A difficult question dealing with ethics

[marfin_]

This scenario came up in a college class and I wanted to present this to Escapists here so that I could get a rough estimate of the dominate option that would be chosen. So here it goes....

You are a British soldier in charge of an Indian town back in the 18th century. You have a central body of government and an army at your command. In the town some native Indians are about to take part in a funeral for an elderly man. One of the many different and ancient traditions in India (not everybody in India did this) was to burn the man's wive to death at the funeral. The old man's wive was sad for her husband and wanted to join him, she was not being held against her will and she wanted to die along with her husband. This is the scenario, but would you save the elderly woman from being burned alive, or use all of your resources to stop her? Just as a warning if you stop her from being burned alive, you are running the chance of upsetting the natives and starting a war which could cost many lives including your's and your mens'. What would you do?

 

[madwarper]

Nothing.

If someone wants to commit suicide, there's little you can do to stop them.

 

[Fatboy_41]

One of the biggest rules when deploying in that sort of situation, where you're providing a governing body but not trying to eradicate the existing population, is to respect the local customs.

So, you allow them their customs and do not interfere.

 

[RKOking226]

Would you force someone into christianity even though if he/she didn't believe he/she was going to hell? Who am I to tell someone that their way of living is wrong and they need to see it my way or else. I would let them do their own thing as long as long as it doesn't effect my soilders.
Plus how would I even know that they were even doing this?

 

[WolfThomas]

This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.

 

[Vault101]

this has been going on for longer than youve been there

make sure the woman is question is REALLY ok with it rather than just "going along" (but then again given the circumstance that would seem impossible) ..but I guess you should let it be

 

[marfin_]

Would you force someone into christianity even though if he/she didn't believe he/she was going to hell? Who am I to tell someone that their way of living is wrong and they need to see it my way or else. I would let them do their own thing as long as long as it doesn't effect my soilders.
Plus how would I even know that they were even doing this?

I know this scenario has a lot of little holes in it, like how you figured out what was about to happen, but just bare with me please =]. Ok so who are you to force your beliefs on someone else with a different set of beliefs? Well from my understanding this is a widely accepted stance on this sorta thing. What I belief however is that there are a universal set of moral codes, don't kill people for example. I think we can all agree on that, but a group of people wanting to kill another human being because of their "tradition" is ok?

 

[Fatboy_41]

But who is killing her apart from herself? There is no moral question here.

If she had been UNWILLING in this scenario, that is an entirely different matter...

 

[Pimppeter2]

No.

Its her body and her life, who am I to tell her what to do with it?

 

[marfin_]

No moral dilemma? You having the resources and ability to stop this from happening, from killing a human being? Yes she is willing to die, but how much is a human's life or soul worth? If I was the officer in charge, I would have used my soldiers to stop the funeral. I would not want any violence, but I would willingly to put my life and my soldier's lives at risk for the idea of a human's soul being worth more than tradition and political correctness.

 

[LordFisheh]

No moral dilemma? You having the resources and ability to stop this from happening, from killing a human being? Yes she is willing to die, but how much is a human's life or soul worth? If I was the officer in charge, I would have used my soldiers to stop the funeral. I would not want any violence, but I would willingly to put my life and my soldier's lives at risk for the idea of a human's soul being worth more than tradition and political correctness.

And what would you do if, a month or so after, the woman tried to throw herself off a cliff? Or tried to burn herself again, but more discreetly. If someone doesn't have enough sovereignty over their own life to end or not end it as they please, how are they anything more than a slave?

 

[seraphy]

People usually care and try to stop other people from committing suicide.

Besides usually when this happens in India, those widows aren't really that keen on committing suicide, but they are either coaxed or even forced to commit it by dead mans relatives.

I would stop it and do same thing you do to people who are suicidal in west, get them help.

 

[SycoMantis91]

This is an easy one. Let it go through. They believe that it's within their moral code to burn her. She wants to be with the man she loves in whatever form of afterlife she envisions. To not let it happen because you BELIEVE in the human soul being more sacred than you and your soldiers' lives is going against your little rant about not forcing beliefs on others. Forcing the Indian individuals to not carry through with their little ritual as well as forcing this woman to not give her life away willingly, is forcing their actions to adhere to your individual moral code and belief system.

 

[RKOking226]

Would you force someone into christianity even though if he/she didn't believe he/she was going to hell? Who am I to tell someone that their way of living is wrong and they need to see it my way or else. I would let them do their own thing as long as long as it doesn't effect my soilders.
Plus how would I even know that they were even doing this?

I know this scenario has a lot of little holes in it, like how you figured out what was about to happen, but just bare with me please =]. Ok so who are you to force your beliefs on someone else with a different set of beliefs? Well from my understanding this is a widely accepted stance on this sorta thing. What I belief however is that there are a universal set of moral codes, don't kill people for example. I think we can all agree on that, but a group of people wanting to kill another human being because of their "tradition" is ok?

I don't think don't kill people is a universal moral code or else there wouldn't be so much violence going on at the moment. And lets say we do stop the wife from killing herself with her husband. Will that make her life any better? Her mind set would be that she didn't follow her ancestors did and she would probably get in a depressive state. It would be better for her to believe that she lived a good life than making her do something that was against her own will.
Off the subject: We should kill people if they've done something terribly wrong. EX) Adolf Hitler

 

[marfin_]

And what would you do if, a month or so after, the woman tried to throw herself off a cliff? Or tried to burn herself again, but more discreetly. If someone doesn't have enough sovereignty over their own life to end or not end it as they please, how are they anything more than a slave?

I'm not saying that I could have stopped her from suicide every time, but that it is my duty as a human being to stop those who hurt others or themselves whenever I can. Why do we give psychological help to those who try to commit suicide? Why do we feel that suicide is so wrong or do any of you feel like that? Why do we think that a person has there own right to commit suicide? Was there life not given to them, surely they did not choose to life, why do they get to choose to die?

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

This scenario came up in a college class and I wanted to present this to Escapists here so that I could get a rough estimate of the dominate option that would be chosen. So here it goes....

You are a British soldier in charge of an Indian town back in the 18th century. You have a central body of government and an army at your command. In the town some native Indians are about to take part in a funeral for an elderly man. One of the many different and ancient traditions in India (not everybody in India did this) was to burn the man's wive to death at the funeral. The old man's wive was sad for her husband and wanted to join him, she was not being held against her will and she wanted to die along with her husband. This is the scenario, but would you save the elderly woman from being burned alive, or use all of your resources to stop her? Just as a warning if you stop her from being burned alive, you are running the chance of upsetting the natives and starting a war which could cost many lives including your's and your mens'. What would you do?

lol this reminds me of a quote (about this exact issue), so in the words of Sir Charles Napier, the British Commander-in-chief in India, I would to the natives(assuming it was ruled by my country to be against the law)..

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

In all seriousness, if it wasn't against the law of my country, then I would not tell them how to live their lives because the women has given consent.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm British soldier in charge of all this? Call me Blackadder, then.

"Baldrick, if it's some country's tradition to burn the wife in the funeral of the man and the wife WANTS to go, then I don't see the problem."

 

[RKOking226]

No moral dilemma? You having the resources and ability to stop this from happening, from killing a human being? Yes she is willing to die, but how much is a human's life or soul worth? If I was the officer in charge, I would have used my soldiers to stop the funeral. I would not want any violence, but I would willingly to put my life and my soldier's lives at risk for the idea of a human's soul being worth more than tradition and political correctness.

So your willing to let a whole army die (including the natives) just to save one life? You would be killing more than you would be saving in the long run. Sometimes your need to sacrifice one soul to save hundred souls.

 

[marfin_]

Was there life not given to them, surely they did not choose to life, why do they get to choose to die?

Given by who? It sounds like you're dragging some kind of religious morals into this.

I am very sorry about being unclear about this topic. I am not trying to turn this into a religious statement. I am talking about if any of you believe in a universal moral code? This question is directed to any or all religions or even to those that have no religion.

 

[seraphy]

Thing is it seems rather doubtful that she's just going to be committing suicide because of some mental issue. She simply seems to believe in her tradition rather strongly.

It might usually be unwilling, but if the OP wanted that taken into account he shouldn't have put the bit about her wanting to die along with her husband. If it was just a scenario where all we had as far as information goes was the fact it's usually not quite willing I imagine there'd be quite a few different responses.

But how can you know if her suicide is just peer pressure thanks to an ancient tradition and how much of it is her own decision?

I would say that it would be much more harmful to allow this tradition to live on like this than allow her to go on with even if it was her own decision. She would perhaps do suicide later if she truly wanted to it is true, but at least you would know that you didn't allow outdated tradition to live like this. Really no reason to give the impression to people that this tradition is still strong.