1. And why are you looking at it from a human-centric perspective? Pandas (and all non-human life forms) have value in and of themselves, regardless of their utility to humanity.

What if it is you who will die?

If i had to pay my own life to save the pandas, then just like there's a magical button that can kill me and make that happen, there better be a magical guarantee that it actually works and doesn't just kill me.

Once i die i can't really go back and say "Hey, you tricked me!".

However, if i had that guarantee, yeah i'd press that button without hesitation - sounds like a great reason to die.

Interesting stuff. Why I disagree:

1. Killing a person is murder. Killing pandas is not. Why this is the case? I don't know, it is though.

2. Would you really sacrifice one of your own kind for some random bears?

3. What if it is an important person? What if you kill Xi Jinping and cause WW3?

4. What if the button said: you or the pandas? Would you kill yourself to save the pandas? If not, why not? Do you think of yourself as more important than the average person? I gotta be honest, in that situation I say screw those pandas. And in consequence, I can't murder another person for them, either.

5. I would in fact say that a single person is more important to the happiness of everyone than the species of pandas. Everyone that loves that person would be in terrible pain after their death, and for what? For how long would people really care if the pandas went extinct?

My big problem if what if the one person who will die is someone I know and/or is close to me personally. If I don't know who is going to die beforehand, and it ends up being my wife or child, I'd be eternally sad.

What's the point of this thesis or these supposed ethical dilemmas and emergencies? What exactly are you solving or demonstrating? Do you seriously expect to ever be put into such a situation? If the lesson/idea is you are supposed to sacrifice random individuals for the sake of Pandas then are you living up that ideal? How do you think this would apply to say climate alarmism where environmentalists do claim that the world - including Pandas - are at risk of extinction?

How might you extend your logic? Why stop at Pandas? Why not any other animal or value? What about something unique? Since there's only one Mona Lisa would it be preferable for a person to die than to lose such a treasure? Why stop at one individual? How many people would it not be worth killing off for the sake of your value?

If looking at pandas brings humans happiness, then pandas are useful to humans. You are putting pandas in an inferior position to humans, because pandas are inconsensually being used by humans for to look at, therefore, humans are superior to pandas in this way. Humans have more powerful than pandas, which means even just one human can do much more than what all pandas can do together, therefore, it doesn't make sense to kill 1 human (even at random) rather than the whole species of pandas.

Besides all this, I think thinking about this question in a utilitarian way ignores the much bigger question, and that is the question of the value of life.

Both options (killing a random human and killing all pandas) aren't better or worse than the other.

If life itself is valuable, then all life is equally valuable. There is no form of life that is more valuable than another form of life because life itself is valuable. You can't put a number on the value of life either. If you claim that multiple lives are more valuable than one single life, you're saying that the value of life is based on the number of living things, which is contradictory to saying that life itself is valuable. Therefore, both options in aren't better or worse than the other.

Of course, we also have to consider that life has no value in itself. But then it doesn't matter which life you choose to end, because no life is valuable in itself. Therefore, again, both options aren't better or worse than the other.

This proves that killing one random human is not better than killing all pandas, but it's not worse either.

Edit: Thank yoi for taking the time to read this. :)

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Of course I would choose "all pandas die".

If I choose "a random human dies", there is like 0,000003% probabiltiy (which is low but not so low) that the random human is me, or one of my friends/relatives

It’s an interesting thought experiment. Why I would say to kill all pandas is because I’m almost convinced that Pandas are a human creation. Also, even if they aren’t, they’re going extinct; whether by us or otherwise. And if they are meant to go extinct then they should be let to do so. This experiment would highly accelerate that, but still.

Also, the experiment is hypothetical and mostly silly, so my answer is allowed to be also. I don’t put much stock in pandas. They’re cool looking but they’re kinda dumb.

I think the magnitude of effect there will be is based on proximity to the subject that dies which might actually average out to there being no clear utilitarian choice.

And if you were to start narrowing down criteria for which human dies than it’s no longer random. It’s selective. And that is not good.

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>If you can choose which specific human dies (but it can't be someone who wishes to die), does that change your answer?

I think for anyone who would, with the original question, choose to let the pandas die should change for that version. I can think of plenty of people whose death would be a good thing for the world. Putin, for example. If I had a button that would magically kill him, and not do anything else (like saving pandas or whatever), I would push the button. He is presently getting a lot of people killed, and it would be far better if someone had killed him before he started the war against Ukraine. Still, better late than never. It likely would help end the war if he were to die now, and save many lives.

This is solely my own point of view. I would save the human. It is selfish of me, I know. But I find affinity to humans more than other species.

This thought experiment can be compared with a real world one.

The (White?) Rhino is an endangered species due to armed horn poachers. Armed Game Wardens, financed by foreign governments and NGO’s, try to stop them, with, I believe, loss of life on both sides.

In this case the humans are willing participants. It doesn’t ‘feel’ wrong to me: either to submit to the risk of death as a warden, or to kill poachers.

Why do we feel repelled by murder in the Panda case, but, somehow, it is justified in the Rhino case?

Is it due to the relative moral weights of Pandas, Rhinos and humans? I don’t think so. The Utilitarian stance of the protagonist seems to be undermined, as it so often is, when we try to justify another human’s murder “For the Greater Good.”

What "forced to choose" means? Do I die if I not choose? Do I get a little inconvenient if I not choose? Something in between? If it is more on the side of the little inconvenient I choose none, if it is more on the side of die I will choose option 2. The logic for this is first "I only would kill if my life (or my children) depended on it" and second "don't do to others (humans) what you wouldn't want others to do to you".

Looking at pandas actually doesn’t bring me happiness and I would definitely pick killing all pandas.

Pandas are possibly not essential. This point is one I’m not fully sure about, but pandas don’t seem to contribute much to the environment and per the thought experiment we’re assuming they do nothing. Also, pandas are kind of contributing to their own endangered status. Pandas do not eat the correct food, as their digestive system is geared towards carnivorous consumption, yet exclusively eat bamboo. It actually provides such a lesser amount of nutrition for them that they expend most of their energy in a day foraging for it. They have little to no interest in reproduction as they even have trouble finding the capacity to do it when shown imagery of pandas reproducing. I find it difficult to kill even one human who probably has things they care about as opposed to theoretically extinguishing a population of animals that don’t seem to care about continuing their own survival.

I don’t understand your response to the first argument. You don’t need to be religious to believe in human life being divine. Regardless, many religious people would claim that human beings are special and human life is more sacred than panda life. I don’t understand the creator response you gave.

All pandas die.

I kind of think we should just let them die out anyway, not a fan.

> My thesis is: it's better to have one random human die in this case.

So the resources that one random reasonably affluent person, who is educated, has access to technology, is dependant on resources which could allow possibly hundreds to survive, both human and animal, that person who thinks “it's better to have one random human die in this case.” should not necessarily kill themselves, but certainly not enjoy 'luxuries' of consumerism. So the thesis is contradicted by the person proposing it.

> True, but well, I also never signed a contract saying I consented to paying taxes.

You did in effect it's the social contract. And you are free to drop out anytime. You can then achieve a goal of being not responsible for resources you do not need to live.

The ethics then is, is it ethical to pose such thought experiments, where the consequences are purely hypothetical, and the person proposes a solution that they do not take.