Someone with enough power, perhaps an imaginable sci-fi extraterrestrial being, threatens John The-good-man with the following seemingly impossible to-obey order: “John The-good-man,”, says the being, “if you do not kill John The-bad-man, thy brother, by midnight, I will terminate every human being, on the whole Earth, who is 18 years old or above.”
This is not that far away from certain Hollywood movies, however the case, the important detail to observe is that:
John The-good-man is a kantian.
As a complement, John The-good-man has to himself the certainty that killing another man is wrong, even if that other man is not “that good”, so to say. He conceives one certain exception for killing, i.e. defending himself, but that was not by any means the case.
The unavoidable question:
Will John The-good-man accomplish the task the powerful being demands from him?
On the previous post, the doctor had an impossible decision, knowing that his immediate and urgent dedication to save one patient’s life would let the other patient die. On this post, John The-good-man is kantian, so he must abide by his moral beliefs and principles – the one possible initiative to save billions of humans would be to annihilate the powerful being’s powers, for a kantian will almost certainly be against such an order indicated in the riddle above.
