Sacrifices for the "Greater Good"
This is a very old yet always popular theme in many hollywood movies. Here you have your only son - there is a bus full of people. You cannot save both. What are you going to do? Do you remember the famous scenes? The hero throwing himself in front of the children, saving them but dying in the process?
There is an unlimited number of such stories, all with similar content.
All of them are closely linked to the questions: are two lives worth more than one? Is it ethical, is it morally just to let a human die, in order to save others?
Do we have the right to sacrifice people for a "greater good"?
To answer this question, we first have to define what a "sacrifice for a greater good" even is.
Sacrificing things for the so-called greater good starts with very small things, such as giving up little personal liberties and goes up to sacrificing even human lives.
When you give something up in order to archieve something else which you find to be of bigger importance, that is not necessarily bad and doesn't have to be unethical at all. Often, people put their own interests away, in order to make their children happy, to keep "peace at home" and to avoid constant conflicts and fighting. Such things are not much more than compromises and are a base for our civilization and society.
Other examples would be young people spending a "social year" in hospitals, kindergartens, schools etc or people in general joining social organizations in order to help others. They "sacrifice" their own interests for what they feel to be a greater good. Same when you decide to buy more expensive products that are for example from local farmers, in order to support them.
All of these things are based on decisions you make for yourself, decisions that mainly affect nobody but you. Those are ethically and morally pretty clear cut, everyone is free to do what he believes is right, as long as he doesn't hurt others.
But after that it becomes complicated - what about taking away others' liberties, what about sacrificing their ideals, their wishes, their rights or even their lives for a "greater good"?
It all begins on a small scale. If parents really want their child to become lawyer, think he is fit for the job and don't allow him to become say a painter, threaten to deinherit him, just because they think it is eventually "better" for him to be a lawyer, is that morally correct? Do those parents have the right to limit their son's rights? Are they doing the right thing?
Difficult questions undoubtedly. But there are much more serious issues.
The majority of the people are pretty dumb. This bold and very generalizing statement is repeated by many people, and while the politicians never openly say it, they surely secretly think so.
If the majority is pretty dumb and uneducated - shouldn't we, the nice and good government tell them what to do? Should we limit their rights because of what we think is "better" for them?
One example would be gun laws. In several European countries, guns are banned for normal people. Why? Because the government thinks guns are too dangerous for them and would eventually cause more harm than good.
The government decided that sacrificing the people's rights for a greater good was correct. Another big, always present example would be the social state. The government is under the impression that taking one man's money is just as it serves the "greater good" of feeding the poor, supporting the whole society. But there is even more to the topic than just financial issues. Keyword: terrorism. Should our freedom be limited in order to gain more safety for everyone and thus helping the society? Or does limiting our freedom cause just the opposite?
Should we kill 1 innocent man if we can save the deaths of 10 others by that? Should our government shoot down terrorist planes, even if hundreds of innocents are in it, if we are sure that the plane will otherwise crush into a big city, causing thousands of deaths?
Is one man worth less than two? Who are we to play god and put lives on the scales?
These very major issues and questions are without a doubt very up-to-date.
I personally think that sometimes sacrifices are inevitable. Times can come, when we have no choice but to give up one thing for another. We have to weigh up the importance of keeping our rights in order to live in a free world, in order to keep our liberties, against the consequences of allowing what we consider "bad". A good example for that would be socialism. Taking one man's hard earned money, stripping it off him and giving it to others is surely a violation of his rights and isn't totally morally just. However, the consequences of not supporting the poor, of not feeding the hungry, of not giving a home to the homeless are much bigger. In the end I believe the effects of not helping the helpless would have a much worse effect on society than the small loss of rights. But obviously, there have to be limits. In our society's interest, a small-average level of socialism is good, whereas a full socialist state could prove fatal.
However, not everything is so clear cut. I am undecided about limiting our liberties in face of the growing threat of terrorism. Is the possible saving of a few lives worth so much money, effort and especially lifetime of billions of people? But who am I to say it isn't! And should we really shoot terrorist planes with innocents in them? I honestly cannot tell.
Facing many problems nowadays, sacrificing our rights and liberties might seem like an easy and quik solution to lots of our trouble. However, sacrificing everything can prove just as fatal as doing nothing. If we give up everything, if we choose to bow down to the "greater good" at all costs, we open the gates to an immorale, unjust and unstable society.
We certainly aren't good judges on human lives, it would be disastrous to to let us make the decisions whether this human life is worth more than that one.
Drawing the line would be impossible and the end of our society, at least as we know it, would be near.
To sum it up, acting like a maniac and defending every single right to the last drop of blood even if the consequences is not only irrational, but also dangerous. Of course, the opposite is just as bad.
It is clear that a compromise must be found. However, there is no recipe for what is "right" or "wrong", thus the burden lies on us to find good solutions to the problems of our time.
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Originally Posted by Oceanus
. What has society done for me lately? I would much sooner save my friends, family, and loved ones- the people I actually care about- than save a number of random people.
