[Guest]

Similar to the Terminator and Minority Report "moral" paradoxes, this one hinges on a major decision to be made by a leader of a nation. There is a major outbreak that reaches from coast to coast. In a single day, one in two people become afflicted. Half of your nation now has an uncurable disease. In that same day, doctors have tested and proven that the disease destroys brain cells - giving each patient 2 weeks to live unless...they eat another living human brain completely.

For the duration of the time until this thing is cured what is your decision to do? That decision lies the paradox. Change nothing and the rights of the sick are violated as they no longer have the right to live. Allow them to "feed" and the rights of the healthy are violated.

Here's a link to the original concept I made little over a month ago. I changed a few things in the post here to avoid certain issues. Specifically - no, these people are not vampires!

[Jiminy Cricket]

Similar to the Terminator and Minority Report "moral" paradoxes, this one hinges on a major decision to be made by a leader of a nation. There is a major outbreak that reaches from coast to coast. In a single day, one in two people become afflicted. Half of your nation now has an uncurable disease. In that same day, doctors have tested and proven that the disease destroys brain cells - giving each patient 2 weeks to live unless...they eat another living human brain completely.

For the duration of the time until this thing is cured what is your decision to do? That decision lies the paradox. Change nothing and the rights of the sick are violated as they no longer have the right to live. Allow them to "feed" and the rights of the healthy are violated.

Here's a link to the original concept I made little over a month ago. I changed a few things in the post here to avoid certain issues. Specifically - no, these people are not vampires!

I would divide the infected into two equal groups. One group can have the brains of the other group.

Meanwhile, those who are not infected remain uninfected.

On a more serious note I think I would let the infected die.

I think that first and foremost those who are healthy have the right NOT to have their brains removed from them for any reason.

The cure for this disease comes at too high a cost.

Unfortunately that would mean no cure for the infected.

Besides, it would take more than two weeks to perform 150 Brain removal operations.

[Guest]

I would divide the infected into two equal groups. One group can have the brains of the other group.

Meanwhile, those who are not infected remain uninfected.

Obviously that scenario would destroy the paradox, so they kinda have to eat healthy brains for it to be one.

On a more serious note I think I would let the infected die.

I think that first and foremost those who are healthy have the right NOT to have their brains removed from them for any reason.

The cure for this disease comes at too high a cost.

Unfortunately that would mean no cure for the infected.

Besides, it would take more than two weeks to perform 150 Brain removal operations.

Yeah, you're hitting here on the answer most countries would probably use. However, the infected then have no right to live, destroying their rights.

I think another workable solution is to make a law requiring each infected to donate themselves to science.

[Izzy]

...Well. Either way half your nation dies. Might as well keep the best people.

Give everyone on the island a series of tests applicable to their age. The smartest live - the dumbs die. This is excluding people with previously recorded mental disabilities or other disadvantages. These are special cases, and will have to be looked at on an individual level. Those who pass the test may choose to give their living right away if they so wish (ie, mother saves child). Not the most humane solution, but it would eliminate the useless and preserving the important. Nation of geniuses > A bunch of idiots.

[andromeda]

Similar to the Terminator and Minority Report "moral" paradoxes, this one hinges on a major decision to be made by a leader of a nation. There is a major outbreak that reaches from coast to coast. In a single day, one in two people become afflicted. Half of your nation now has an uncurable disease. In that same day, doctors have tested and proven that the disease destroys brain cells - giving each patient 2 weeks to live unless...they eat another living human brain completely.

For the duration of the time until this thing is cured what is your decision to do? That decision lies the paradox. Change nothing and the rights of the sick are violated as they no longer have the right to live. Allow them to "feed" and the rights of the healthy are violated.

Here's a link to the original concept I made little over a month ago. I changed a few things in the post here to avoid certain issues. Specifically - no, these people are not vampires!

Hm... an interesting dilemma!

The rights of the sick are being violated everyday so I don't see how would "the leader" be able to change anything. Besides, there are people with uncurable, for example, heart conditions, but no one is going around killing people so that those with the condition could have a heart transplant and live. They take hearts from donors that are in vegetative state and that can no longer gain consciousness. So the brain would be donated in the same way. Of course rich people would be the ones to survive the disease. The problem is that you had only given them 2 weeks!

So everyone is born equal, no one has a right to take life, everyone who would do that would spend life in prison. There's the additional dilemma!!

Edited November 20, 2008 by andromeda

[Guest]

...Well. Either way half your nation dies. Might as well keep the best people.

Give everyone on the island a series of tests applicable to their age. The smartest live - the dumbs die. This is excluding people with previously recorded mental disabilities or other disadvantages. These are special cases, and will have to be looked at on an individual level. Those who pass the test may choose to give their living right away if they so wish (ie, mother saves child). Not the most humane solution, but it would eliminate the useless and preserving the important. Nation of geniuses > A bunch of idiots.

Tell that to the USA Congress. I like this solution quite a bit, but usually answers go to where the money is, so this isn't viable. Maybe in a more technology, not capital, driven society like Germany maybe?

Hm... an interesting dilemma!

The rights of the sick are being violated everyday so I don't see how would "the leader" be able to change anything. Besides, there are people with uncurable, for example, heart conditions, but no one is going around killing people so that those with the condition could have a heart transplant and live. They take hearts from donors that are in vegetative state and that can no longer gain consciousness. So the brain would be donated in the same way. Of course rich people would be the ones to survive the disease. The problem is that you had only given them 2 weeks!

So everyone is born equal, no one has a right to take life, everyone who would do that would spend life in prison. There's the additional dilemma!!

Aye, I just forsee a bunch of killings happening, a bunch of infants dying, and a lot of general chaos going around. I gave them 2 weeks to complete the paradox. As a humanist and a "deist", I think any solution that does something is the right solution, even killing off the healthy! But the little atheist in me wants to defeat the paradox.

[Izzy]

Tell that to the USA Congress. I like this solution quite a bit, but usually answers go to where the money is, so this isn't viable. Maybe in a more technology, not capital, driven society like Germany maybe?

Oh man, I just saw myself taking over Germany. It was.. *awesome*. (I'm German btw )

[Jiminy Cricket]

Obviously that scenario would destroy the paradox, so they kinda have to eat healthy brains for it to be one.

Yeah, you're hitting here on the answer most countries would probably use. However, the infected then have no right to live, destroying their rights.

I think another workable solution is to make a law requiring each infected to donate themselves to science.

I disagree with the second half of your first statement and I'll tell you why.

Not providing a healthy brain to an infected person is not denying them of any rights.

The key here, for me anyway, is that I do not see in ANY WAY how sacrificing a healthy human is the RIGHT of any infected human.

Let's look at the issue in a slightly different manner:

Suppose the cure for this disease were 100 healthy human brains? Do the infected still have this alleged "Right" to a cure?

What if the cure were 80 healthy human brains? 50? 25? 10?

Is there any point where you decide that it's ok to kill a healthy human to save the life of an infected human?

I say there is no such point.

The idea of providing an infected brain for research is a good one, maybe one day those who were not infected will come across this pandemic again and thanks to the research were able to find a cure.

Historically, people have died from things we can cure over the counter. What about those people's rights hundreds or thousands of years ago?

Current conditions did not allow them to live whereas today you could go out and, say, get a shot of penecillin or an antidote to snakebite.

[Guest]

I will attempt to create a less emotional scenario that can better express the paradox;

You get hired on at a new company and on your first day you have to attend group orientation. It's the exact amount of money and benefits you need to support your family. Strangely, you notice someone peculiar in the group and you investigate. Come to find out that that person is your long lost identical twin, have the same exact name - everything! You even have the same family situation and hobbies!

But that's not the only life changing thing that happens that day. After a brief meeting with the hiring manager, you find out that both of you were hired as sort of a test in the most wildly distorted manner. You and your twin are fighting against each other for the same position and it looks like you're going to lose the job because your better half showed up 5 minutes earlier! Do you do everything in your power to get the job, or do you let your better half win?

Does this express it better? I think it does. However, these are more of moral conflicts rather than paradoxes now that I think about it. Are conflicts really just morally dressed up paradoxes? Interesting thinking.

I disagree with the second half of your first statement and I'll tell you why.

Not providing a healthy brain to an infected person is not denying them of any rights.

The key here, for me anyway, is that I do not see in ANY WAY how sacrificing a healthy human is the RIGHT of any infected human.

Let's look at the issue in a slightly different manner:

Suppose the cure for this disease were 100 healthy human brains? Do the infected still have this alleged "Right" to a cure?

What if the cure were 80 healthy human brains? 50? 25? 10?

Is there any point where you decide that it's ok to kill a healthy human to save the life of an infected human?

I say there is no such point.

I understand your logic but I disagree with it. The cost is the only important thing in this paradox, and it's easily changed because this is fiction. Obviously 100 deaths per infected is too much - but is the single death of a mother sacrificing her life to save her newborn too much? So then the cost is not important because you and I and everyone else have different views about it. Let's assume it's just a "dynamic constant" until a better scenario can be found to better express the paradox.

The idea of providing an infected brain for research is a good one, maybe one day those who were not infected will come across this pandemic again and thanks to the research were able to find a cure.

Historically, people have died from things we can cure over the counter. What about those people's rights hundreds or thousands of years ago?

Current conditions did not allow them to live whereas today you could go out and, say, get a shot of penecillin or an antidote to snakebite.

There is a major difference between this scenario and historical plagues. No plague in the past could be cured by choice.

[andromeda]

Obviously 100 deaths per infected is too much - but is the single death of a mother sacrificing her life to save her newborn too much?

I don't want to nitpick but um... how should a newborn ingest the whole brain of an adult?? Even if you turn it into a mush!

This is not really a paradox, it's just a moral dilemma of an individual human being. Do I kill to stay alive an then go to prison, or die with clear conscious?! Simple as that...

[Jiminy Cricket]

I will attempt to create a less emotional scenario that can better express the paradox;

You get hired on at a new company and on your first day you have to attend group orientation. It's the exact amount of money and benefits you need to support your family. Strangely, you notice someone peculiar in the group and you investigate. Come to find out that that person is your long lost identical twin, have the same exact name - everything! You even have the same family situation and hobbies!

But that's not the only life changing thing that happens that day. After a brief meeting with the hiring manager, you find out that both of you were hired as sort of a test in the most wildly distorted manner. You and your twin are fighting against each other for the same position and it looks like you're going to lose the job because your better half showed up 5 minutes earlier! Do you do everything in your power to get the job, or do you let your better half win?

Does this express it better? I think it does. However, these are more of moral conflicts rather than paradoxes now that I think about it. Are conflicts really just morally dressed up paradoxes? Interesting thinking.

I understand your logic but I disagree with it. The cost is the only important thing in this paradox, and it's easily changed because this is fiction. Obviously 100 deaths per infected is too much - but is the single death of a mother sacrificing her life to save her newborn too much? So then the cost is not important because you and I and everyone else have different views about it. Let's assume it's just a "dynamic constant" until a better scenario can be found to better express the paradox.

There is a major difference between this scenario and historical plagues. No plague in the past could be cured by choice.

Your paradox never specifically mentions newborn babies and mothers. I think we agree that these would be exceptions, like prisoners, terminally ill, to the situation in general. I myself would give my own brain to save my daughter's life if it came down to it.

I did not specifically mention plagues but the idea is the same. We have cures available now that prevent deaths that were previously "accepted" because there was no medical alternative.

As far as the job situation, I don't think this is a paradox.

People compete for jobs every day. I think it matters not whether your competition is family or not. If the hiring manager already decided to give the job to someone else because they showed up five minutes earlier then the decision has already been made.

Now if you're saying I discovered that my competition was my long lost twin before the decision were made - I would try to get the job myself.

Nothing has changed just because that other person is a relative. I still need to provide for my family, just as my long lost twin needs to provide for his.

Would you suggest both twins withdraw from the job so as not to "take away" from the other?

Then neither of them have a job. So what is the benefit?

[Guest]

well less then half could die cause u can use brain donor's brains... but that's not much ^^

[Guest]

It sounds like a simple triage...

Save those who can be saved, the uninfected, by quarantining them from the infected.

The infected, unfortunately, have a disease with no reasonable cure.

Just like we don't kill healthy people to supply transplants for those in need, we wouldn't kill healthy people to cure an infected populous.

The only people whose rights could be violated would be those of the healthy people.

In most societies, people have a right to health care, they don't have a right to health itself-- that's up to genes, behavior, and luck.

Morally, the only solution would be to allow healthy people to volunteer to cure someone, but it's a zero-sum solution per capita... the only qualifying factor would be whether the volunteer deemed the recipient more likely to contribute to humanity than him or herself.

@TehNub:

What's a brain donor? You can't transplant brains, and even if you could -or- the person had elected to donate his body to science, then that only occurs after the person is declared clinically dead. After that point, the brain is no longer viable as "the cure," as it would seem defined by the paradox.

Just a thought

Edited September 8, 2009 by Sinaz

[Guest]

...Well. Either way half your nation dies. Might as well keep the best people.

Give everyone on the island a series of tests applicable to their age. The smartest live - the dumbs die. This is excluding people with previously recorded mental disabilities or other disadvantages. These are special cases, and will have to be looked at on an individual level. Those who pass the test may choose to give their living right away if they so wish (ie, mother saves child). Not the most humane solution, but it would eliminate the useless and preserving the important. Nation of geniuses > A bunch of idiots.

Hmmmm... I completely disagree. Who's to say who is a genius or who is an idiot? The above comment is not far off Hitler and his vision to create a "superior" race of some sort. Some of the greatest people to contribute to society are not academics. So going by your rules these people would be effectively executed for not passing some test?

Another question; why would a nation of geniuses be better than a nation of idiots? Everyone has a value and society needs a mixture to be healthy. If everyone were fantastic theoretical geniuses busy contemplating theories, innovating and inventing who would actually build their stuff? who would do the useful jobs in day-to-day living like drive buses? fix their cars? Can you see some genius having the ability to build himself a house when his speciality is "Astronomical Theory and Mathematical Computations"? I can't.

Also, how do you determine who is a genius and who is an idiot? Many of the greatest discoveries in terms of Physics etc. were made by people who were thought to be mad at the time. These people would have been considered idiots.

I would have to say that those that are not infected must be left to remain uninfected. Sort of a natural selection. Those that are infected have been infected and therefore, unfortunately will die (in this scenario). Of course, this is easy to say from a neutral standpoint. I think what would likely happen is the infected will fight the uninfected, some of the infected would succeed in eating an uninfected brain and recover and some would not and die. Of course everyone wants to live.

ANyway, in the original reply above who would decide who lives and who dies? In my view no-one decides. Let nature take it's course on this one.

[Guest]

I would say this is a question of ethics not a paradox. It's a question of agency. A parent choosing to give their life for their child is a moral agent making a choice.

A government leader taking that choice away from anyone is unethical. People who have no ability or limited/impaired ability to exercise moral agency (persistive vegetative state, infants, brain damaged, mental disease, comatose etc) are a different issue.

[Guest]

No one has a "right" to life - we are mortal. Mortality means that our lives will become void at some point, and "rights" cannot be conditional.

If everyone has a "right" to live, you end up with just the scenario described - if one persons life requires that another person die, then whose rights are given priority? Rights must be violated in either outcome.

The only "fair" scenario that prevents violation of rights is everyone has the right to be free from harm caused by someone else.

Edited January 23, 2010 by Accipter

[phaze]

<insert spanner> What if you can save 100 infected for 1 healthy brain? </insert spanner>

[Guest]

The only "fair" scenario that prevents violation of rights is everyone has the right to be free from harm caused by someone else.

This is what is meant by right to life. I don't believe rights are inalienable though... well at least in the sense that rights can be forfeited by exercise of ones agency.

<insert spanner> What if you can save 100 infected for 1 healthy brain? </insert spanner>

Ask for volunteers. There are many people who donate their bodies for purposes of saving lives or furthering science.

[Guest]

ZOMBIE APPOCOLIPSE!!!

Put the ill on 1 side of the country and the healthy on the other. Feed the children, then women, and then the men, the people who are going to get the death penalty's brains because they will die anyways.

Edited March 14, 2011 by Collette

[Guest]

I can solve this problem in one sentence:

Eat the brains of the people already dying. Or, invade some weak country

.

Edited March 16, 2011 by Jetdron