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comment by aeromill
aeromill  ·  3456 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Should you save the greatest number?

Wow. Very interesting point. Here's how I'm thinking about it:

The death to any of the 5 individuals is equal to the death of the 1 innocent man. Here's where I like to think of the concept of justice. For me, justice isn't some inherent set of rules written in the stars that's objectively true. Justice is a series of rules that, if followed, happiness is maximized generally speaking. Therefore, following a just action is necessary to commit a "good" action when our value here is happiness. That being said, justice is being violated in this case: the right to life is being "stolen" or taken away which is a violation of justice. With this in mind, the concept of justice can act as a "tie breaker" here in favor of preserving the innocent.

Did that make any sense? What do you think?