this has proven some interesting intellectual fodder, and i have waited to post for a while in order to get a feel for the standings of other members before contributing my two cents.
with that in mind, lets get down to it......
first, i agree with yakk insofar as the concepts of "good" and "evil" are completely meaningless without the framework of the society in which they exist. what is good to you may be evil to me, and vice versa. moreover, the concept of "greater good" still implies a shared view of good and evil, which is fallacious to assume.
Now, unfortunately, the same is true of "moral" and "ethical". morality is determined by the system of ethics, which is in turn dependant upon the societal framework within which they exist. (for an example: in the united states it is considered ethical to tip a waiter/waitress (assuming good service and all that jazz). in many places in europe, however, it is actually
insulting for a patron to tip their waiter/waitress).
in other words, what we think doesnt matter, because it will never jive with what every other person thinks. i.e. no system of morality, ethics, law, justice can ever be universally acceptable.
now, just to further show the complication that these assumptions create, let me pose a modification to the theme that people have only hinted at.....
in situation 1, imagine it was your wife or child that had recieved the largest dose of poison. in a universally acceptable ethical system, there would still be no question, let the one die. but we are not like that. damned near ever single one of us would be loathe to let a loved one slip away under those circumstance, knowing that all it would take to save them would be to let 5 other names die.
now, even our idea of "do no harm" cannot withstand a line of reasoning of this nature. again, in situation 1, imagine instead that there is one young girl that has the most poison, and 5 convicted sex offenders that have the lesser dose. how many of us would "do no harm" to the 5 sex offenders and let the little girl with her entire life ahead of her die?
basically, although i agree with the idea that we can never come up with a system that establishes value on life, i believe this is only symptomatic of the true problem: lack of applicability for our system of ethics and morals.
until we can acknowledge that our own moral standings are different than other people's, and realize that it is
ok, we will keep trying to browbeat our opinions on other people, and we will end up with a flame war
sorry if that made no sense, i didnt get much sleep last nite
