Poll: Morally Correct?

[spartan231490]

Also how can you be sure that killing the baby will actually change anything (save people)? Maybe you all will just end up dead anyway, or maybe something else will happens that will distract them and they will leave you alone. So you might end up having a killed a baby for NOTHING. This is my main problem with doing extreme things to prevent some other supposedly worse things...The means do not justify the end, seeing that YOU cannot know what the END would be. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc.

I would say that the road is paved with good intentions to people who wouldn't act extremely in extreme circumstances. desperate times call for desperate measures. It is extremely likely that the baby crying would bring their attention. even if something else temporarily distracts them, they will come back. Killing the baby at least gives you the chance of saving everyone else, but not doing so means that everyone, including the baby, dies.

 

[Divine Miss Bee]

i could never. i'd muffle the cries, but never kill my own baby.

 

[TheDrunkNinja]

This reminds me of that part in the new War of the Worlds movie where Tom Cruise overpowers and kills a guy who is panicking and will potentially alert the aliens while he and his daughter are hiding. First thought, why didn't Tom Cruise:

-Render him unconscious
-Tie up and gag him
-Restrain and hold his mouth closed
-Put tape over his mouth
-Virtually anything other than killing him

And that's how I feel with this question. You don't have to suffocate the baby. He can breathe fine through his nose.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Knowing me, I probably wouldn't be able to suffocate my own child. I physically would not be able to.

yeah this, the very thought of having to, with my bare hands, kill my own child...

i don't know how someone could do it without a second thought.

guess i'm going soft..

(see fox news? games don't make you violent, if anything i have become an extreme pacifist because of them.)

but yeah, logically one life for many others? it makes sense, but your own damn child...harsh.

 

[TheVioletBandit]

No, to kill a baby to save yourself makes you a piece of shit and to want a parent to kill their baby to save you also makes you a piece of shit. Just because you survived doesn't mean that you've won if you've lost your humanity along the way. The answer is no, anything else is selfish and cowardly.

 

[crop52]

LOL at the hard-asses here telling themselves that they could actually kill someone, let alone a child.

Well I'm sure my ass would become a little more hard if I was in a holocaust scenario.

Also, a note to everyone in this thread: OP said the enemy has been ordered to kill anyone and everyone they find.
If you don't kill the baby, they will.

 

[Rule Britannia]

If it's my child I would probably do it but if it was somebody else's I wouldn't since it isn't mine. Yes I would do it.

 

[Ooga600]

I don't judge actions by their potential consequences, I judge them based on the action alone. So to me, killing a baby is wrong, no matter what. I don't think I would be responsible if we were all killed by the soldiers (the soldiers pulled the trigger, not me), but I would be responsible for the death of the baby if I killed it.

 

[Sheamus]

Morality wouldn't matter to me, in that situation I'd do it. The baby would die either way, better to have some be spared by it's sacrifice.

 

[Kurokami]

I edited this question from a documentary.

Your country is attacked and bombed. The invaders enter your town and are ordered to kill anyone and everyone they find. You are couped up in the attic of a abadoned home with a group of refugees when your own child starts crying. He won't stop. You try everything to quiet him down, but nothing works. If your baby continues to cry the invaders will find you and the group, ending everyone's life.
Is it morally correct to suffocate the baby?


This is your only option.

Think hard before you choose.

NOTE: Ethic or morally correct, whatever you feel is the correct term for right and wrong in this situation. Almost forgot something too...

Thank you for reading.

Yip. Suffocate it.

I sort of remember that movie. What was it? (I remember it's Jews in the holocaust or something)

 

[Astoria]

It depends what moral path you wanna go down. I think most people would kill the baby because of survival instinct.

 

[Kurokami]

No, to kill a baby to save yourself makes you a piece of shit and to want a parent to kill their baby to save you also makes you a piece of shit. Just because you survived doesn't mean that you've won if you've lost your humanity along the way. The answer is no, anything else is selfish and cowardly.

Just imagine me sarcastically moving my arms in a scaling motion, kay?

Cowardly... Dead... Cowardly... Dead....

Hmmm.

You're focusing on the negative consequence of the action. To me, I'm not killing a baby, I'm saving a group of adults. The fact that you're putting blame on the person put in the situation rather than those who put him there, that's a shitty thing to do. You're also assuming those who do it won't feel bad, you're assuming that if we choose that option we've got no humanity, no remorse, I doubt anybody who said they would kill the baby, myself included, could do so so apathetically.

Frankly you're a POS for suggesting anybody who would rather live is a POS.

Awaiting the insults to come.

Edit: You're also forgetting that it may be out of mercy. Considering how much they are hated, I doubt the child would be murdered mercifully if given the option, I would much rather be murdered by a remorseful friend than a disrespectful foe. Then again, babies are sacks of potential, I'd have far more trouble killing a toddler.

 

[winnkey]

why is the whole idea of killing the baby coming up? if the only option of suffocating the baby firstly you need to think just that little bit harder. but if that's the assumption why does it need to be till death? you can very easily just do it till its passes out. to force ably make a baby stop crying killing it is not the only option even if you can only suffocate it. you still don't need to kill it.

 

[Wereduck]

I think the moral dilemma here kinda neglects something: it's only selfish to kill the baby if the hypothetical invaders you're all hiding from would give the baby a warm hug and a loving family before they stand the rest of you against the wall. Since you're all in peril here the baby's survival is at stake as well and that makes it a question of the baby dies or everyone including the baby dies - in other words, the baby dies either way and the question becomes: do you condemn everyone else so that you can keep your hands clean?
Not to say that it's an easy, moral or even a decent choice - not to suggest that you wouldn't have trouble living with it or that a decent human being shouldn't have trouble living with it but it's the only choice and if you aren't too paralyzed at the horror of it to move then that's what you have to do.

Now the kill-an-innocent-to-end-world-hunger problem, that's a head-scratcher...

 

[sivlin]

I chose no, but I'm really thinking I should have chosen yes.

Here is my logic: In general, I think it is not okay to suffocate the baby to protect yourself. Alternatively, I do think it is okay to kill the baby to protect it from dying in a more painful fashion at the hands of the enemy. If there is reasonable cause to suggest that the enemy would hurt the baby in a way that would make suffocating it more humane - I could see that being a viable option.

If the given situation is that the enemy WILL find you if the baby is not quieted - and you know that the baby will be subjected to pain before it dies - then you are within the right to take action to decrease the suffering. Regardless of the fact that this might save the rest of the people due to there no longer being any reason that the enemy will find you, this is the correct action. It ends up working that you might live, but had the baby not been quieted he would have died anyways. In either situation the baby dies, one in a worse way than the other.

 

[Kurokami]

why is the whole idea of killing the baby coming up? if the only option of suffocating the baby firstly you need to think just that little bit harder. but if that's the assumption why does it need to be till death? you can very easily just do it till its passes out. to force ably make a baby stop crying killing it is not the only option even if you can only suffocate it. you still don't need to kill it.

It's from a movie. Or so I'm assuming cause I've seen a movie where this exact situation is played out.

That's a good point, though I'm guessing considering they're situation the person wasn't willing to take any chances. (holocaust movie, and from memory the person who killed it wasn't a parent. Could be wrong though)

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

I'd say it is morally correct... But I really doubt I could bring myself to suffocate my own child.

 

[SD-Fiend]

it's funny to think about how the people who say yes would fare in a situation like this. also why are the others not stopping me/ supporting me on this? can't i just take the baby run and hope for the best?

OT: hecks no if i did i'd have a rotting baby corpse locked in there with me

 

[wilsontheterrible]

I guess we should just hope never to be in this situation together, then.

Quite.

 

[Agayek]

-snip-

Yes it is definitely morally wrong to kill the baby. You will have made the choice to murder an innocent child. The circumstances are irrelevant. You made a decision and committed a heinous act. Some things are worth more than life, and integrity is one of them.

That said, I don't think I'd be able to blame someone for making that choice. It's an understandable response, especially when you're made responsible for a number of other lives. I'd like to think I'd never make that choice, but I can understand why someone would do it.