So you're on a barren island with a few hundred other people. This island is almost dead, with few animals, little to no plantlife, and no other significant resources that can be found. There are obviously too many people on the island with you to provide for with the little resources. A sickness breaks out among the people, and it is contagious. This sickness is terrible, and those that do contract it die within days.
However, you somehow discover a cure. Only you have, and no one else on the island knows. You can do either one of these two things...
1. You provide the cure and save almost everyone on the island. Although of course there would be too many people to support for what the island can provide, as I have said. This would force everyone to live very poorly.
OR
2. You can keep the cure for yourself, and wait out the death for most everyone on the island. This would decrease the population and make it much more manageable to build a decent society with the resources you have.
I'm not sure what the point is of such a hypothetical, but I would save as many people as possible. With more people, their is a greater chance for innovation (agriculture, fishing tools, etc) and with a greater chance of innovation with a higher degree of possibility if division of labor and specialization, long-term there is a greater chance for prosperity. Luckily, this scenario not only makes more economic sense to me, but it fits my morals as well.
The only one worth following is the one who leads... not the one who pulls; for it is not the direction that condemns the puller, it is the rope that he holds.
But there aren't enough current resources for the number of people on the island. Wouldn't this force a greater number of them to live poorly?
Same thing I'd do on the mainland, or in any situation. Use it to trade for other things I want.
Either choice is essentially moral, since you have no agency in causing the sickness. Their deaths are not on your head just because you have the means to save them, any more than a doctor that has a cure is responsible for the deaths of those people he doesn't happen to treat for any number of reasons.
Most would choose to save the most number possible. And ultimately, having more people around to sovle problems and associate with may be long-term more beneficial, network effect, division of labor, gene pool, and all that.
I am a little ignorant on the point I am about to make, but is it realistic to believe that a plague could just spontaneously erupt out of nowhere? Maybe it could, but then maybe it was just already there, I guess.
Now to my real questions before I begin. If this fictional island is so "dead" as you call it, largely devoid of any plant life (herbs), animals, and any other resource (Is this place basically a floating rock?), it sure is convenient that I not only had exactly the specific resources I needed to concoct the cure, but also that there was enough of the resources needed to make enough cures for all of the people suffering from this dreadful plague from nowhere. These facts, and you also ask us to assume that I am somehow able to even procure these preciously scarce resources without a bit of suspicion from the rest of my fellow humans on the island. These people must be so dumb that Charles Darwin might just rise from the grave to strangle me himself just for act of saving these low-totem gene pools. I am probably better of without them, right?
Oh, how convenient also that I hit an unspeakable stroke of luck by also coming across the resources needed to at least construct the makeshift lab I would need to develop this cure, and let's also not forget that I must have come across enough animals close enough to our DNA structure (exclusively monkeys) with which to even realistically attempt to accurately test my various incarnations of the cure on. After all, since nobody knows I have the cure, I must have tested it on something, right? And, as I said before, that something must have been an animal, and probably a monkey, right?
Oh, but then I get even luckier, right? Because I was somehow able to beat even more insurmountable odds that the disease would not only affect the monkeys, but also affect them in the same way it did my fellow humans. AND....that the monkeys' positive reaction to the cure (minimal side-effects compared to the benefits of treatment) will also be just as positive, if not more so, when injected into the humans.
But, even despite all of this, even if I get the best reaction possible out of the monkeys, I still cannot be positive the cure works on humans at all, can I? Chiefly because I could not test it on them; that is, of course, unless I had the disease, concocted the proper variation of the cure in time to test it on myself, saving my life. I better have done that quickly; apparently this disease kills you “within days”. Of course, even then I only know it works on me; that would hardly constitute reliable data of testing populations statistically necessary to even be somewhat sure the cure even works on a few people, let alone most of them.
However, despite the many ludicrous and statistically impossible factors that you ask me to assume when answering this question, I will accept your scenario at its face and answer anyway by offering up a much more likely means through which I was able to attain such a cure without anyone knowing about it. I will simply assume that the Arch-Angel Gabriel swooped down in chariots of fire and hand delivered me the full proof cure; one divinely forged by God himself on the mason stone of Thor, Gabriel dawning a sound proof cloak of invisibility, shielding him from the eyes of the rest of the island population. God was thoughtful enough to make us a cure, but not thoughtful enough to give it out equally; rather for some reason he made me sole-bearer of the cure, free for me to exploit. He was also thoughtful enough to put us in this shit hole in the first place.
Obviously, I would choose option one (release the cure), and for two reasons:
I think I probably pointed out enough flaws in the premise of your story alone, so I won’t go further. The problem with scenarios like these is that, while they appear plausible if you don’t think too hard, they fall apart once you do. You find that they are so internally inconsistent that they are really impossible in the real world, which makes them good for nothing more than a bit of mental masturbation, and perhaps a good laugh. Try pitting us into a realistic scenario, and maybe you’ll get some serious answers; Hell, you and I might even learn something.
"If men are not angels, then who shall run the state?"
Phi est aureum:I'm not sure what the point is of such a hypothetical, but I would save as many people as possible. With more people, their is a greater chance for innovation (agriculture, fishing tools, etc) and with a greater chance of innovation with a higher degree of possibility if division of labor and specialization, long-term there is a greater chance for prosperity.
Damnit, beat me to it! When I first started writing my response there were none! I was hoping to be first reply, but by the time I was done, you people showed up...GRRRRRR
This was not meant to be complex, or even realistic. It was just a rather simple situation to question your 'morality'.
Would there be anything wrong if I let everyone else die except for one broad to reproduce with so we could start a family and have the whole island (and its limited resources) to ourselves?
It's a personal decision whether you think it is right or wrong. There is nothing objectively right or wrong about it. I would think most people would find it wrong to let a ton of people die if you know how to save them just so that you could have a few more coconuts. But then again, I hate coconut, so I'm probably biased.
Well, only you know what would fit with your morals. As for my view, I see no reason not to save everyone, but I assumed the ure you discovered was a simple one requiring no major work (like "eat a coconut"). I do not view morality as having to do something (positive) but more as not not doing something (negative). So if the secret was just to eat a bite of coconut, you should at least tell everyone all they need to to is eat some coconut. This doesn't require you to go get and feed them coconuts, but to simply share knowledge. This is my take on morality, what is yours?
Keep in mind, from an economic perspective, although you and a few people might be "richer" in resources available, it doesn't change the fact that you must input labor to enjoy the wealth. I see no reason to assume from your premises that a few of you would be any richer than 100 all benefiting from division of labor and economy.
Scenarios like this crack me up. They always assume the future is set in stone and known to the actors in the scenario.
When you're sharing an experience of suffering with others, you do what you can to make the whole situation easier and you hope for the best in the future. If you've got a cure, you share it. How do you know that a way out of the scenario won't present itself somewhere along the line? Furthermore, why consider yourself capable of or called upon to make a decision on behalf of others? Every person susceptible to the disease would still have the choice of accepting the cure or dying to help others survive. That's their choice based on their personal values.
If you've got a cure, you share it.
Why? How would that make things 'better'?
How do you know that a way out of the scenario won't present itself somewhere along the line?
I am Prospero, and I say "NOOOOOOO!"
Furthermore, why consider yourself capable of or called upon to make a decision on behalf of others? Every person susceptible to the disease would still have the choice of accepting the cure or dying to help others survive. That's their choice based on their personal values.
Let's assume everyone wants it badly.
I would let the cure be avaliable for everyone, and let them voluntarily decide whether they want to take it and live in crappy conditions later on.
I guess.
Cure myself first, then share with others.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org