Here’s a moral dilemma for you but it requires a little imagination.
Let’s say that three weeks ago, you found a way to travel back in time. Seriously. You were able to pick a date and go back to that date.
Over the years there have been many innocent people killed in many different ways, despite the arguments about history being accurate and events being denied etc. I guess one of the best examples would be Hitler – if you could be transported back in time to a room in which Hitler were fast asleep and you had a syringe full of something guaranteed to cause his instant death, what would you do? Would you kill him, or not?
And more importantly, how would those events change the world as we know it? Completely and utterly. It is almost impossible to consider the potential implications of deading Hitler well before he caused the events he did. How many lives would you save by taking that one life?
This one is difficult for me – I don’t know that I could give that injection, but on the other hand if I did not wouldn’t all those people who died haunt me forever? I think I would be morally obligated to do it.
What about Ted Bundy who killed so many young women?
The Columbine shooters?
The people who hijacked the planes on 9/11?
What would you do? What do you think? Is there a time when killing is justified?
Me personally I think the only time killing is justified is when you *know* for a fact it is going to save one or more other lives. On the other hand, I’m not keen on the state doing it. I’m not for the death penalty.
This is a tricky one, I’d like to hear what you think.
Oh, the choices are overwhelming! BUT, I am totally going to begin incorporating the term “deading” into my regular lexicon, thankyouverymuch.
It wouldn’t make sense to go back in time to kill someone, even someone as terrible as Hitler as the whole of the world’s history would immediately be changed and this may not necessarily be a good change. Certainly Hitler would be gone, but it’s possible some other, stronger, evil power would have triumphed and the world as we now know it wouldn’t exist. Many of our current “good” people may not have been born, lessons learnt in the last 60-70 years would not have been learnt, you or I might not have been born. On the other hand we may have a universal utopia with everyone everywhere equal but would that be a good thing? Sooner or later someone would want just that little bit extra, more than the bloke next door, before you know it we’d be right back at square one.
IMHO,There is no justification for killing other people,even if they are evil!
when you can go back and pick a date,you can be more helpful and try to curb your victim’s efforts to make a crime.
columbine shooters?
call the police
9/11?
call/send a mail to FBI
…
nobody believes you?
just convince them, you know the end of story.
that’s a puzzle for everyone but you
This is a tough one, as I’ve asked myself this question before. I have the same issues you mentioned with one different thought. I always wondered if we have a parallel Universe and perhaps I could disrupt one and not the other. I’m not even sure how it would work…sorta of like a Universe that coincides with ours except everything is opposite on the other side. Therefore if I went to the other side…my life would be the opposite it is here. And by the way I do think it exists…in the time warp…now am I ever sounding spooky. I don’t think too much about this as it often makes me crazy…
I won’t think about life after death much as well, because I end of being afraid one of them would contact me and you never know which side they are from the dark or the light side…so there you are….
Dorothy from grammology
remember to call gram
http://www.grammolgoy.com
It is a hard question…. but I think, that it should be that was as it is… If Hitler would not kill so many people, maybe more nacis would be here now. Or just some of his follower would take his role… I think, that every evil thing in the history is good for at least one thing: to learn from it, and not make the same mistake again.
What an interesting post!
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran minister in Nazi Germany, struggled with the same issue. It is suspected he joined a group that plotted to assassinate Adolph Hitler. The plot failed. The Nazi’s evidence against Bohhoeffer was shaky, but they arrested him anyway. They sentenced him to death and asphixiated him with piano strings only a few days before the Allies arrived to liberate Germany. It is a sad story. But Bonhoeffer wrote extensively about his life and his decision… you can probably find his books at Amazon or at your library.
So you’ve somehow received the gift of time travel, and the first thing you think of doing with it is committing a felony, and need to justify it? I can think of several other things I’d be more likely to do on my time journey than worry about who I can assassinate.
But consider that you could take down Christopher Columbus (or send him off course) and instantly get rid of all those American psychos and the 9/11 hijackings at the same time. And a wee bit of meddling with czar Nicholas fate or altering the terms of the Versailles agreement would probably make WWII a non-event.
Ah heck, go snatch the forbidden fruit from Adam before he takes a bite.
:-)
I would have definitely killed him. He set a paradigm for future rulers to use to manipulate the public. For example, he bombed his own Parliament to ignite a war against “terrorists” (sound familiar?). Hitler then used homeland security to take away civil liberties of its citizens in the pursuit of stopping “terrorists.” Again, sound familiar? If some of these interest you, check this out: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles3/Jayne_Hitler-Bush.htm .
However, on the other end of the spectrum, who knows if someone later could have come to power and accomplished the same thing with more success? We do not know for sure, but judging from how HItler has effected not only the lives of people during his time, he is also effecting me.