Ativan

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Postby scythe » 2011.06.27 (20:00)

CIA officers approach you, as a doctor, in Kandahar, with a captured informant-turned-double-agent. They want you to give him Ativan so he'll talk. They tell you he knows where a weapons cache is that could be used against Americans. You say no, there's no medical indication. They say, if you don't, they'll torture him and get the information anyway. You're role will only cause him more pain or less.

Do you give him the Ativan?

Personally, I think the morally correct route is to kill the officers: doing the right thing is more important than protecting yourself or your country.
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Postby Yoshimo » 2011.06.27 (20:04)

If we're not going by the dichotomy, I'm going to have to go with Scythe on this one. Either that or talk/bribe him into giving the information.
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Postby scythe » 2011.06.27 (20:13)

Yoshimo wrote:If we're not going by the dichotomy, I'm going to have to go with Scythe on this one.
Mhm. In saying this, I am not saying [here] that I would be able to do this, as much as I may believe [irrelevantly] I would; I am saying I believe it is the right thing to do.
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Postby 乳头的早餐谷物 » 2011.06.27 (23:37)

Wow, that's a tough question. It's making me a little anxious, to be honest. I think I'd better take the Ativan myself.
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Postby capt_weasle » 2011.06.28 (03:55)

scythe wrote:Personally, I think the morally correct route is to kill the officers: doing the right thing is more important than protecting yourself or your country.
What if you did not have the means to kill the officers? Besides, I'm not sure it really matters in the end whether you give him the medication or not. In all likelihood, these officers will want to draw a confession out of this agent. Especially if he doesn't actually know anything about the cache, the officers will still torture him until he either dies or gives a false confession. Unfortunately the problem with this type of question is that it leaves too many, "what if's," and if you *have* to choose between giving him the meds or not without any other variables thrown in, it's probably best just to give him the medication. Either way, things aren't looking so well for this agent, and you don't really have any control over his final confession (or lack thereof), so easing his pain might be the "right" path to take. Of course, if we're allowed to go beyond just the initial facts we can ponder giving him a placebo so the agent can lie without the officers really knowing, just killing the officers like you said, and whether you actually care about the Americans in the first place.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.06.28 (17:36)

While we're considering wildly implausible answers, I think the correct answer is to transform into a dragon, conquer all nations, and establish a New World Order.
Because if we're not going to stick to the parameters given in the question, this answer makes about as much sense as any other.

To actually answer this question, I'm going to make the following assumptions:
  • The CIA agents approach me as CIA agents, not as a singular doctor; I am the doctor.
  • "There is no medical indication." means that there is no medical reason to believe that Ativan will make him talk, and truthfully, about the weapons cache.
  • I am not some metaphysical embodiment of the role which will influence the pain he experiences; the role is merely mine to play.
  • My only choices are to administer the Ativan or to refuse to do so. I cannot attack anyone, euthanize the double agent, file a complaint, delay the interrogation, etc.
I'd give him the Ativan.
If there is some medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then there's a chance we'll actually get some meaningful answer out of the double agent.
If there is no medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then it will be just as ineffective as torture would be anyway, but you'll at least spare him unnecessary suffering.
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Postby otters~1 » 2011.06.29 (06:33)

If the agents will agree to take Ativan and give you the facts of the case, by all means go ahead and lay it on the terrorist. Then take some yourself, make it a party.
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Postby Rose » 2011.06.29 (11:50)

T̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư wrote:I'd give him the Ativan.
If there is some medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then there's a chance we'll actually get some meaningful answer out of the double agent.
If there is no medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then it will be just as ineffective as torture would be anyway, but you'll at least spare him unnecessary suffering.
This was basically what I was thinking, but I couldn't word it properly when I first saw the thread. So I'm just going to quote your post instead of adding an original thought.
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Postby smartalco » 2011.06.30 (03:26)

This type of question, being a thought experiment in the same vein as the Trolley problem is one of those that I can never make up my damn mind on. I settled on giving him the Ativan following Suki's logic. What is more is that I'm not entirely sure what instinct that is a reaction to. I'd say I'm attempting to cause the least amount of overall pain, but in the Trolley problem I don't think I could shove the fat guy in front of the trolley to save the others (or whichever version you prefer), because then it would feel more like a guys death is on my hands, rather than saving the life of 5 others, which definitely isn't the least pain inducing option.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.06.30 (05:22)

smartalco wrote:This type of question, being a thought experiment in the same vein as the Trolley problem is one of those that I can never make up my damn mind on. I settled on giving him the Ativan following Suki's logic. What is more is that I'm not entirely sure what instinct that is a reaction to. I'd say I'm attempting to cause the least amount of overall pain, but in the Trolley problem I don't think I could shove the fat guy in front of the trolley to save the others (or whichever version you prefer), because then it would feel more like a guys death is on my hands, rather than saving the life of 5 others, which definitely isn't the least pain inducing option.
Two things:
  1. I think this particular question is just dumb, actually, and that's why it's confusing as to what exactly it tests.
  2. You endanger and kill people around the world already just by maintaining your current lifestyle. Distance from the damage you cause obviously helps you cope with it, but the fact remains that you already have blood on your hands. I put it to you that your aversion to directly killing someone (in order to save >1 life) boils down not to morality but to something as silly as what you find distasteful.
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Postby SlappyMcGee » 2011.06.30 (17:42)

The only moral decision here is to do whatever benefits you personally the most, which is to administer the Ativan, in my case. This is because the gross happiness of living a free life as a respected military doctor who feels some small guilt for the misery he brought to another human being is greater to me than the gross happiness of living out the rest of my days in a fashion that, per some zany moral code, might make me feel guilt-free in the military prison I will be living in.
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Postby smort » 2011.06.30 (18:38)

I inject myself with the ativan
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Postby Corky Romano » 2011.07.02 (22:25)

Yes I would give him the Ativan. The more pain avoided the better!
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Postby scythe » 2011.07.05 (15:22)

T̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư wrote:While we're considering wildly implausible answers, I think the correct answer is to transform into a dragon, conquer all nations, and establish a New World Order.
Because if we're not going to stick to the parameters given in the question, this answer makes about as much sense as any other.
Took y'long enough. I was hoping this would be the first reply. After all, who needs a doctor to give Ativan in the first place? It can be administered by a sleep deprived teenager with an MDMA hangover.
To actually answer this question, I'm going to make the following assumptions:
  • The CIA agents approach me as CIA agents, not as a singular doctor; I am the doctor.
  • "There is no medical indication." means that there is no medical reason to believe that Ativan will make him talk, and truthfully, about the weapons cache.
  • I am not some metaphysical embodiment of the role which will influence the pain he experiences; the role is merely mine to play.
  • My only choices are to administer the Ativan or to refuse to do so. I cannot attack anyone, euthanize the double agent, file a complaint, delay the interrogation, etc.
I'd give him the Ativan.
If there is some medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then there's a chance we'll actually get some meaningful answer out of the double agent.
If there is no medical basis for Ativan's effectiveness as a truth serum, then it will be just as ineffective as torture would be anyway, but you'll at least spare him unnecessary suffering.
I'll examine a different situation for a second.

You are Asclepius, god of medicine, and your followers exhibit total devotion. It has fallen to you to exert a proclamation on the CIA-Ativan-torture problem, such that any doctor encountering this dilemma will act in accordance. From this it is clear that the CIA will know in advance the decision of the doctor, and the nature of this decision might be included in their reasoning.

Therefore, if you believe that the unavailability of truth sera might prevent the sort of decisions that lead to truth-serum-or-torture situations, you proclaim that no truth sera shall be administered; conversely, if you believe this would simply lead to torture in every such case, you proclaim that they should be administered.

From my perspective as a doctor, then, I would administer the Ativan only if I believed that the availability of Ativan as a truth serum would not encourage this sort of thing. Categorical imperative and all.

In this case, I'd give him the fuckin' Ativan. The government of this country has demonstrated many-a-time that it has no problem with torture, and Guantanamo is still open.

original question taken from here
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Postby SlappyMcGee » 2011.07.05 (22:32)

Do nothing; you are a God and this is not your problem.

re: stop buttering the question in convoluted images and boil it down to the ethical question you want to ask.
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Postby t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư » 2011.07.05 (22:49)

Okay, Slappy, if this is easier for you to process, go ahead:

"I would administer Ativan only if I believed that the availability of Ativan as a truth serum would not encourage the sort of decisions that lead to truth-serum-or-torture situations."
Is this statement true for you?
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Postby SlappyMcGee » 2011.07.06 (05:48)

My point is that if we answer the question without understanding what it morally implies, we don't understand what is the correct course of action but rather whatever might feel right or what we're bringing in as baggage. If we can boil it down to:

"Would you infringe on one's freedoms in order to prevent a different, possibly more painful breach of freedoms?"

But to answer you directly: I would only administer Ativan if I thought the material and personal benefit outweighed the guilt I'd feel.
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