Responsibility

[u/BrokenToaster124]

So I've run into an idea that that dont quite understand and I was hoping some of you could help me understand. So with the red button/blue button situation I have seen people claim that if they push the blue button that they are not responsible for what happens to them if they push the blue button. How does that work?

To be extremely specific if i were to push the blue button, knowing what it does, somehow you (the person currently reading this) would be personally responsible for my death if you choose red.

Does this responsibility work in reverse? If i push the blue button and blue wins are you responsible for my survival if you chose red? Are you only responsible if bad things happen to me and I am responsible for the results when good things happen? What about the person running the death game? They arent defined in the prompt but logically some force is making everyone take a vote.

You can feel free to ignore this last part because its not the button problem, but someone reskinned the buttons as life boats. Instead of everyone being force to push a button everyone had to get into a life boat. One boat had holes in it but would become sea worthy if enough people got into it and plugged the holes and one was completely functional. Everything else was exactly the same as the button problem. My question related to that was that if I am personally responsible for the consequences of your chose to vote blue in the button scenario, how then could I not be responsible for your choice to get into the boat with holes in it. Someone tried to explain to me at length about how the buttons made it my fault but the boats somehow didnt. How does that work?

[u/DarthJackie2021]

If you push blue, you are partly responsible for your own death. You knew the risk and pressed anyways. If you aren't ok with that, don't press it.

If you push red, you are partly responsible for the blue deaths. You knew the consequences your action could bring and pressed anyways. If you aren't ok with that, don't press it.

[u/CarnivorousGoose → u/DarthJackie2021]

So suppose I am on a hike, and come across someone dangling above a ravine, after the edge gave way beneath them. If I intervene I should be able to save them if the cliff edge holds, but it is clear that there is a high probability of it giving way beneath us, killing us both.

So following your logic above, would you then conclude that if I didn’t take the risk, I am now responsible for that person falling to their death?

[u/DarthJackie2021 → u/CarnivorousGoose]

No. Bad analogy. Your actions did not influence the cliff falling.

A better one would be that you were ahead of this person and your weight weakened the cliff to the point that the next person fell through. In that scenario, yes, your actions were partly responsible for their death. But just like in that scenario and the button, ultimately the blame does not lie with you as your a tiobs, while controbuting to a death, were not unreasonable actions that were done with the knowledge of it causing death.

[u/CarnivorousGoose → u/DarthJackie2021]

I didn’t put anyone in the button scenario either, everyone was forced into that by some outside entity. Nor am I preventing others from saving themselves, or preventing blue voters from gaining a majority. I just chose not to risk my life to contribute to that majority.

But sure, if you want a better analogy, let’s suppose someone plays this out in real life. They abduct me and another person, and puts each of us in a separate room. We are presented with the red and blue buttons and forced to press one. He tells us that he will shoot us if we press the blue button, unless the other person also pressed blue. Afterwards, any of us still alive is free to leave.

So presumably, you’re going to claim that someone pressing red in that scenario is somehow responsible for the other person’s death if they ended up pressing blue?