benefit alone is its end. The result of all this is, no one would utter a known falsehood for personal profit, if he consider himself morally obligated by a freely determinate will.
I think the concern does in fact have to do with the consequences of a specific act, because such act is already called for in its compliance with a principle, and failing to meet the obligation of it, is the very epitome of being “immoral”, or more accurately, having no moral worth. The consequences are in the application of the action, or in the failing in the application of the action, the determination of it already given by reason, that is, a principle, of will.
It goes without saying, that how one goes about formulating his various imperatives, the judgements he must make and the understanding he must have from which those judgements follow, are the purview of practical reason, and should verify the proposition that all morality is intrinsically subjective.
What say you?
Don't underestimate yourself or your golden gem. Best get it copyrighted. I have designs on it :cool:
Quoting Taneras
Don't worry. The secret of the Hard Problem of Consciousness is in my back pocket. See ya at the Nobel
Prize Award Ceremony :nerd:
I don't quite understand what you're trying to tell me. Perhaps it's lost in translation
Quoting Mww
I do get the general gist here, the categorical imperative looks at a hypothetical general law, not an actual one. I don't understand what you mean when you say the law "evolves universally in order to adhere to anyone else".
Quoting Mww
The usage of free will here seems odd. Kant says freedom is the result of following the moral imperative. The obligation comes from reason, the result of following that obligation is freedom.
Quoting Mww
I don't understand this at all. Are you referring to the moral judgement (moral/immoral) when you say "consequences"? Because I was referring to practical, "physical" consequences.
Quoting Mww
It is subjective, but it is not about the single subject. It's intersubjective, as it takes into account all subjects in general.
Easy stuff first: Morality is subjective, it is intersubjective in its employment, and moral philosophy does take into account all subjects in general, of the same intrinsic rationality. However, when investigating what morality is, what it means to be moral, where moral values come from, and possible proofs of its grounds, it is entirely subjective on an individual basis. I have no right to critique, nor should I have any inclinations to determine, what qualifies your personal moral predicates. How you treat me because of them, sure, but how you came by them is not within my scope of judgement. But if it be agreed we all think the same way, then it becomes possible to understand morality in general by understanding how a simple subject comes into it.
Yes, I am also referring to practical physical consequences, because such are the manifestions of moral worth. A consequence, a practical, physical action, iff it be called a categorical imperative, in order to have moral worth, absolutely must be in accordance with the principle which determines it. If it isn’t it is an “immoral” act, or, it was only a hypothetical and not categorical imperative to begin with.
No action at all, ever, within the context of reason, whether moral or merely empirical in general, can occur without a judgement which permits the action to occur (except in the case of pure reflex or accident). In other words, the judgement is not the action, it is the permission for the action.
The freedom of following a moral imperative is not the same freedom connected to the will. We are free to determine, or will, our personal CI’s, but once determined, or willed, we are obligated to act in accordance with them, or, which is the same thing, we are not free to NOT so act and still consider ourselves morally worthy. There needs to be a way to make the conception of “freedom” non-contradictory, even if it remains controversial, which Kantian moral philosophy does.
By evolving universally in order to adhere in everyone means simply a multitude of individual subjects having or developing the same sense of morality, from which the same CI’s would advance. In no other way can a subjective principle become a universal law, then if all subjects hold with the same principle. Then we can still say it is a subjective principle holds universally. The need arises here, to choose wisely which principle one holds; I wouldn’t want my subjective principle “no good deed goes unpunished” to be held by every other rational agent, in which case the CI as a universal law for every single one of them would absolutely have to be “therefore never do a good deed”.
You’re more than welcome to critique my understandings here. We both know it’s mighty hard to put Kant’s words into non-scholastic interpretation, without just simply c&p’ing his stuff right out of a book, which half the time just makes things worse.
How is Albert Camus' argument regarding this situation absurd?
Morally I’d struggle with the idea if I was the police. I do believe I would kill the person though because I ca logically justify it even if I know, in my mind, that the act is morally wrong.
The problem comes from a the pull between sustaining our own being (life) and looking for logical validity to do so even when we have to do something we view in many, if not all, other situations as morally reprehensible. The logical reasoning, which no doubt some have presented in the replies, woudl be to validate the killing of this person by helping the investigation to stop eve more possible murders. The sacrifice you make to your ow sense of self and moral well-being may well be fully justified, but even so killing someone is not something that can be undone.
It is a question of exploring the problem as intricately as you can in the hypothetical and coming to a moral decision as to how you’d prefer to act and then pushing the lines lf the question further in order to knwo where prefered actions would be in vaguely equivalent circumstances - logical validation has a limit. Understanding where you wish to position yourself morally is a tough call, and even then actually acting in the manner you’d wish to is even more unlikely. Hence the need for regular self-contemplation on such difficult problems that require some logical analysis but at the end of the day end with you having to live with our actions and their emotional baggage.
If we were to alter the question and say kill one to save another or let two people die the choice may be even harder. The reason being if you take the question seriously enough you’d have to choose between having to live with killing someone directly or having two people die because of your inaction.
The balance of what is good for you, the people involved and society at large is an impossible equation to balance on logical propositions alone. I’d even fo as far to say that to rely on logical reason alone is “immoral” yet I’m not sure if it’s “unethical” - in light of how I’ve differentiated these terms at the start of the post.