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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
| Location: | California USA |
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825 South First Ave
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josf.kelley@verizon.net
No Moral Dilemma
There is no moral dilemma, only ignorance at the time of decision. To arrive at this conclusion, as an accurate perception, the reader is encouraged to follow along in a process that may just barely resemble creative imagination. The idea here is to maximize all the possible variables that could constitute the worst case of an actual moral dilemma and then see that extreme case for what it is in fact.
Suppose for example that the reader chooses to take on a role in a role playing game where the reader becomes a foreign observer who views the entire span of human time from day one when the first human took the first breath to the last day when the last human ends the last human perception of any kind whatsoever. This role playing game could be a real perception already seen by some foreign observer such as God or whatever does exist outside of the strict human experience. Please consider imagining the role as being real so as to aid in the process of investigating the moral dilemma.
The foreign observer can see human time and you can play this game too. You can fast forward the viewing screen. Rewinding can be done. You can zoom in on one single human thought or action, and zoom outward to see whole species thoughts and actions like those moral thoughts and actions that are common among our species. The idea here is to zoom in on one very powerful thought and one very significant action resulting in the end of the human species. Finding that one example can help in figuring out if there is such a thing as a moral dilemma.
I can find an imaginary future example as I play the role playing game. The example I see is where someone thinks about making a weapons grade pathogen or biological weapon of mass destruction and that someone releases that deadly invention into the ocean, once it is made. This someone causes the destruction of our species. I zoom in and see this person ready to dump the pathogen in the ocean and next to this person is another person who is contemplating a moral dilemma. The person who is contemplating the moral dilemma waited unit the last moment just before the other person dumped the pathogen into the ocean. There is now only enough time to pull the trigger on a gun to stop the pathogen from being dumped into the ocean and save the human species. If the shooter does not shoot the person dumping the pathogen, the human race ends in this imaginary scenario. If the person does shoot and kill, the human race survives. The imaginary replay feature proves this fact to be factual because both scenarios can play out when that one event is switched back and forth from killing the pathogen dumper to failing to kill the pathogen dumper. Should one person kill to save the human species from certain doom? Is that a moral dilemma or a lack of doing the right thing earlier?
Have I found the extreme example of the moral dilemma? Is your example even more extreme? Is there a need to add the torture feature to the moral dilemma where the only one who can save the human species from extinction is one person who must gain information from the only person who knows where the bottle of pathogens will automatically be dumped into the ocean at 12 noon? Does this extreme example become more extreme if the deadly pathogen causes everyone to suffer an unimaginably long and torturous death before the human species finally ends, or worse, where everyone lives an eternal life in hell if you, I, and we fail to torture someone as soon as possible? Is the extreme example of a moral dilemma extreme enough now or is any moral dilemma as imaginary as this role playing game? We either do the right thing or we fail. I can’t answer that question for anyone other than me. I see no dilemma. I see ignorance.
Perhaps the reader or some Hollywood producer has already illustrated the most extreme case of the worst possible example of a moral dilemma encountered by one person somewhere in time and space. I’ve seen such things on Television and on The Big Screen. The reader may have the power to imagine the worst case better than I can ever imagine.
My extreme examples of the supposed moral dilemma add the extreme case of our human extinction because that possibility is probably not merely a possibility; rather it is a certainty, like the end of the planet Earth or the end of our Sun. The idea is to extend the interval, if it is worth extending. The time interval between the beginning and the end may be a very large time span compared to one day, one year, on century, one millennium, or even one species life time, but the time interval is insignificant compared to eternity. I add eternity to my extreme moral dilemma role playing game because an eternity in hell is certainly extreme. It never ends. It will eventually become boring. That is hell. When insufferable torture becomes boring, you know you are in hell.
Human time from beginning to end may extend past the survivability of the planet Earth and past the end of our Sun. If that is true, in fact, then someone somewhere will not allow a human species killing pathogen to be thought of, produced, and employed on us, at least not until after we find another place to live before Earth or the Sun dies. If it happens now we end now. If it does not happen now, we survive, and we have time to find another place to live before Earth dies and before the Sun stops shining. Time is short, or long – who is playing the game?
If someone somewhere is contemplating another weapon of species destruction, like the MAD stuff we already have produced, then someone is ignorant concerning morality. What is the dilemma? I see no moral dilemma as I play the role of some foreign observer playing around with the human time viewer controls. I see the human species ending right there on that day on the big screen. I see why it ended right there too; too bad for them, it was good while it lasted.
People do not have to wait until the last moment before the option of killing someone or torturing someone is the only choice left. If there is no other choice than torture or killing, it is too late. If there will be the total destruction of our species, it will be. Now is the time to do something about extending the interval and making life better. Now is the time to do something about any impending injury; or any crime whatsoever. If people see crime, do something to stop it. Why wait? Why ignore moral choice?
Morality is based upon the survivability of the species, like roach or rat morality; even ameba morality. A pathogen designed by intelligent beings for the purpose of destroying human beings is itself a living species. The pathogen is alive. The pathogen is armed with a genetic instruction. The pathogen decides to kill human beings, by design. That is not a moral dilemma for the human being who created it or for the pathogen. Each one kills, an end of that story. The human being dreaming up and making a species killing pathogen does not have the genetic instruction or the social intelligence required to make a moral decision if that person makes that living thing for the purpose of destroying mankind. There is no moral dilemma. One kills the other - on purpose. That purpose is to kill. The moral purpose is to survive. When a person designs an organism to destroy the organism’s creator and his or her entire species that is not a case of a moral dilemma. That is the absence of morality. That is insanity. Morality is based upon survival. Doing the right thing is surviving. Is it necessary to add the quality of life into the equation of moral thought? Must we also survive well or is a tortuous existence good enough? What is good?
What if someone makes that human killing life form under threat of torture or under the threat of having his loved ones tortured? Kill us all or die? What if the person making that pathogen is not aware of exactly what is being made? What if the person making that pathogen merely contributes money to the process of making that pathogen that will destroy the human species? Are those cases able to illustrate a moral dilemma or merely ignorance about morality? Does morality instruct us to save ourselves, our species, or both – just not at the same time in every case? Do we create morality from our own free will?
There is no choice but the right choice, in a moral sense. How can that ever be a dilemma? The dilemma does not exist. The right choice is genetically coded into our species and we alone decide to do the right thing. A dilemma concerns the people who fail to know right from wrong, people who are missing this genetic instruction, or people who ignore it on purpose. People who have no reason to stop someone bent on destroying are as infected as people who are bent on destroying, no dilemma – just fact. Stopping a crime in progress is not a moral dilemma. Failing to avoid it in the first place due to a preference for ignorance is also not a dilemma, it is a choice. Morality is a time based process, not a dilemma. Being frightened into inaction is a time based process. Time will tell if the moral choice is worth choosing.
The pathogen that destroys our species may already exist. I think the pathogen may already exist. I think there is an ever greater evil and it is called falsehood. Perhaps falsehood is a pathogen; perhaps it is a living organism after all. Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn agreed with me. Some people think that violence is a species killer, I think not. Violence does not long exist out in the open. Some power must cover it up or it will become powerless in the light of day. The power to cover up violence is falsehood.
Suppose the foreign observer replays human time to a time when people begin to tolerate leaders who lie and this human species observer is able to introduce something new into the stream of human time, just to see what happens. This foreign observer is curious to know if the human species could last longer than it does, if only this new thing were added to human existence, in time.
The foreign observer adds some people who tell the truth once in awhile and these people actually know the truth. Would anyone listen? Is the case of ignoring the truth a case that proves the moral dilemma or is that more like a case of ignoring the truth for some un-confessed reason? What could possibly be the reason for ignoring the truth? Perhaps the foreign observer in all of us is asking each other the same question. What is the answer?
I hope the reader was able to drive though this example of the moral dilemma without suffering too much torture. Perhaps no one will. That is fine by me so long as our species isn’t on the brink of some extremely destructive event caused by people who either ignore, or do not have, a moral conscience. I see no moral dilemma. I see a whole lot of ignorance. I see it in the mirror. Is there a moral solution?