A) Person A is not entirely sane. He doesn’t think it is wrong to kill other people because he doesn’t believe that there are other people. He thinks he is in some sort of virtual reality world which he is trying to get out of. He thinks what appears to be a person isn’t, so it is permissible to kill that illusionary-person if that illusionary-person causes him any discomfort. So he kills many people, and becomes one of the greatest mass murderers in history. But if he knew without a doubt that he was killing people, he would stop.
B) Person B knows he is in the real world. He knows people exist. He doesn’t think we should kill people; he knows that killing people is wrong. And he knows Person A is a killer. However, he also knows that there are all kinds of diseases which are killing some people, making life miserable and difficult for others. The way Person A kills his victims allows their corpses to be used for medical research, and this research might allow for the cure for all kinds of maladies facing humanity. Person B doesn’t approve of the actions of Person A, but he knows he can’t stop A. So he gives funding to Person A so that Person A can continue his murdering spree. He knows whether or not he helps Person A this way, Person A would continue to kill. With B’s funding, Person A is able to kill more and the deaths will be cleaner, less painful. And yet if he doesn’t fund Person A, the deaths would be meaningless. He justifies what he does to himself by saying it is all being done for the common good, and one might as well be able to do some good out of all the evil. But yet, his funding is allowing more evil to be done than would be done without it.
Who is more culpable here? Who is doing the greater evil?
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