18
Would it be ethical to ask death-seeking people to go work in dangerous situations? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
51 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we do what I’m about to propose, I just think it’s an interesting ethical/moral thought experiment.

If we could find a lot of people who want to unalive themselves, and say to them: there’s been a disaster and there are a lot of people who are stuck (e.g. a mine collapse, or 9/11 or something like that) and it’s a dangerous situation for rescue workers to go into, since you don’t care if you die we’re gonna send you in… would it be an ethical or moral thing to do? To ask or make people who don’t care if they live or not, to go into a situation that there’s a known high risk that they won’t survive?

(Also, I not asking wether it is a good idea to send such people in or wether it would be effective — I’m only interested in the ethics/morality of such an idea)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 3 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

I didn't read the whole thread so maybe you already answered this, but Ive always though of this question in a

"Well we definitely can't get you BACK from Mars..." type of way.

Almost like allow suicidal people a Viking like funeral, in a more scientific way.

But of course letting someone with suicidal impulses making dangerous choices for themselves and others is bad and dangerous all around.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 4 points 4 hours ago

    No, I didn't address this scenario. It's not really relevant to why I think some of the situations presented are unethical, but I'm happy to chime in.

    I don't think letting people volunteer for a task that will certainly result in their death is inherently unethical. I also don't think people who volunteer for long or one way space missions are volunteering to die. They are volunteering to die in space. They are accepting that their life may be shorter than on earth, and accepting that it's a one way trip.

    Sure, if they volunteer to go up in a vessel that isn't coming back, and the vessel relies on a finite supply of life sustaining things with no plan to accept deliveries or seek out sources, then I can accept that is volunteering for a task that will be the cause of your death. That's a bit more concerning for me because of the time periods involved. A person could change their mind but have to live years and years knowing they cannot survive their choice.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent