Please note – The following question is hypothetical. I’m suicidal at this point but not homicidal, not enough to act on the idea.
Suppose you could divide all people into three groups – moral (1), immoral (-1) and amoral (0). Depending upon the number of people in each group, a certain sum total of morality in the world could then be calculated, say, x.
If you belong to the first group, your being around adds to making this world a better place. If you’re in the second group, the world is worse off because you’re in it. The third group doesn’t affect much.
In general, evil people prefer self-preservation no matter the cost and spread like cancer. For instance, take religious forecasts for this century. Fanatics will outnumber atheists despite rapid spread of scientific outlook, because fanatics cling to life much more tenaciously than atheists, and breed as if on a mission to produce more indoctrinated nutcases than there are free-thinking children of secular parents. This is just one example. In every aspect, assholes will take up space that you will leave behind. It’s about ratio of good vs. bad – if you’re a good person, your exit will leave the world with one less good person. Put another way, your exit will leave the world with one extra bad person.
So, my question is – ‘Given that you’re relatively moral’, do you feel obliged to help maintain the moral equilibrium of the world after you’re gone? Do you feel like compensating the world for your absence by removing one (or more) decidedly harmful specimen of the immoral group?
P.S. – Its only a theoretical argument and I’m not proposing violence, so there’s no need for alarm. As for myself, I don’t have it in me to kill a trapped mouse.
10 comments
I’ve wondered about the same. Imagining (not planning, of course, just using human imagination’s power) if it would be possible to start offing “bad people” for the lack of a better term (I’m just too lazy to formulate an appropriate adjective).
I don’t know if I would have it in me to do anything like that if given the possibility. (again, I’m not wishing for this, this is hypothetical just like you)
I wouldn’t kill a trapped mouse either because mice are cute. They don’t make the world a worse place as far as I’m concerned.
I, too, sometimes imagine setting out to deliver some vigilante-style justice before I checked out. A to-the-death standoff with a group of criminals maybe. What better way to go, right? Making one last dent in the universe before leaving it on one’s own terms…
Anyways. I guess that’s what watching too much TV does to your expectations from real life. We know how it really ends after all.
“Not with a bang, but with a whimper” in the words of TS Eliot.
I definitely consider myself moral. (Which is why I don’t understand why I got such a shitty life, but I digress)
I would need some rock solid proof that someone was completely immoral with no intention to change (and not already in prison) before I would feel comfortable killing them.
Due to that high burden of proof, I doubt it could be met. But if it was (Or I saw someone physically and/or sexually assaulting my daughter) then I would have no problem killing them.
Fair enough, unacceptable to punish anyone without definite proof of guilt. But how about taking into account future probability? I mean, the concern is the state of the world when you’re not around. Please don’t take it personally, but if you could do something for the future safety of your daughter, wouldn’t you?
Interesting topic. The one problem, though, is that morality is not absolute. Therefore, there will always be a subjective (flawed) sense of judgmentalism at play. And I personally think anyone who unilaterally judges others to the point of taking their lives is “immoral”. So you see what I’m saying: anyone who sinks to murdering someone whom he, personally, deems unfit to live is immoral on the highest level.
I’ll illustrate it in a different way which should immediately hit home. Suicide bombers. In their minds, they are truly the “moral” ones and they are wiping out the “infidels” exactly as you described, to tip the balance more in favor of their “morality”. Now strip the religious fanaticism out of the equation, and the (flawed) logic is exactly what you described. It’s the idea that someone judges another person, or group, and commits hypocritical murder on the premise that it’ll tip the balance more in favor of their personal “morality”.
Or to sum up what I’m saying: anyone, any religion, any doctrine that embraces killing as the answer is pure bs. Those people should ideally kill themselves and only themselves.
I agree, the idea of morality itself is subjective. That’s why I began with ‘supposing’ that we could clearly divide people among moral lines which is not possible.
Its just that I’ve been thinking of what my life was worth to the world and tbh it’s less than nothing. I’ve only consumed and wasted earth’s limited resources for sustaining my animal body and now I’m about to check out without giving anything back. I know that ultimately all questions of morality, justice, spirituality are meaningless. Too late to fix what’s fucked.
I understand more than you can imagine. Essentially you just describe the reason why I’m on a suicide site: because I can’t justify the expense of my continued existence. Each one of us consumes. Some of us consume and produce enough to make the cost worth it. But most of us, the vast majority of humans, seem to consume only to continue feeding themselves and their spawn. And I definitely judge those people the same way I judge myself.
So much of the (1) – (-1) theory appeals to me. Why should others who are worse than me continue to live while I kill myself alone? But lucky for society, I guess I’m still rational enough to know that my judgment isn’t reliable. Agreed though, if there were an absolute scale by which we could figure out who’s worth anything vs. who’s just a fungus on existence, it would be great to wipe out the fungus and maybe leave the world a little better than it was. Unfortunately I think that absolute morality is an impossibility.
Now that you mention it, I’m wonder how so much self-harm takes place away from society’s view, without much fuss so to speak. I find it remarkable that people even in their darkest last moments manage to be rational in the sense that you mean, and choose to limit the damage to themselves. Given that suicide is labelled as an ‘irrational act’ in some schools of philosophy, it’s not hard to imagine much more collateral damage but that rarely happens. Lucky for society indeed.
I like your formula. It is elegant. Thank you posting it up.
As to your question, it is a good one, in the theoretical sense. Most people I know are a (1). I am told I am a (1). As to removal of harmful specimens, I, like yourself, have no will to kill another, even when that would result in the greater good.
I do wish to make an observation, if it can be of any comfort. I have observed significant aging in church populations. I calculated, in one particular local church, and it seems representative of a larger trend, that each female present who appears to be of childbearing age would have to reproduce about 8 times to ultimately sustain that churches membership level and that number would only be adequate if all her offspring followed her beliefs and thus attended regularly. In that particular group of church goers, as seems true of most I have seen, families of more than 3 minors are rare.
Thanks for your reply. And I’m quite sure you are a (1) 🙂 I believe most people on this forum are by no means bad, just broken in some ways. I too have met good people way more than bad ones and the bad too had some good in them – that in itself dilutes my question.
Your observation is quite impressive – you actually figured out how you many children will be needed per woman to sustain the membership! I’d say that reflects the general trend of Christianity waning in the West.
I’m not against Christians as long as they don’t proselytize and interfere with scientific progress. I’m more concerned about the spread of radical Islam. For all its faults, Christianity may have acted as a bulwark against a worse epidemic in the West. I’m not Islamophobic, but I do hope the vacancy cleared for secularism in Europe and America will not be hijacked by Islamists in the future.
I won’t be around to witness future catastrophes, of course. But then that’s the whole point of the above question I guess.