No one besides Sally and her father knows there is a nuclear device planted somewhere because Sally's father only told Sally and Sally hasn't told anyone. So no one would have any reason to tell Mother Teresa or Mohandas Gandhi to convince the Hitlerites to torture Sally for the information. Not to mention the button that saves Europe and Africa is not even applicable in this circumstance since Sally would have pressed it herself if the city that was in danger was located in Europe and/or Africa. The scenario inherently prevents us from taking action due to our ignorance derived from the premise and thus lacks an ethical question, normative or otherwise, for us to consider. /s edit: typo

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The nuclear bomb and Hitlerite examples are from different pages. I was worried the phrasing would imply they were tied together, but the excerpt is elaborating on a different section of text right before it, which is different from the excerpt about Sally and the nuclear bomb. Sorry for any confusion there.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Sorry for any confusion there.

I put /s. My comment was a joke in its entirety. I assume the section about the button that saves Europe and Africa is a different, unrelated section as well. It seemed more fun to respond to the post as if it was one continuous thought experiment. =P