The Four Working Presuppositions

Question 1

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A patient has a set time to live. Doctors could give pills ($40 every three days), keeping him alive for three years. He was insured $100,000. If he lived a year the insurance would go. If he didn’t take the pills his family would be rich.

Answer 1

Sacrificial suicide.

Question 2

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After lengthy discussions, the committee decided that lives saved by ending the war by using a nuclear bomb outweighed the lives destroyed (150,000) by using it and thought this the best course of action.

Answer 2

Justifiable mass killing.

Question 3

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A woman’s government said she could stop the war if she seduced the enemy spy, blackmailing him. If it brought the war to and end, saving thousands, would it worth breaking those standards?

Answer 3

Patriotic prostitution.

Question 4

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A woman was only released from a concentration camp to her family if she was pregnant. She asked a guard to impregnate her and she was sent back to Berlin with her family.

Answer 4

Sacrificial adultery.