The burning baby scenario. [View all]

[reusrename]

You see a house on fire and you hear a baby screaming inside so you bust open a window and save the baby.

This is the theory behind whistleblowing. Of course it is a crime to smash someone's window and then enter their house without permission. But is that really a good excuse to let the baby burn?

Sure, perhaps a hundred other folks may have been willing to watch the baby burn, but that's only because the fire was very hot.

(A related topic: Of course we don't want to make breaking and entering legal just because this scenario may someday in the future. This was exactly the argument that was made for trying to legalize torture, remember, the ticking-bomb scenario.)