The Terrorist Case
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Suppose it is now noon, and you, the mayor, have just found out that a terrorist has set bombs all over the city of Chicago, all set to go off this evening at 6:00 PM. The terrorist is nowhere to be found, there is no prospect of defusing the bombs in time, and if we tell the city's populace to leave, the resulting mayhem will cause huge loss of life. On the other hand, if the bombs go off as many as a million lives will be lost.
Your advisors present you with one possible solution. They know how to get their hands on the terrorist's daughter, Susie, and they know, based on a psychological profile of the terrorist, that she is his only truly weak spot. If we can find his daughter and start torturing her, there is a very good chance that the terrorist will capitulate and help us defuse the bombs. We can't fake it: The terrorist had an earlier career in computer graphics, and he will know if we try some virtual reality or animation stunt. We really have to torture Susie to within an inch of her life if he is to break. It seems, then, we are faced with the choice of allowing the bombs to go off, resulting in the loss of possibly a million lives, and torturing the terrorist's daughter to within an inch of her life even though she is perfectly innocent. Utilitarians will waste no time in deciding what to do here: they will say you should torture the little girl. After all, all suffering is pretty minor compared with the amount of happiness that will be lost if the bombs go off. On the other hand,Kantianswill say that you should not torture the girl, because that would use her as mere means; you would not treat her as an end, and this would violate the Categorical Imperative. Kantianswill go on to say that in any circumstances, human rights should not be violated.What would you do?
Which moral theory would you endorse?(Discuss this ethical question rather than proposing non-philosophical thought about what you would do. More precisely, do you want to endorse utilitarianism or Kantian ethics? Why or why not?)