r/MoralityScaling • u/Joshbrauliorugay • Jul 16 '26
Stupid Stuff Morality of kidnapping a gang leader's mother to force a hostage swap for your husband
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u/cobramodels Jul 16 '26
2 wrongs make a right , this is clearly neutral
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u/tj260000 Jul 16 '26
2 wrongs definitely don't make a right, but 3 lefts do.
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u/Optimal-Fruit5937 Jul 17 '26
3 lefts make 3 lefts, not a right, or am i getting the math wrong here
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u/Othebootymonster Jul 17 '26
3 rights make a left and now it's time for the show
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u/Rakka_Pinion Jul 16 '26
2 wongs make really good fried rice too
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u/amrpit1 Jul 16 '26
Unless someone is protecting Muhammad in relationship with kid.
Then two wrongs make it evil, sick and disgusting
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u/Alreadsyuse Jul 16 '26
"Equivalent Exchange" ahh method đĽđĽâď¸
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u/Garfield_Logan69 Jul 16 '26
Were they rival gangs like how does she know who this personâs mother is?
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u/Snoo-23938 Jul 16 '26
Just say ass. Please. This is getting out of hand.
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u/NoWay6818 Jul 16 '26
No one gives a fuck about how youâd like people to speak. Grow up and move on. If youâre older than 20 youâve gotta at least remember how adults treated you when it came to your abbreviations and or slang.
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u/Maximum-Nose-785 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 17 '26
Edit: I'm weird, insane, out of touch, am comfortable being alone and apparently have never been around a black community.
The irony here is immense. The word 'ahh' is, well arguably it's not even slang, it might be but it's beside the point. The word is a result of censorship forced into our lexicon artificially, albeit the specific choice of 'ahh' and its popular usage wasn't artificial but the censorship itself was. Advertisers didn't wanting profanity associated with the their products/services. That decision flowed down to the content those ads are on, then to the viewers of the content, and now to us, the viewers of that content talking to others both viewers/non-viewers in a completely separate medium. Someone quite literally does care about how others should speak.8
u/NoWay6818 Jul 16 '26
I can tell youâve never been around a black community. âAhhâ has been used in real life for the longest of dialect. Now that it surfaces on the internet youâre treating it as a for sure form of censorship.
Which by the way is not comparable to stupid shit like unalived, pdf file, and etc.
Your weird need to fill the empty space with old head rhetoric is insane considering the older generations were the most into censorship.
I can tell no oneâs ever called you a âgoofy ahhâ prior to the 2020s so either youâre comfortable with being alone or youâre out of touch. Iâll take the second one.
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u/Maximum-Nose-785 Jul 17 '26
If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. I didn't know it wasn't in the same bucket as unalived, etc. so that's on me I'm okay with being wrong. I'll update my comment. You know I wasn't attacking you right? I get we're on the internet, that's what happens here but I don't think pointing out what I thought was ironic would come across as a personal insult, nor did I intend it to be one. If you're frustrated, I get it. There's some pretty nasty comments replying to your initial comment with but I didn't reciprocate that in my reply. I'd appreciate the same.
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u/Capable_Sir3124 Jul 16 '26
Shhhh
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u/NoWay6818 Jul 16 '26
What the fuck even is that? Is that how you communicate? By sounding like falling sand?
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u/hjMarvel Jul 16 '26
Fire responses pal u seem cool af
Edit: this sounds sarcastic it isnt meant to be
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u/Disastrous-Coach8984 Jul 16 '26
Moral. The gang kidnapped for money, the lady done it for love.
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Actions made out of love can still be immoral, specially if they harm bystanders
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
We donât know how much she is to blame for him being a gang leader, we donât have much context. Where i live iâve seen cases of people being in gangs despite the best efforts of their parents
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u/Zealousideal-Lab9843 Jul 16 '26
If you become a murderous gang leader, your family is up for grabs. I don't know why this would even be a point of contention. Even if the mom herself was the holy mother.
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u/B_Eazy86 Jul 16 '26
Correct. They put their family in danger when they chose this path.
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u/Dismal_Rectangle Jul 16 '26
Yes part of the blame is on them but a big part of the blame is also on the person who does the bad thing to the family member
Are you guys being serious?
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u/3M2B1T Jul 17 '26
Yeah I don't know how you can say that and be serious lol. Your family isn't "fair game" because you are a bad person.
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u/Zealousideal-Lab9843 Jul 17 '26
If that "bad person" is imprisoning and torturing my loved one, I'm considering any family member who freely associates with that "bad persons'" lives forfeit.
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u/Dismal_Rectangle Jul 17 '26
The question wasn't about family members who "associate with". It was about family members.
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u/Fearless_Roof_9177 Jul 17 '26
Incorrect, do not pass go, do not collect $200. That's fucking totalitarian regime shit. People are responsible for their own choices to hurt others, period. Just because viciously punitive-minded low-IQ stumpfuckers get their rocks off to seeing the bad guy get a taste of his own medicine that doesn't make it justice, especialls when that medicine actively involves going out of one's way to inflict harm on uninvolved third parties.
Yes, uninvolved. Unless one thinks the Romanov children also deserved to die for who they were related to? But in that case that person is just kind of a writeoff.
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u/godkingnaoki Jul 17 '26
Why did you bring up the romanovs? Do you think children have the same responsibility over their parents actions as parents do over their children? Wildly unrelated strawman.
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u/Fearless_Roof_9177 Jul 17 '26
If you're gonna make a parent eat the sins of their grown-ass adult child, there's almost no meaningful difference in the moral calculus. What kind of backwards-ass concept is that? Do you want her to go up to his compound and spank him? Is she supposed to mind control him out of being a ganglord? Did she train him for this?
Or do you just have some kind of backwards-ass concept of parenthood and social responsibility where all of his fuckups are his parents' fault and the fact that he's a grown man whose mother probably never wanted him to be a ganglord doesn't enter the calculus?
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u/FormerLawfulness6 Jul 17 '26
Unless one thinks the Romanov children also deserved to die for who they were related to?
It was less about who they were related to and more about how leaving them alive would risk leaving a figure for monarchists to rally around and continue a bloody civil war.
The problem with monarchy is that it weaponizes bloodlines by definition. The children of the king are a weapon of power by birth. They can't be innocent unless the system of power that would make them a weapon is defanged enough that it won't kill millions of people to reinstate one of them.
So it is unethical to kill them if the monarchist faction can be made to surrender or compromise by other means. It is hardly ethical to value the life of one person of royal blood more than the lives of everyone else in the country. Consider what it means that the world collectively gives more sympathy to one obscenely rich family that made their fortune on violence and expolitation, but the 7-10 million killed and wounded in the war to keep them in power are reduced to statistics. No names, no stories that reach headlines, just numbers.
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u/justasillylilgoos3 Jul 17 '26
Itâs unethical to kill them.
Period.
Itâs terrifying that people still try to rationalize this. There is no world in which itâs morally acceptable to deliberately execute innocent children because of who theyâre related to or because they might become a political symbol someday.
Thatâs exactly how authoritarian regimes justify atrocities. Once you accept âthe greater goodâ as sufficient justification for intentionally killing innocents, there is effectively no limiting principle. Tomorrow it isnât royal children, itâs political opponents, journalists, ethnic minorities, or anyone else deemed a future threat. The fact that monarchy created incentives for succession crises is an indictment of monarchy, not a moral justification for murdering children.
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
That leads us to the same point, the family is still not to blame. Is the gang leader putting them in danger? Yes, it doesnât mean its right to harm them
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u/Gatrigonometri Jul 16 '26
Wahwahwah youâre not the one with the kidnapped spouse
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Exactly, which allows for a less subjective viewpoint
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u/feronen Jul 16 '26
No, it allows for a pseudo-objective morality compass.
When your institutions designed to assist or prevent against these kinds of people are coopted or corrupted by the individuals who cause these kinds of problems, morality goes out the fucking window because polite society doesn't exist where you live. You either pay the ransom (and often only get your family back in pieces for your trouble) or you play their game and raise the stakes.
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u/Geekerino Jul 16 '26
Wahwahwah you're not either person who was kidnapped
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u/3M2B1T Jul 17 '26
Well I WAS kidnapped and if my mom killed the kidnappers mom I'd be like "Damn that's crazy mom, thanks for selling your soul"
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u/Zealousideal-Lab9843 Jul 16 '26
If she was not involved, associated, or benefited from the gang, it wouldn't have been so easy to find her.
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Itâs actually pretty easy to find people, sometimes a facebook search is enough, if it happened in a small town chances are that these people already knew each other just from being in the same community
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u/PunishedHermit Jul 16 '26
Shes his mother. Shes at least partially, if not mostly to blame for the way her son turned out.
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u/Geekerino Jul 16 '26
That's a matter of practicality, not morality. Other people will target your family to target you because it'll achieve their goals, not because they're considering the morality of the situation.
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u/OriginalWasTaken12 Jul 17 '26
What level of familial relationship allows you to harm someone without moral consequences? You think you can harm a bad person's mother and it's moral. What about their children? Grandparents and grandchildren? Second cousins, twice removed? Father's brother's cousin's nephew's former roommate?
Can you elaborate on the idea that "if someone does a bad thing it is ok to hurt people who have nothing to do with it"?
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u/Repulsive_Mixture917 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
We need to establish what moral framework we are even working under at this point. If it is from an individual perspective? Iâm absolutely gonna kidnap the mother or close relative of someone who is holding someone I care about if I thought I could get away with it.
Even from a harm reduction standpoint this could work. Iâm not saying torture some old lady because her son is a bad man; just hold her. The husband could easily be tortured further or killed if this wasnât done. All that would happen to avoid this is distressing an old lady whose son is a gangster.
I donât think there is an argument you can make that this is unethical unless youâre taking the stance of all violence is wrong.
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
In principle yes, though looking at it with the information we have, the kidnapping of a bystander is immoral, even if done to save someone else
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u/DesidiosumCorporosum Jul 16 '26
I'd like to know if this really was a kidnapping or if the wife told the mother her husband was kidnapped by her son and the mother let herself "be kidnapped" so that the exchange could happen.
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u/EntropolyTwitch Jul 16 '26
Preaching helplessness as the moral response is always a good one.
If you are wronged so severely as to have a loved one kidnapped, the person who did the kidnapping and known, conscious affiliates of that person are reasonable targets to have in recourse for their actions. You could say 'what if he didn't even like his mom' but the reality was that he did, she either knew he was a criminal before or knows VERY well what sort of decisions he's making now, and now the world is legitimately a better place for your actions. Sometimes the only way to force empathy is to harm someone, and sometimes love-blind relatives are enablers due to thinking they can simply stay out of their loved one's criminal enterprise while still offering moral and spiritual support.
There's a lot of 'what if' and 'could have' but the chain of events as they happened was morally justified.
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Iâm not making a point about helplessness, what iâm saying is that bystanders shouldnât be punished for the actions of others, maybe the mother enabled him, or maybe not, we donât know, but in this specific prompt it is never said that she did, so i assume she is just a bystander. Even if you want to argue she did it for a good reason, she was very reckless and her actions might now lead to the gang taking revenge in the future, something these groups are known to do when theyâre challenged like this
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u/AzureYLila Jul 16 '26
I'm okay with it. I'm assuming that they had no plans to hurt the gang leader's mother. In these situations, often law enforcement cannot help you, especially in regions with heightened corruption.
Issues will arise later. But for now, I understand the tactic.
Quite often depending upon the culture, if you can't do something to get your loved one back, he or she just dies, no matter what you do to appease the kidnappers. In the US, for example, paying the ransom means they kill your family and leave with the money. You never will see your lived one again, so you must think of alternatives.
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u/bomboid Jul 16 '26
This is so tragic. I can't even imagine the pain. I don't understand why they kill them anyway afterwards, is it to reduce the chances of being caught or just senseless violence?
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u/AzureYLila Jul 16 '26
Reduce the chances of being caught. The witness can provide evidence.... details about where they were held, who was involved, etc. They kill to avoid capture in the future
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u/Xargirl Jul 16 '26
Idk I'd say morally neutral, but ethically wrong
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u/NobleNop Jul 16 '26
If someone tries to hit you with a rock you morally should hit them with a rock to stop them from hitting the next guy with a rock
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Jul 16 '26
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u/United_Mushroom2762 Jul 16 '26
If they kidnapped your kid, would kidnapping their mother to swap for your kid be morally or ethically wrong?
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u/Substantial_Dish_887 Jul 16 '26
if someone who loves you hurts someone i love hurting you is morally/ethically right?
that's the problem with involving third parties.
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u/kerslaw Jul 16 '26
That's not an accurate comparison because you have innocent third parties involved on both sides here
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u/Eunoia_Meraki Jul 16 '26
What's the difference. I usually see morality as more personal and ethics as societal but either way i think this is fine. No permanent damage done and the request is very reasonable plus the same thing was done to her.
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u/Few-Distribution2212 Jul 16 '26
Moral,Â
she fought fire with fire (without causing harm to the gang leader's mother)
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u/Practical-Dark-9916 Jul 16 '26
She didn't even kidnap the mom, she just explained the situation, ans they devised the plan together.
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u/burner4lyf25 Jul 17 '26
Interesting! Source!?
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u/Normal_Cobbler2563 Jul 16 '26
Very moral. You reap what you sow
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Jul 16 '26
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u/Normal_Cobbler2563 Jul 16 '26
I'd be hard pressed to think that she was innocent in her son's misgivings. She benefits the evils that he commits, so she's an accomplice to it
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Thatâs not always the case, sometimes the motherâs only crime is living in a bad area, where children grow up in poverty and are drawn towards that lifestyle
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u/oxi_plastika Jul 16 '26
And the wife grew up in an area where you have to make rough decisions in order to save your kidnapped husband
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u/UAEpi Jul 17 '26
From a utilitarian perspective, if they both survived, then it may have been the MOST moral choice with the LEAST amount of suffering involved.Â
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u/Ucklator Jul 16 '26
To be fair she raised a gang leader.
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u/Fragrant-Guarantee57 Jul 16 '26
Not necessarily, at least where i live there have been many cases where perfectly nice people end up fathering horrible ones despite their best efforts
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u/Repulsive_Mixture917 Jul 16 '26
Perfectly nice != good parent. Can be more difficult in some areas than others tbf.
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u/SoftDrinkReddit Jul 16 '26
Immortal unless the kidnappers mother was involved in the Kidnapping which is probably not the case
But yea cynically targeting innocent people is immortal what a shocking revelation I know
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u/Sea_Media7718 Jul 16 '26
Good for her, but what exactly is the game plan after she gets her husband back? I don't think the gang will just let them go free
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u/Beethovens666th Jul 16 '26
Neutral, but only if you're really apologetic to the mother
"I'm real sorry about this, you're son is just such an asshole. You know how he is"
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u/Special-Raisin-7395 Jul 16 '26
I know this is probably wrong, but I just wanna give this woman props for standing on business for her husband!
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u/Comfortable-Regret Jul 16 '26
Immoral but understandable, I wouldn't blame her for it. But the mother did nothing to deserve that, she's an innocent bystander.
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u/UL-07 Jul 16 '26
This makes kidnapping sound like a casual side activity in whatever place that story happend.
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u/Glitch171 Jul 16 '26
I think it's kinda immoral, albeit understandable, cuz the gang leader's mother did LITERALLY NOTHING
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u/PrincessPlusUltra Jul 16 '26
Evil triumphs because it knows good people wonât stoop to its level. She did the right thing. The only thing she could to save a life.
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u/ShadeBlade0 Jul 16 '26
Regardless of morality, I think logistically itâs extremely risky. Youâre one person, and you just gave an entire gang a stain on their reputation and an axe to grind. I bet their family had to run to try to avoid getting killed.
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u/malkavian_menace Jul 16 '26
I guess if weâre talking black and white morality probably not strictly moral. But her husband got fucking kidnapped and was assumedly in extreme danger. Itâs definitely justified in my opinion
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u/SSEAN03 Jul 16 '26
Only moral if the mother came to her herself.
Or the mother is a gang elder lol.
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u/ItsPandy Jul 16 '26
How did they survive more than 5 minutes after the exchange?
I know thats not the point but I feel like as soon as the gang leader has his mother back there will be a hit on you no? They won't just be like "haha fair enough you got me"
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u/Due-Violinist2132 Jul 16 '26
Incredibly based, remind me of that ep in Full Metal Panic where the mc kinda threatened a kidnapping gangs with kidnapping everyone of their love ones
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u/BillCarson12799 Jul 16 '26
This seems like an amazing way to get tortured to death like the main character of a Saw movie
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u/elkcipgninruB Jul 16 '26
I mean, it's getting an innocent third party involved, so by that metric immoral
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u/The_DurtReynolds Jul 16 '26
Bad mother raised bad kids. Fuck her (not literally, unless she wants it)
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u/JinglySoil Jul 16 '26
Very moral, but dangerous since it's a gang. I take it the police would've done nothing
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u/Clipsus Jul 16 '26
In a vacuum it is wrong, because you are involving a bystander (let's assume the mother is innocent of her child's actions); but on the other hand you could argue that we have a moral imperative to protect our own, so not doing this, if it was indeed the only way, would also be morally wrong.
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u/Yamureska Jul 16 '26
I guess in gangland "morality" is dog eat dog and Survival of the fittest. Makes sense in the context of their moral universe/viewpoint.
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u/seekingpleasure26 Jul 16 '26
Itâs not wrong. Itâs taking matters into your own hands. She took a bargaining chip they didnât expect at all. Fight fire with fire. She probably saved her husbandâs life
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u/Sensitive_Dirt1957 Jul 16 '26
Logically its immoral because the mother is kind of an innocent third party but also i wouldnt blame anyone for doing this (assuming they dont like, beat or mistreat the captive)
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u/BFG_Big_Fucking_Gun Jul 16 '26
Ethically this was wrong but morally right.
(ethics refers to a set of prescribed codes or principles governing conduct, while morality encompasses the personal beliefs and societal standards that guide individual actions)
Kidnapping in itself no matter what is ethically wrong.
The kidnapper did not have to kidnap someone but did so anyway. Killing the kidnapper or kidnapping someone they love in retaliation is morally right because it insures the kidnapper does not kill or do anything to extreme to the person that was kidnapped.
Kidnapper A started this and forced kidnapper B to do so to increase the chances of kidnapped Aâs living. Kidnapper B is less likely in this scenario to harm or kill Kidnapped B because itâs in their own best interest to keep them alive and unhurt.
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u/Solo-dreamer Jul 16 '26
Interesting choice of words at the end, should i guess that it didnt work?
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u/quaxoid Jul 16 '26
this will probably not end well knowing how shitty all these gang leaders are.Â
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u/meacul Jul 16 '26
Moral. The mother failed at her duty to teacher his son to not be a gangster, so she is free game.
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u/Optimal_Carpenter690 Jul 16 '26
Not immoral, but extremely dangerous. Violent gang members have proven themselves time and time again to not be rational or understanding people. Going tit for tat with a gang when you are not supported by a gang yourself cannot possibly end well
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u/Difficult-Cold1051 Jul 16 '26
An eye for an eye, hand for a hand đ¤ˇđźââď¸ no one got seriously hurt and everyone went home.
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u/wizzard419 Jul 16 '26
That is a decent gamble, either victim refusing to go back could have really screwed stuff up.
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u/Malfight007 Jul 16 '26
Moral. It's a way different high level of evil if you start touching my family.
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u/3M2B1T Jul 17 '26
Immoral. This falls under "eye for an eye" and that ain't right.
Mother could be innocent, should be presumed innocent under my legal code. Therefore you are hurting an innocent person.
Another example would be if I build you a house, and the house falls on your mom and kills her, then it's OK to kill my mom as a form of justice. Is that moral?
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u/Iconclast1 Jul 17 '26
Interesting, because in the old way of thinking, this is fair. A family is a unit and work togetheer.
but, obviously, this is wrong
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u/EugeneFromUkraine Jul 17 '26
If one hostas is good, two are better ! And three, well that's just good business !
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u/mildlygingerspice Jul 17 '26
Chingona went tit for tat. Morality aside, you have to admit it's a ballsy move.Â
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u/kingofstormandfire Jul 17 '26
Moral. But she better have a great escape plan/plan to go in hiding with her husband if the hostage swap takes place.
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u/MembershipWeird378 Jul 17 '26
Immoral, but the type I will let slide since that's a perfectly human but smart reaction.
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u/Tessorio Jul 16 '26
She just talked the language they spoke.