So what's the right answer to this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_dilemma
>A woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I'm going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man's laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not?
>>1394875
No
He should have prayed harder
>>1394875
I would say, yes, he was correct. Human life is worth more than laws against theft and the individual act of one man to steal a drug would not have prevented the druggist successfully making money from his invention.
However it strikes me as being something of a simplistic and false dilemma as there are other ways to make money.
>>1394875
Depends on your views, there is no single right or wrong answer. It also does not state the repercussions of the theft. But to me, he did the wrong thing for the right reasons, the druggist is a shitty person for wanting to turn ten times profit on a life saving drug, but he is free to do so so long as laws are not in place to prevent it. And if there are laws to do so then there should have been legal channels to go through.
>>1394875
Yes, obviously. Saving your own life justifies petty theft.
>>1394875
how do you retards not understand perspective? theres no right answer, the seller values a thousand dollars more than some rondom faggot and the buyer values his wife more than consequences of petty theft, how the fuck is this even a valid question?
>>1396007
>lmao morals dont mean anything its all perspective
*hits bong*
>>1396092
ok can you give me a good reason for the seller to lowwer his price for some rondom person, its not like he can survive on hope, he needs money too
Use the Golden Rule and answer the question yourself
>>1396108
>golden rule meme
im sure a rapist wouldnt want his victims to rape him back
>>1396107
> When Murrow asked him, "Who owns this patent?", Salk replied, "No one. Could you patent the sun?"[57]The vaccine is calculated to be worth $7 billion had it been patented.[58]
Live like this guy
>>1396121
ok good for him, but besides him being awesome he had no reason to actually do it, and neither has the seller in this situation even if we deem it wrong or immoral
>>1396138
what if like
we don't have a reason to do anything at all
and there's just as much reason to act morally as there is to act selfishly
woah
Stealing is unvirtuous no matter the reason.
Being virtuous is conducive towards happiness.
Heinz stole the medicine to avoid suffering, but undermined his own purpose in doing so by acting unvirtuous.
Stealing is therefore irrational.
>>1394875
Yes. Inflicting a loss of $2000 is pretty negligible compared to saving a life.
>>1396007
There is some external notion of value, even if we don't all agree on it. Otherwise there could be no laws. For example, you might value $20 more than the life of a human, but that won't fly in court if you're arrested for murdering someone.
>>1396107
He could still have made considerable profit.
>>1396161
what if like, youre entitled to something after your lifes work is actually succesful and revolutionary,
and no there definitely isnt just as much reason to act selfishly or morally, its all based on the situation and nuance
>>1394875
Heinz was in the right. The druggist is clearly being immoral through his greed. There was no 'good faith' reason for him to put the price of the drug so high, nor was there any reason for him to deny Heniz request to pay the remainder back later. Essentially the druggist was holding Heinz' wife to ransom.
>>1396194
>There is some external notion of value, even if we don't all agree on it
thats the whole point, the vast majority does agree on it
>For example, you might value $20 more than the life of a human, but that won't fly in court if you're arrested for murdering someone.
yeah thats because the majority decided that they also would not like to be killed for petty cash, if that murderer would be majority maybe he would make a law that you could kill someone for some ammount of money if you really need it
>>1394875
WRONG.
Heinz can get a Loan. If loans were impossible, the drug wouldn't be 2000$ or Heinz is scum, thus is without credit.
>>1396007
i found the economist
>>1396198
average people thinking:
do something -> get money -> get renown
benevolent genius thinking:
do something -> get renown (no middleman)
Heinz shouldn't have been so stingy with his insurance
>>1396007
This. Questions like this are fucking stupid because there is no objective answer.
Is it time for another trolley thread?
>>1394875
Yes of course. This world is about survival, and ethics in the classical sense is mainly applicable to only society which is a social construct and not reality.
Heinz did the smart thing. Money is nothing but a numbered paper, and while it gives people power, it cannot (so far) replace an individual. Going to jail for a bit or paying a fine is preferable to living the rest of his life with the woman he chose and denying his (potential) children of their mother. As for the druggist he was an idiot for pushing a clearly desperate man; not only did he get robbed, but now he will be known as the guy who wouldn't spare a bit of compassion for a dying woman, and if there is a thing people value, it's someone that will save their life.
>>1396413
*without the woman he chose
>>1394875
The right answer is that copyright/patent is bullshit and a spook and the druggist should have rightfully been undercut in an actual free market.
>>1396177
Taking things by force is a cornerstone of civilization and therefore virtuous
> but what about the people who dont steal
Unvirtuous plebs
>>1396541
>Taking things by force is a cornerstone of civilization and therefore virtuous
Absolutely nonsensical statement. That's not how virtue is defined.
>>1396177
In this scenario, there is no way to avoid unvirtuous action. But it is more virtuous to steal to save a life, than to allow a preventable death to happen by doing nothing.
>>1396561
If virtue is conductive towards happiness then doing heroin is virtuous if you dont risk running out
Virtue is conductive towards power, which is why being brave enough to go against the law for the price of his wives life is virtuous. There is only a difference of degree between this burglar and a war hero.
>>1396217
Heinz is from far away so nobody knows if he can be trusted to repay a loan.
it maximised his utility function to commit robbery so he made the right choice.
social conventions like laws and good will and social conduct usually increase the mean level of utility for everyone, but at times it is in someone's interests to violate those conventions to increase their utility function.
>>1396194
>Otherwise there could be no laws.
No, laws could still exist if the people making the laws believed in a morality whether or not that morality is true
Yeah, fuck that money grabbing cunt.
Hmm yes because the woman could have gone on to make potentially 100x what the doctor was charging for the drug. Well that's the pragmatic argument.
>>1396092
Can you prove the correct answer? No? Then shut the fuck up and stop talking about ethics.
>>1396231
This
>>1396923
>dude you cant *prove* anything lmao
*passes blunt*
