You are the sheriff of a small town in the 1960s which is ex

You are the sheriff of a small town in the 1960s, which is experiencing extreme racial unrest. There is a murder of the civil rights leader, who did not advocate violence. You know that there will be many riots, and many innocent people, including children and elderly, will be killed, if the murderer is not found today. Furthermore, you know that the actual murderer is gone, and will never kill again, but you cannot prove this, and you cannot catch him (let us ignore for now how you can know this). A homeless person wanders into town that day. He has no family, no friends, no job, and no connections. You know that if you frame the homeless man for the crime, and he is immediately tried and executed, you can subvert the riots, and guarantee peace in the town. If you don\'t, then you know that there will be riots, and many innocent people will die. These are your only two options, and you must act today. In your first post, answer the questions: what would you do, and why? Is your decision consistent with the Categorical Imperative, or with Utilitarianism? Develop your answer as a defense of your choice, but also as a defense of one or the other of these moral theories. Your first post is due by Wednesday at 5pm. While I encourage you to type your post into a word processor to check for spelling and grammar errors, please don\'t \"attach\": simply copy/paste your issue into the discussion box. Forum responses should be 150-200 words, and include a \"references\" or \"works cited\" section.

Solution

Answer: This is indeed a classic dilemma. I would go for a \"misleading truth\" to control the situation. The doctrine of \"misleading truth\" is in tandem with Kant\'s categorical imperative. Now, i would like to sychronise my arguments in three steps. First, what exactly will be my decision. Second, how i relate it with Kant\'s categorical imperative and Thirs, why i will not go with utilitariansim.

1. My Decision: I will definitely use the face of the homeless wanderer and will built up the statement for our riot thirsty folks (who must never be surrendered to). we will contact the homeless wanderer and will promise him the food and shelter in our custody and would order him to cooperate. Our statement to the mob:

\"the murderer left the city after commiting the murder, but we got the man in our custody. he has no job, no family and no connections and that what has brought him where he is today. we assure the trial and execution of of the murderer this evening\"

This is a mis leading truth. Mis leading because it is mixing the truths related to two different persons (murderer and homeless wanderer\".

2. By Categorical imperative what Kant meant was absolute unconditional requirement that must be obeyed in all circumstances and is justified as an end in itself. On the other hand lies generate a contradiction in conception when universalised but the misleading truth as used here does not.

3. Utilitarianism which means maximum good of the maximum people undoubetedly is an alternative. But i wont go for it because it can not be universalised as a law. If we start killing one innocent person to save many innocents and if this concept is universalised then definately in future murderers will roam free and fear of mob will make us frame innocent people.