1 innocent man or 9 guilty?

[Jgib5328]

People always ask, would you rather let a guilty man go free? or arrest an innocent man?

I think it's logical to arrest the innocent man. If you think about it this way:

There are 10 people on trial, 9 murderers and 1 innocent man. Each murderer killed 1 man and upon release will kill at least 1 more man. You can only rule in 1 way for all 10 individuals, IE all guilty or all innocent.

By the logic of the people who would let the guilty man go free, that person would allow all 9 murderers and the 1 innocent man free. I think this is illogical. 9 murderers will each kill 1 person, ruining 9 family's lives. Convicting 1 innocent man will ruin 1 families life to a lesser extent. At least he can receive visits from his family from time to time. I know it'd suck to be that one innocent person, but you have to put aside your own individual feelings in these cases. I know it sounds very utilitarian, but this is how I interpreted this situation. I know it's not exactly the same situation as the original question, but what do you guys think?

[Motor Jax]

what kind of connection does the innocent man have in this situation?

[vaguely dissatisfied]

It's the old 'kill a few to save many' question. Would you kill 10 people to save 1000? Do we value human life in number of lives, or quality of those lives, or youthfulness, or usefulness, or intrinsically????/

[Motor Jax]

yeah, i can see that

Japan didn't attack us anymore after we dropped Nagasaki or Hiroshima





Motor Jax added to this post, 1 minutes and 1 seconds later...

but i still don't understand about the innocent man, and what his connection to the guilty is... and why he is in the same situation as them

[vaguely dissatisfied]

You know............is it better to put 1 innocent person in prison in order to get 9 guilty people in there or is it better to let all 10 go so the innocent person is not wrongfully punished?

It's a value-based question.

[Motor Jax]

oh, so you mean there isn't a choice

ummm, sorry... the dude's gotta...


























ah ha, just kidding...

he'll just have to go with the other nine... sorry guy, my hats off to 'ya

[Jgib5328]

The innocent guy is accused of murdering someone, but he is actually innocent.

[Ool]

what kind of connection does the innocent man have in this situation?

I'm wondering about that, too. Verdicts are usually passed individually, not by some perverse "cling together, swing together" guilt by association. You can declare one person not guilty and nine others guilty in the same trial.

[zoophilia]

The flaw in your logic is that much harsher legal systems correlate with increased levels of violence. When extreme discipline is used on people they (and society in general) become neuronally wired to be pain machines.

[Aronnax]

People always ask, would you rather let a guilty man go free? or arrest an innocent man?

I think it's logical to arrest the innocent man. If you think about it this way:

There are 10 people on trial, 9 murderers and 1 innocent man. Each murderer killed 1 man and upon release will kill at least 1 more man. You can only rule in 1 way for all 10 individuals, IE all guilty or all innocent.

By the logic of the people who would let the guilty man go free, that person would allow all 9 murderers and the 1 innocent man free. I think this is illogical. 9 murderers will each kill 1 person, ruining 9 family's lives. Convicting 1 innocent man will ruin 1 families life to a lesser extent. At least he can receive visits from his family from time to time. I know it'd suck to be that one innocent person, but you have to put aside your own individual feelings in these cases. I know it sounds very utilitarian, but this is how I interpreted this situation. I know it's not exactly the same situation as the original question, but what do you guys think?

The idea of "acceptable losses" is a bit of a straw man. There's a threshold of preventable murders where anyone will agree that it's acceptable to kill 1 innocent but it's not about mitigation. The statement "I'd rather 10 guilty men go free rather that 1 innocent man hang." isn't about "acceptable losses" it's about what kind of legal system you want and how much power you'll allow the Government to wield.

Your arguement isn't utilitarian but it does rhyme with utilitarian, it's called totalitarian. Government is a social construct operated by humans who have as much power as that construct allows. Our Leaders have all the vices and failings common among the rest of humanity. If you allow them to kill and imprison people merely on the suspicion of guilt, not irrevocable evidence, you set your Government up to corrupt and fail.

The state will always be more powerful than the individual, we create handicaps like "the burden of proof lies upon the state" and "innocent until proven guilty" to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. Guilty by suspicion will inevitably corrupt your law enforcement officers and judges by giving them unmatched power over liberty and slavery, life and death. Like a cancer, absolute power will corrupt and kill your Government. These legal handicap prevent the power given to our leaders from corrupting and preserve the intent of our courts: to give all citizens equal protection under the law.

[Fej]

Maybe its just me, but the first post doesn't make much sense at all. It is clear that I would arrest the guilty man [therefore "saving" 1 family's lives] instead of arresting the innocent man who wouldn't kill anyone.

[Jgib5328]

Maybe its just me, but the first post doesn't make much sense at all. It is clear that I would arrest the guilty man [therefore "saving" 1 family's lives] instead of arresting the innocent man who wouldn't kill anyone.

You have to rule the same way for every person, if one person is ruled guilty, they are all ruled guilty.

[Double Victory]

This reminds me of a case we discussed in a learning community I was in last year. There are three people working on a railroad track. You see a train coming, and you can pull the lever to divert the track, but you'll be diverting it onto a track that has one person on it, killing that one person.

When asked what we would do, I was the only person in the class who said they wouldn't pull the lever. Everyone else made arguments about how three lives are better than one, but what it comes down to is that it wasn't your responsibility to do anything in that situation. You were not involved with any of these people. Sure, you should help if you can, but if you make a decision and execute it, then you are personally killing someone.

With the 9 guilty men and 1 innocent man--what if you were that innocent man? I'm sorry, but I would not sacrifice my freedom forever just to keep 9 guilty men locked up. You don't know that they would absolutely kill people again off trial. They could be killed themselves in a struggle, or they could be arrested on some other charge. Ruining the life of one man is not worth potentially saving 9 lives. Why are they all being tried at the same time, anyway? Do we just not know which one man is innocent?

[Jgib5328]

The idea of "acceptable losses" is a bit of a straw man. There's a threshold of preventable murders where anyone will agree that it's acceptable to kill 1 innocent but it's not about mitigation. The statement "I'd rather 10 guilty men go free rather that 1 innocent man hang." isn't about "acceptable losses" it's about what kind of legal system you want and how much power you'll allow the Government to wield.

Your arguement isn't utilitarian but it does rhyme with utilitarian, it's called totalitarian. Government is a social construct operated by humans who have as much power as that construct allows. Our Leaders have all the vices and failings common among the rest of humanity. If you allow them to kill and imprison people merely on the suspicion of guilt, not irrevocable evidence, you set your Government up to corrupt and fail.

The state will always be more powerful than the individual, we create handicaps like "the burden of proof lies upon the state" and "innocent until proven guilty" to protect the individual from the tyranny of the majority. Guilty by suspicion will inevitably corrupt your law enforcement officers and judges by giving them unmatched power over liberty and slavery, life and death. Like a cancer, absolute power will corrupt and kill your Government. These legal handicap prevent the power given to our leaders from corrupting and preserve the intent of our courts: to give all citizens equal protection under the law.

Even if the one person is completely innocent, there will be an overall increase in total utility, because 9 families have better lives. Even if it's corrupt, it still works out better for the others. Would you rather have murders running around the streets or a small probability that you may be convicted for something you didn't do. This even happens in todays government.





Jgib5328 added to this post, 2 minutes and 21 seconds later...

I'm wondering about that, too. Verdicts are usually passed individually, not by some perverse "cling together, swing together" guilt by association. You can declare one person not guilty and nine others guilty in the same trial.

This isn't supposed to be real life, it's a philosophical question.

[Double Victory]

Even if the one person is completely innocent, there will be an overall increase in total utility, because 9 families have better lives. Even if it's corrupt, it still works out better for the others. Would you rather have murders running around the streets or a small probability that you may be convicted for something you didn't do. This even happens in todays government.

Yeah, but in today's government a lot of guilty people go free, as well.

[Jgib5328]

The flaw in your logic is that much harsher legal systems correlate with increased levels of violence. When extreme discipline is used on people they (and society in general) become neuronally wired to be pain machines.

This situation is ceteris paribus, it's only focusing on the elements within the problem.





Jgib5328 added to this post, 1 minutes and 55 seconds later...

Yeah, but in today's government a lot of guilty people go free, as well.

Exactly, that's why the new system would be more efficient. In the new system, only an innocent person would get convicted, which is something that happens in today's system, but no guilty person ever goes free.

[Aronnax]

Even if the one person is completely innocent, there will be an overall increase in total utility, because 9 families have better lives. Even if it's corrupt, it still works out better for the others. Would you rather have murders running around the streets or a small probability that you may be convicted for something you didn't do. This even happens in todays government.


Eventually the corruption of Government through the power of "guilty by suspicion" becomes so rampant that the society lives in terror of state sanctioned murder and slavery. Pol Pot and Stalin's regimes where the children of such "efficiency".

You worry about those 10, I'll worry about the 300 million that live in my nation. Liberty isn't for everyone, if you're convinced that totalitarianism is for you there are counties out there that will give you the security you crave.

[zoophilia]

This situation is ceteris paribus, it's only focusing on the elements within the problem.

Unfortunately there is no way to seperate certain actions from their effects as of now. If we had better methods to specify intent in the way that you're talking about it is likely that they problem would not occur in the first place.

[44sunsets]

I don't think I could ever convict an innocent man. So I would let everyone free, but I would charge my carbine, grab my flashbangs and handcuffs and go hunting for the bad guys, hopefully in time to stop more killings.

Isn't this pretty much what happens in real life anyway? Guilty people are let go because there is not enough evidence to hold them or convict them. It sucks, but this means the system is working.

I could never ever condone a totalitarian system.

[Antares]

Well, if I'm that innocent man, all I'm saying is: I'd see to it that justice is done. Maybe from the state's point of view, it would be for the best, but I'm also selfish, so who knows? If I'm that man, I wouldn't actually give a damn and go to prison because I'm so worldly and all that. No. I'll make sure that I go free. The other 9 families can go screw themselves. I don't owe anything to them and don't have to do anything for them. I believe in justice; so even if not convicting that innocent man would cause grief upon 9 families, I wouldn't make him a scapegoat. It's never fair, and undermines a basic individual freedom.

[athenian200]

If it were known that the 10th person were innocent, then I doubt this situation would be created. So I'm going to go with the assumption that I, as a juror, have been asked to vote on a case where 9 people have been found with DNA evidence linking them, and while they haven't found any for the 10th one, one witness claims to have seen him at the scene and he was a personal friend of one of the other criminals. In that case, I would vote to convict all of them, because it would be most likely to my mind that he was guilty.

If I consciously know the person is innocent, then this becomes more complicated. First of all, I would be angry that the judicial system was so screwed up that they would knowingly assign an innocent man to the same fate as the nine guilty ones. ;) Then, I would weigh the value in my mind... nine murderers to one innocent man. I hate to say it, but I think it would depend how much I liked the innocent man's personality, and how much I liked the people the murderers killed or would kill. Assuming the murderers hadn't killed anyone I cared about, I'd probably let him go. If they had killed people I cared about, it would be harder (unless the innocent man was really charismatic), but a bribe would definitely tempt me to vote him innocent (or guilty). If I knew the murderers were going to kill important people that might cause society to collapse, I'd go ahead and vote him guilty, bribe or no. And if the innocent man were a person who advocated an idea I disliked, or were a rival for a position I was trying to get, don't think for a second I would vote him innocent without his offering a bribe, and a public renunciation of his views and/or quitting the company.

Note that if the innocent man were being tried alone, I wouldn't be able to justify this to myself, and I would vote him innocent if he were whether I liked him or not.

[Beery Swine]

If we're talking imprisonment, convict. If the death penalty is on the line, I don't know. You may save lives by killing them all, but one thing you know for certain is that you helped kill at least 1 innocent. I don't think I could live with that. Fortunately the situation will (hopefully) never arise.

[SShack]

People always ask, would you rather let a guilty man go free? or arrest an innocent man?

I think it's logical to arrest the innocent man. If you think about it this way:

There are 10 people on trial, 9 murderers and 1 innocent man. Each murderer killed 1 man and upon release will kill at least 1 more man. You can only rule in 1 way for all 10 individuals, IE all guilty or all innocent.

By the logic of the people who would let the guilty man go free, that person would allow all 9 murderers and the 1 innocent man free. I think this is illogical. 9 murderers will each kill 1 person, ruining 9 family's lives. Convicting 1 innocent man will ruin 1 families life to a lesser extent. At least he can receive visits from his family from time to time. I know it'd suck to be that one innocent person, but you have to put aside your own individual feelings in these cases. I know it sounds very utilitarian, but this is how I interpreted this situation. I know it's not exactly the same situation as the original question, but what do you guys think?

Well, you're jury-rigging the example to get the answer you want.

So ... it turns out that one innocent man was a brilliant medical researcher who was on the cusp of an amazing cure that would save the lives of thousands. Now all those people are going to die.

I'm not a fan of using unlikely, even-impossible "what if?" models to make real world ethical decisions, because you can justify anything you want. We have a Supreme Court justice (Scalia) using the television show "24" to justify actual torture in the real world.