Reflections on class discussion 9/6/07

Yesterday's class discussion brought up quite a lot of issues, which were mostly about the ethical status of torture. A question that was brought up a lot during class was, "Do we want to kill one guilty man, and take away his freedom, to save a whole group of people who are innocent?" I think that this question, will in truth never be answered, I say this because we as humans have a conscience, and we also have the capacity to make our own decisions. We also have the capacity to think through situations, unlike most creatures who do not have the ability to have free will. The point I am tring to make with this is that this question can truly never be answered, since you can't kill a life, and expect one back, you can't save someone in a situations that threaten the lives of innocent people. I like the claim that the author makes about how most mothers would kill the people who took their baby. The question that I would like to ask the author is, "When were the mothers asked these questions?" I ask this becaseu any mother would want to defend an inncoent life in which they created, adn would say that they would kill their baby's captive if they ever found them. I'm not saying that they wouldn't say this during the aftermath, but they could say this due to the fact that it is perfectly natural for a mother to say things like these in the heat of the moment. But would they regret thinking these thoughts of killing another human to save their own child? Maybe they would maybe they wouldn't. The point that I'm trying to get across is that people might think of harming one human to save others, but will they later on think that they wouldn't be any better than the criminal they thought these thoughts about? This is not just in the case of mothers, but of families who have been affected by terrorist attacks, in which they probably would have done anything to save their loved ones during the attack. But would they have thought it to be ethical to take away another person's life in exchange for inncoent lives? I think that most people would think it is ethical, based on the fact that once someone has committed a crime, that they are literally stripped of their rights, and that they also were the ones who signed up for a dangerous act of terrorism Another thought about this article is that he practically predicted that there would be a attack like 9/11,that was creepy, anyone else get
that vibe?