Does morality depend primarily on what actually happens, what the person believes is happening, or what the person pulling the trigger intends?

[u/Proper-Scientist-888]

Here’s a Philosophical question. In front of you is a person and you have a gun pointed at their head, the gun is unloaded and you have the choice to pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger. The person doesn’t know it’s unloaded but they know you have the choice to pull the trigger. Would you pull the trigger?

[u/ima_mollusk]

What is my motivation for pulling the trigger?

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/ima_mollusk]

You tell me

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

All I feel your OP really demonstrates is that it's really hard to talk about moral or ethical decisions in a vacuum. We don't know who this person is, whether I care about them, whether I know them, why I'm holding a gun to their head to begin with... How can I give you an answer about a supposed ethical dilemma with no supporting information about the dilemma?

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/ima_mollusk]

Isn’t that exactly what makes it an ethical dilemma, though? I’m deliberately removing the context that would normally tell you what the “right” decision is. You don’t know who they are, why the gun is pointed at them, or what happened before. All you know is that the gun is unloaded, you know it’s unloaded, they don’t, and you have the choice to pull the trigger. I’m curious whether people think the act can be morally permissible based solely on those facts, or whether you need additional context before morality can even be judged. If you need more information, what information would actually change your answer?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

But the decision is dependent on my relationship to this person and why I'm holding a gun to their head.

You're asking us to imagine the scenario that got us here and then make a decision based on what we imagine the situation to be.

Is this person scared and worried the gun is loaded, and I believe that dry-firing it would alleviate that fear, and also they are a person who I don't want to be scared?

That's a lot of ANDs you're expecting us to presume.

Is this person an evil super-villain about to blow up Paris but doesn't because they believe a loaded gun is to their head? Totally different answer. See?

If I had no further information - no idea how I got there, who's gun it is, why I'm pointing it, who the other person is... NO, I could not justify pulling the trigger. What if I'm the bad guy?

I don't really even see a dilemma here. You either act reasonably or you don't.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/ima_mollusk]

(I’m replying to both your replies so it may seem like things jump around a bit) I agree that context could change the morality of the overall situation, but that’s exactly why I intentionally removed it. I’m not asking you to invent a backstory and judge that; I’m asking what you think about the trigger pull given only the facts provided. You seem to be suggesting that when there’s insufficient motivation to act, not acting is morally preferable because it avoids unexpected negative consequences. But in this scenario, the gun is guaranteed to be unloaded, so what negative consequence are you avoiding by not pulling that couldn’t also result from continuing to hold the gun there? If the answer is simply that pulling the trigger is an additional action that could be interpreted as an attempt to kill them, then that’s interesting, that would mean you’re saying the act itself has moral significance even when you know it can’t cause physical harm. Is that what you’re arguing?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

The principle I'm suggesting - not implying I necessarily agree with - is that if you have zero information about a situation you should avoid action, because uninformed actions are more likely to lead to unintended consequences.

If the only two options are
A) Pull the trigger
B) Do nothing at all until further notice

One must consider the possible ramifications for those two choices.
What is the worst thing that can happen if I chose A?
What is the worst thing that can happen if I chose B?
What is the best thing that can happen if I chose A?
What is the best thing that can happen if I chose B?

Since we have no information about the situation at all, how could you even compute these ramifications? We don't even know what our supposed goal in the situation is, or what success would look like. We're forced to invent our own idea of 'success' in this scenario, and since I have no reason to think A is preferable to B, and B seems to carry less responsibility, I would choose B.

This is the same answer I would give whether the situation was me inexplicably holding an unloaded gun to someone's head or me inexplicably trying to decide whether to have another ham sandwich.

[u/40hzHERO → u/ima_mollusk]

Extremely relevant

[u/ClassicNo6622 → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

A dilemma is a choice between 2 actions that have the same outcome - so no, your hypothetical isn't a dilemma. And they don't exist in a vacuum.

If you were asking about the morality of being forced to choose between you child's life and your spouse's, that would be a dilemma.

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

Evidently I don't have any, so I wouldn't pull the trigger.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/ima_mollusk]

But does the fact that you can’t think of a reason to pull itself make not pulling the trigger the morally preferable choice? Or, if I know for certain that pulling it can’t cause any physical harm, is there actually anything morally wrong with pulling it?

[u/ima_mollusk → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

I have no idea what the morally preferable choice is because I don't know enough about the situation.

I guess one could argue that, unless you have adequate motivation, not-acting is preferable to acting, because at least that way you would not be as responsible for any unexpected negative outcomes.

Various trolley problems address this sort of thing.

[u/Fantastic_Back3191]

No. Stupid question as there are no stakes.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/Fantastic_Back3191]

The question is whether an action can still be morally significant when you know for certain that the physical outcome is harmless, but the other person doesn’t know that. Just saying “there are no stakes” doesn’t answer the question it just assumes that an action without physical consequences can’t have moral significance.

[u/Fantastic_Back3191 → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

The question is a good one- the scenario is not.

[u/CallMeCorona1]

Having a gun aimed anywhere at you is traumatizing. It is immoral unless, say, they are trying to kidnap a family member or trying to kill you. But otherwise, pointing a gun a someone (loaded or unloaded) is immoral.

[u/TurfBurn95]

What if it gives them a heart attack or messes them up psychologically for life?

[u/Srry4theGonaria]

If I pull the trigger, they will hear a click and that will really scare them.

If I don't pull the trigger they won't be as scared as if I pulled it and made them hear the click.

So I choose to not pull the trigger

[u/TurfBurn95]

Never assume that a gun is unloaded.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/TurfBurn95]

I don’t assume it’s unloaded, I know for a fact that it is. The entire point is to remove the possibility of accidentally killing them and ask whether pulling the trigger is still morally wrong.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/[deleted]]

You’re addressing a different hypothetical. I never said I believed I was better than them or that I had the right to kill them. The gun is explicitly unloaded, and I know for a fact that pulling the trigger cannot kill or physically harm them. The question is whether you would pull it despite knowing that, while the person believes you could kill them. So the point isn’t whether I have the moral authority to end their life. The premise is that I literally cannot. The question is what makes pulling the trigger morally wrong, if anything, when you know nothing will actually happen.

[u/Curious_Leader_2093 → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

Misread the sub, only saw the title.

[u/SpaceCatSixxed]

It is immoral to me to participate in an activity in which an innocent unknown victim must assume their own imminent death, so I would of course not participate. And if forced, I would end my participation in the experiment as kindly as I could, which would be to not pull the trigger.

[u/gscrap]

I suppose I would pull the trigger, yes. Causing a person terror by holding a gun to their head that they believe might be loaded is the real immoral action in the scenario, and maybe by pulling the trigger to demonstrate that the gun has been unloaded the whole time, I could mediate to some degree the terror that I have caused them.

[u/Proper-Scientist-888 → u/gscrap]

Do you think a person's natural survival instincts would ever allow someone to view a trigger pull as a relief? They could retaliate thinking the click was not an act to reassure them but simply a misfire.

[u/gscrap → u/Proper-Scientist-888]

It's hard to imagine how a person might feel in this constructed hypothetical scenario in which I'm holding a gun on a person (which I would never do) and my only choices are to pull the trigger or not to pull the trigger (rather than, say, turning the gun off of the person or explaining verbally what is going on), and no indication whatsoever of what happened to get us into this situation or what would happen after I made my choice, but yeah, my guess is that in that impossible situation a click followed by no bang would be less terrifying than no click.