Really having a great time writing these stories, but i'm starting to get into a bit of a slump now. Digging into my philosophy lessons there were several things that intrigued me with this being one of them. I heard this spoken different ways with the most memorable being from Spock "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Trying to write a story based around this concept throwing in some mystical nature behind it to make things more intriguing. However, I want to get some opinions on the philosophical matter of the needs of the many quote itself. One article online talked about this somewhat in depth. It spoke about members of society being no longer beneficial (eldery/permanently ill that can not work) to that society thus requiring termination to maintain a sort of "utopian" ideal city.

Anyways what are all your thoughts about "The Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?"

It's agreeable to a certain degree. But between killing ten children to save a thousand terminally ill... I think the children deserve to see tomorrow.

You cannot put a value on a life.

That was one of the interesting parts where it did not say who the many were and who the few were. It might be reversed saying the terminally ill need to die while the 10 children need to be saved because they are of benefit to society. This really makes things interesting such as FFX where you have ghostly members still leading the world. They believe in sacrificing the alive summoners *think that is what they are called* so that they can live when they are dead.

Besides the few exceptions I think it is true. It is expressed in media a lot too, typically the selfish nature of people stops this justice from happening, but then there will be some event or person who manages to convince them other wise to do what is right, and not what they want.

In certain situations I'd agree with it, but there are also degrees of importance to needs, and many things claimed to be needs are nothing more than wants or nice things.

Plus it also goes to for example, there were 50.000 people infected with a virus that will spread and kill everyone would you kill them to save everyone else, arbitrary number could be 10 or a million.

And as in Spock example would you give your life to save others.

Then again the elderly are full of life-experiences that they can share with the young and can provide insight into a person's heritage. It's hard to quantify the value of tha-

Ah, crap...http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074812/. Seeyas.

Oh please.

Is the life of an abusive, violent, aggressive, serial-offending pedophile worth just as much the life of a criminally uncharged benevolent benefactor?

Who gets to make that judgement?

If encountered with a life threatening decision would you kill a baby to save 3,000 5 years olds? And you would die if you didn't.

Who decides human life is invaluable?

It's just as arbitrary.

The pedophile could kidnap the next Hitler(or other bad dude), and the benefactor could unintentionally help them become the next Hitler (or other bad dude).

Or the pedo could be offered freedom through the military, and in there he is imparitive to some operation at some point, where the benefactor pays his way out of serving his country.

You never know.

I wasn't arguing that...just that attempting to weight the value of one life versus another raises some civic and moral questions.

Also, how wealthy is the pedophile in this scenario?

Very good points, but to put it like this; would you give a serial-offending pedophile a chance to redeem himself or would you throw him in jail? Let us say he's done unspeakable acts against 14 children, all under the ages of ten.

I would also like to argue that when injustice is brought upon someone, they bring injustice upon someone else, justified by the injutice brough upon themselves, if you know what I mean.
Hmm, let us say he is a hard working man and on top of that is married to a hard working woman, who together earn enough to take at least three yearly one-week long vacations outside their own country. Does that paint a clear enough picture of his wealth (although shared)?

I am ex emergency rescue services, i joined to help save lives, until i saw so many stupid people doing things which put them in a situation were they needed to be rescued, which then risked the lives of the people who had to rescue them, i watched news footage from overseas of a cliff helicopter rescue where, the helicopter got caught in a wind gust thrown against the cliff and everybody onboard died to save a brainless teenager who thought it would be a laugh to climb down a cliff, they had no experience, and it was a difficult climb and they had no gear at all. They eventually set up a an over hanging winch and got someone down the cliff to get him back, but this person had caused the death of 4 people, 2 pilots, the rescue crewman, and a paramedic.

We have the luxury to flip flop answers or refuse to give one, but no one can know what their decision will be until they need to make it.

I've done some philosophy in my time...

There could be redemption through military, but that may not even be an option. Otherwise no, but point is someone's life could be very important, but that person could svck, so their life isn't invaluable, but they make it that way.

Let me rephrase that:

You cannot put a value on a life... UNLESS that person was a Pedo, murderer or Rapist. (First degree murderers) They have no value

Sure, but that importance is more or less impossible to predict. If assuming that someone might be of importance at some point, how can we ever decide what to do with any within any context?

For example:

1. A teacher being fired could be a bad move, because if that teacher wasn't fired, she/he would bring about an educational reform that would benefit students just as well as before and benefit struggling students even more than before.

Or:

2. The teacher is not fired because the management like him/her, and the teacher simply remains working there until retirement.

3. Because the teacher was fired, he/she would be plunged into a depression and after managing to get over it, end up becoming a self-help guru because of that.

4. Because the teacher was fired, he/she would be plunged into a depression and commit suicide.

Determining the importance of a life is in most cases, a futile task.

That's just your moral system that stresses current common social values. It's possible to build such a system that stresses values of technological advancement and conquering nature over social values, in which case it's possible for a morally good person to be of lesser value than a pedos, murderers, and rapists (assuming that they contribute more towards scientific advancement)

yay value as a relativistic concept to moral systems

Hmm...ok, so then I need to find a place being threatened by a deadly ice cream surplus.

Yep. There's no objective worth to any life.

I already found such a place. I get praised for eating donuts at work, because it protects my co-workers from being tempted by them

reps will bring in donuts every now and then, but most of my co-workers are either on a diet or worried about their blood sugar. It happened today, for example and one co-worker just said "I don't want to eat them, I just want to look at them and smell them" while I helped myself to them

personally I tend to believe the masses are morons and should be exploited and fleeced.