A dilemma

An old ethical-philosophical question is what would you do if by letting an oncoming train run over one person you save five people lying on the other track? Of course, it is an artificial scenario, only designed to eke out the answer of what is a human life worth? The question doesn’t address the context, which could vary from situation to situation. The one life you let go could be that of say the discoverer of Penicillin, Alexander Fleming. The five on the other track could be escaped convicted rapists and murderers. Is one life worth more than five? The issue is a live one now, with Pentagon war-gamers no doubt figuring out if they could somehow assassinate Putin. Why not? It’s what they, along with the CIA and various others do. If by getting rid of Putin, outwith any legal process you save the lives of thousands, isn’t that a fair deal? Perhaps if the 1944 plot to kill Hitler had succeeded maybe a million or two lives could have been saved. What’s the problem? Or to put it another way, what’s wrong with extra-judicial killings if they get rid of mass murderers? This is a purely transactional question and applied in a range of circumstances can lead to all sorts of conundrums. If say the captain of the Titanic (not a bad person) disagreed with the warnings of his first officer about the threat of that big white thing looming up on the starboard bow, should the first officer have reached for a pistol and shot the captain? It all depends on what one thinks the solution is. In the case of Putin, whose missiles the media yesterday were keen to assert were landing on NATO territory, would his assassination encourage his coterie to leave off and head for the negotiating table? Or would they say ’we’ve nothing to lose now, press the button.’ ? Context is everything, and if the protagonists are spoiling for a fight, then finely tuned ethical questions will be put to one side as things escalate beyond control. If there are any survivors they may wonder around afterwards scratching their heads asking ’could we have done things differently?’ They will say yes, perhaps, before post-catastrophe possession syndrome (PCPS—that’s a new one) sets in again. At times like these ethics don’t come to the rescue. It is merely the game show host’s job to ask the audience to either press red ‘KILL PUTIN’ or green ‘ask him to pick up the phone.’ The train’s coming. No time to think. What’s your answer?