A Twist on Nick's Situation

In an earlier post, Nick mentions a terrorist who might be a threat to 1,000 people. If we were to “[seek] and [terminate]” this terrorist, we could stop the mayhem. Let’s change this up, though. Suppose this terrorist is the leader of a major fear-instilling organization. Now, we have one of two options: Kill the terrorist and any relevant information he may have regarding any future attacks, or press the terrorist for information. The twist is, the terrorist is the weapon. If the terrorist is killed, the weapon is deactivated and the 1,000 people survive. However, if the terrorist is pressed for information, potentially saving 10,000 or more lives in planned future attacks, the terrorist’s biological systems will detect he is alive and will trigger the weapon, therefore killing 1,000 people. How do we proceed? Kill the terrorist, save 1,000 people and wait for 10,000 people to die? Or do we press the terrorist, let 1,000 people die, and hope that the terrorist will comply and give us information about future attacks? 

Kill One to Save a Thousand?

To build off of our discussion about the trolley problem I am curious as to whether or not we believe it would be justifiable, as my title suggests, to kill one person to save a thousand others? The scenario I am inclined to think of is terrorism in the modern day. If, lets say, a terror plot was uncovered to commit another large scale attack on the United States and we were able to determine  who the mastermind behind the plot was, would you be able to justify the active seeking and termination of that individual in order to possibly save thousands of American lives? Would the number of lives saved necessarily have to be as many as 1,000? Could it be as few as 100? Or even 10? To further this thought a little more, could you justify "torturing" someone for the same outcome? Can you justify cruelty and pain inflicted upon one to save many others? Initially the logic doesn't seem to be all that different from the trolley problem but I am curious to hear what everyone else thinks.  

Trolley Problem

Today in class we had a very controversial discussion about the trolley problem and, at the end of the discussion, the bystander example was brought up. Although we talked about the decision of whether to change the track of the trolley as being completely up to the bystander, what if the decision could be up to the bystander or the trolley driver. This would change the scenario because, if the bystander were to respond, he/she would be intervening on the situation. Do you guys think that the bystander is obligated to intervene or should he/she walk away and leave the decision up to the driver?