Moral Question

Imagine you’re confronted by a demon and whisked away into another dimension along with three other people. The demon then gives you three options that you must pick from within a relatively short amount of time (no time to communicate or plan): kill one person, kill two people, or refrain. The demon then tells you that if you refrain then he himself will randomly decide from the following options: kill one person (50% chance) or kill two people (50% chance). Finally, the three people in question are morally outstanding; so much so that each one is willing to give his or her life for the other. Besides that fact, you know nothing else about these people.

Demons are made up shit from the bible but id stop the demon. Id whoop dat ass.

Sounds like a bad bath salt trip.

Edit: think I would be the martyrdom by refraining.

I'd kill them all including the demon. I don't appreciate being whisked away to some random place. Getting disturbed makes me cranky.

I'd refrain, probably, and try to save them from the demon, if there was anything I could do.

Finish them all, and command the demon to say my name. Then watch some yaoi.

Kill the demon or die trying...simple...ain't gonna be a pawn in the demon's fucked up game. :P

Kill the demon. He didn't exclude himself from his list of choices so I'd assume he's fair game....

And if that's not possible, walk away. Not interested in playing his twisted game. Whoever he kills wouldn't bother me. Strangers die all the time so another death in the world wouldn't make a difference....

wat ?

I'd kill the demon assuming that I could. If not then I would refrain from choosing because I wouldn't want to be the one to decide on someone's death.

So is the dilemma the chance that 2 ppl could die if you do nothing as opposed to 1 if you do?

This one is easy.

1) I have no reason to trust the demon. I don't know him. I don't know if he's telling the truth. For all I know, he's not going to kill anyone.

2) However, even if we do know that he's telling the truth, the fact remains that there's a 50% chance of FEWER than two people ending up dead. Why the hell would I kill TWO people (a guaranteed 100% chance of TWO people ending up dead) when I could roll the dice and there's a 50% chance that the outcome is only half as bad as if I did the killing myself?

In other words, it's DEFINITELY in my best interests to not kill two people. And it's STILL in my best interests to not even kill ONE person. Even if everything goes wrong (the demon is telling the truth, I don't kill anyone, and he flips the dice and decides to kill 2 people instead of one), there's only a 50% chance that the outcome would be any worse than if I personally did the killing with my own hands. If I'm gonna have a chance of personally pulling the trigger, you've gotta up the stakes. Like, if I don't murder a dude, the demon will kill ME. Or like, if I don't murder a dude, the demon will kill FIFTY people. But I'm not gonna pull the trigger when there's already a fifty percent chance that choosing to not kill anyone will result in the exact same number of dead people (other than myself) than if I pulled the trigger. The only guarantee is that AT LEAST one person (who isn't me) will die and that AT MOST two people (neither of whom is me) will die. If it's just a choice between one person dying or two people dying, and if neither of those people will be me, and if I don't know either of those people and therefore have no basis for determining which ones most deserve to live, then of course I'm just gonna sit back and not do shit. If I'm gonna murder someone on the basis of "maybes" and hypotheticals, then you've gotta up the stakes a LOT.

It's a trick, kill them all and the demon. And take his god damn gold banjo and make a billion dollars being a folk singing badass.

However, if I have to play the game, I would not kill anyone and roll the dice; at least there's a chance no one would die. And even if they did, my hands are clean. Why would I take the risk? There's literally no reason for me to kill someone because the Devil steps in and does it, absolving me of any wrong doing.