Say you find yourself marooned on a tiny deserted island somewhere in the south pacific with just one other person of random characteristics (random in terms of age, sex, ethnicity, religion, etc). This person is in good health, or at least in as good of health as you are at any given moment. All the natural food on the island has just run out, and there is no way to get more. Pretend that you know 3 things for certain:

1) people know you are missing, and they are searching for you using relevant resources (airplanes, boats, etc)

2) despite the fact that people are looking for you, it is quite unlikely, given the enormity of the area you could be in combined with the tiny, insignificant island you find yourself on, that you will ever be found before you die of starvation/dehydration/infection/whatever.

3) Nobody else in the world knows that another person is with you on the island. Everyone is searching for, and expecting to find, only you.


My questions are these:

A) Is it ok to kill the other person on the island so that you can eat their body and improve your chances of being found alive by avoiding starvation?

B) Is it ok to kill the person just for the hell of it, regardless of your reason for killing them, even if you had an abundance of food? Or, in a slightly different question, is it MORALLY WRONG to kill the person? (I say this because "ok" implies something akin to "permissible but neither here nor there", or "morally neutral", and so "ok" and "morally wrong" are not opposites strictly speaking).

C) If it is ok to kill the person, why? If it's NOT ok to kill the person, why not?


Remember, nobody knows that this person is with you. If you kill them, no one will ever know except for you.

I'm sorry, but why is this at all relevant in evaluating the morality of the situation? Besides Eric Cartman on South Park, I don't know that people actually believe something that is wrong would be ok if no one found out, or something that is ok would be wrong if others found out.

Anyway, for me, killing him would be morally wrong because killing people is wrong (I allow for exceptions for when they pose a threat to the life/well-being of yourself or others). If the person agreed to be eaten, then I'm fine with taking part in this agreement.

I take door number four and point out that on a tiny island in the south pacific, food never runs out. I know how to get sweet water close to the shore and I wouldn't mind eating snails, mussels, algae etc. for a while. Moreover, I would imagine that rescue efforts take into account the average survival time span. So once you get past, say, 45 days (easily doable w/out any food at all), it starts making less and less of a difference whether you make it for another 20, 40 or 80 days.

That's got to be against your religion. I would only eat him if he was rich because the rich deserve it.

you're not allowed to do that. obv it doesn't work if you circumvent the premises!

Your circular reasoning doesn't fly. WHY is killing people wrong?

lol

you should kill yourself so he can eat you. It's the right thing to do.

It's not circular reasoning:
P1) It is wrong to kill people
P2) My desert-island companion is a person
C1) Therefore it is wrong to kill my companion

Ofc, you can ask 'why is killing people wrong in general?' But then you leave the parameters of your desert island scenario - an option you have been quick to deny to Freteloo...

Meh ...

Sometimes I think "thought experiments" are abused - A completely extreme situation is presented, somewhat divorced from the reality of life situations and we are asked to provide an answer.

Then we are supposed to extrapolate the conclusion, based on these wild and extreme premises, back to mundane everyday life?

you still haven't explained why killing someone is wrong though (on the island or in any situation).

It's much easier to say that within society, killing people is wrong because it could set a precedent which would lead society to descend into murderous chaos, if followed to a logical extreme. But the reason I set the thought experiment on an island - specifically isolated from greater society - is that none of that would then apply.

Nope. But feel free to explain why you think so and I'll show you where you're going wrong.

Killing someone infringes on their right to life, and I hold that it's wrong to infringe on the rights of others.

I am not so sure ... If its OK for the "one" castaway to kill the "other" castaway, it would be OK for the "other" castaway to kill the "one" castaway.

Well of course, there's no difference, it just depends on perspective obv. My point though is: is it wrong to approach the island situation with a sort of realist, kill-or-be-killed, perhaps Ayn Rand-ian morality where there is nothing wrong with killing the other person? (although I realize that it's not really a "kill-or-be-killed" situation as long as the other person isn't threatening you, which would change the situation completely).

Ok, I'd agree with that sure. But I still think we have to take the question further. Why is it wrong to infringe on the rights of others?

And also, is there such a thing as right to life? Who is the recipient of that right? And who is the giver of that right?

At some point in working out a moral system, you have to have some base axioms from which you derive the rest of the system. I think we have reached that point. At least for me.

hmm ok fair enough. thanks for your input then dude. Still if anyone else out there wants to pursue this question further, please say something, cause I'm personally not satisfied yet.

Ok, so if the desert island doesn't eliminate the infinite regress of killing...
I am not sure if realism is the issue but rather why do you feel realism is some killed or be killed approach? Or why is Rand's morality more realistic than say the morality of some one else, e.g., Karl Marx?

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.

I don't want to to live in a society where it is acceptable to (try to) kill for your own personal gain. Even or especially if the society consists of only two persons.

Ok well that's Kant's famous Categorical Imperative of course. Could you elaborate on why you would especially not want to live in that sort of society if it only consists of 2 people? I would think that it would be the opposite.

If it is acceptable to kill someone then in a society consisting of two people I am at an increased risk of being killed. The killer does not have to be afraid of retribution.

Interesting, your moral calculation invokes probability and thus a sense of game theory. However I'll point out, as you've probably already realized, that if the killer does not have to be afraid of retribution in that instance, neither do you if you become the killer yourself. I don't see anything preventing either of you from becoming murderous in that situation, apart from some deeply held and, most importantly, self-governed moral belief that murder is wrong (which is of course contained within the Categorical Imperative).

In a related but slightly different issue, it seems to me that the Categorical Imperative can be interpreted in at least 2 senses. First, in the sense that Kant likely meant it: treat others not as means to an end, but as ends in themselves in a non-contained, universal sense that would apply even on the 2-person island in question. Secondly, in the merely pragmatic sense that the Categorical Imperative holds - and ONLY HOLDS - within greater society so as to prevent a mass descent into lawless, amoral chaos. In other words, if it wasn't for the need to maintain order in society to prevent its self-destruction, the Categorical Imperative would have no bearing.

Also, it matters greatly why you wouldn't want to live in a society where it is acceptable to kill someone. From the reason you've given here, it seems as though you are merely afraid of being killed yourself. If that's the case, the best way to ensure that you are not killed on the island would be to kill the other person before they can kill you. In fact, from a game theory standpoint, it would seem that the Nash equilibrium would be for both players to try and kill the other one to try and ensure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are each not murdered by the other.

How is it self governed?

Or any more or less self governed than you saying there is nothing preventing you from becoming murderous?