Walter, when the Martians demand that you slay an innocent person to stop them from killing everyone, assuming they keep their word, this is a threat and it’s extortion. They have initiated the aggression. That opens the door to defensive measures allowable under the NAP. But they’re limiting the possible defensive responses to your killing a single innocent person. You have no choice but to adopt that killing as a defensive measure on behalf of all human beings.
Digression. Is it morality that commands this decision or is defense of mankind itself sufficient? Defense of mankind IS a moral activity, but is defense’s morality the quality of it that impels its use in this case? If defense is legitimate under the NAP, then morality is an accompaniment, not an essential.
Back to the problem. Without bringing in morality yet, or so it appears, the argument to this point is that killing one innocent person is justified under the circumstances. Killing one innocent person also is the only action that saves your own life, that is, if you decide to kill someone other than yourself.
Your only choice that does involve morality is which person to kill. You can kill yourself or someone else. That’s where another application of the NAP possibly comes in. If you kill someone else rather than yourself, you’ve initiated aggression under duress. If you kill yourself freely, there’s no aggression. What if, as here, killing yourself is a possible choice forced on you by the Martians? That too would be killing under duress. The NAP therefore doesn’t provide guidance to decide whom to kill. Morality may or may not.
According to your concept of morality in your JLS article on LIBERTARIANISM AND LlBERTlNlSM, moral actions are for the welfare, betterment and interest of mankind as a whole. Therefore, the initial solution, which involves killing one person, is moral; and your response in which you wrote “I don’t see why it is morally wrong to save the entire planet” is consistent with your earlier thinking in that article.
Kill yourself or someone else? The criterion of mankind’s betterment doesn’t answer the question. You’ve already decided to kill one person, so mankind’s betterment is off the table. It’s now you vs. someone else. You could choose a person close to death if the Martians allowed such a loophole. If they do not, then what morality will guide your decision?
6:13 pm on December 22, 2019
