There are no shades of gray and there aren't times when something is right and something is wrong. Something that is right is always right and vice versa for wrong. That means that killing people is always wrong, no matter what the situation is. The people in the office building may be infected with a virus that can wipe out all of mankind, but that still doesn't make it right for a person to kill another person. Kant believed that people must act in accordance to the maxim that they wish would become a universal law. So that means that if I think it is okay to go in and kill these people, then I must believe that this should be a universal law.
For Mill and Bentham, there is a right and wrong. Depending on the situation, right and wrong can change. Sometimes killing may be okay and sometimes it might not be. Utilitarian believers would not think it is right for someone to kill a person just because the person was an abusive husband, but they would most...
Senseless killing would have no benefit to others and it could never be argued so. Utilitarians don't see people as being expendable, much like Kantians, but they do see the goodness that can come out of a situation like the one presented in Fringe.
Both Kantianism and utilitarianism see the individual as worthy in his or her own right, but utilitarianism would put the greater good of the larger number before the greater good of the individual. In the case of the people in the office building in Fringe, there is the argument to say that they probably all would have died anyway (some did) and a very gruesome death, so it would be in their best interest as well. From Kant's perspective, however, it would never be justified to do this because there is only black and white, only right and wrong -- and killing is never right.
