You have two choices:
1) Do what you asked above about a one-year-old child 2) Kill a million people
Does this universal moral standard continue to say “don’t choose (1)”? One would still say “never” to number 1?
1) Do what you asked above about a one-year-old child 2) Kill a million people
Does this universal moral standard continue to say “don’t choose (1)”? One would still say “never” to number 1?
1. Demonstrate to me that anyone has ever found themselves in one of these hypothetical rape a baby or kill a million people, or it’s variants, scenarios.
And that anyone who has found themselves in such a situation, went on to live their life and every day wake up and proudly proclaim “raping a baby was the right thing to do” or that killing a million was the correct choice. If you did one or the other and didn’t, at least momentarily, suffer any doubt, you’re arguably not human. Or have enough of a brain injury that you need special care.
Or
2. I kill everyone who has ever, and will ever, think they’re clever for proposing absurdly sterile and clear cut toy moral quandaries.
Maybe only true psychopaths.
And how to deal with them, individually and societally, especially when their actions don’t rise to the level of criminality that gets the attention of anyone who has the power to act and wants to, at least isn’t a toy theory.
If the hypothetical is “sterile,” it should be trivial to engage with. But to avoid shock value, take something ordinary like lying. Suppose lying is objectively morally impermissible. Now imagine a case where telling the truth would foreseeably cause serious, disproportionate harm, and allowing that harm is also morally impermissible. There is no third option.
Under an objective moral framework, how is this evaluated? Is one choice less wrong, or are both simply immoral? If the answer is the latter, then the framework does not guide action in hard cases. Moral objectivity is silent where it matters the most. This is where it is helpful, if not convenient, to stress test claims with even the most absurd situations.
An objective moral isn't invalidated by an immoral choice still being the most correct choice in a set, but a universal moral is invalidated by only a single exception.
I suppose it's up to you if you were agreeing with the OP on the choice of "universal".
I don't think it's that clear cut, if you polled the population I'm sure you'd find a significant number of people who would pick 1.