Big Toe

May I Have Your Big Toe?

"May I have your big toe?" Jean-Paul cheekily whispered to Luka.

He was always making up stupid catchphrases, hoping one of them would catch on. This particular phrase was meant to convey the unreasonableness of a request; however, in this instance, it was also meant to snap Luka out of his stupor. Luka gazed wide-eyed at the professor, whose voice seemed to repeatedly assail him in front of the hundreds of students who sat in the stadium seats of the prestigious university's classroom. "Seat B4-13, please answer the question. If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?"

"No," choked Luka as he nervously cleared his throat. "I would not."
"And?" the professor questioned in an annoyed tone. "Is it that you believe in deontological moral reasoning? You're not concerned with the consequences; you're only concerned with the act of killing itself being a violation of a rule or code?"

"No," responded Luka, firmly, as he grew unreasonably frustrated with the line of questioning from the professor. "I am concerned with the consequences. I just don't believe that Utilitarianism exists outside of ethereal high-minded discussions."

The nervousness Luka felt gave way to something else, something more honest. The polite persona he had spent years carefully cultivating no longer meant a thing. He continued. "We will never know the full consequences of any decision, ever. If we could permanently freeze time, we could decipher the greatest good for the greatest number of people, but we can't freeze time. If we were omniscient, we could use our infinite insight to calculate utility without a temporal scope, but we are not omniscient. If I were to kill Hitler while he was in power, it might create a power vacuum. If I killed Hitler in his crib, how could I know for sure that I would not have spared some other psychopath, who died in World War II, but was capable of even more carnage than Hitler? After all, wasn't Hitler just a psychopath who was lucky enough to escape the fire of the first World War?

If I were naive enough to believe in Santa Clause, or the Tooth Fairy, or Utilitarianism, I would go back in time and kill Gavrilo Princip. He was weak, poor, and poorly educated. Neither his parents nor society found any utility in his malnourished mind and body. That peasant plunged the world into not one but two world wars with dumb luck. We want to kill Hitler because snuffing out his power makes us feel powerful - it has nothing to do with utility. We care so little about the destitute that we wouldn't even think to visit the tortured home of a perpetually hungry baby and relieve him of his suffering."

The class sat in stunned silence. Not a single sound could be heard until Luka's roommate and perpetual homework freeloader, Jean-Paul, broke the silence with a "Jesus Christ, Luka!"
The students began to chuckle.

The professor, who was used to brushing off outbursts from high-strung college students, continued with his un-derailable lecture. With the same ease, Luka stumbled back to the room in his head. Something had changed in him. He no longer cared.

He was heartbroken that his girlfriend of three years had left him just four days before. She had said that he taught her to hate the world and that she was happier before she met him. Those words haunted Luka. He loved Clara more than he loved anything that ever gave him hope.

Her smile was like the sun.

What was knowledge when compared to her joy? What was wisdom to the music of her laughter? She gave his monochromatic world color, and he turned her colorful world black. He complicated everything she knew until she knew only darkness. The smile he loved he stole from himself and the world. He felt like the lowest person who had ever drawn breath.

The hour clock rang, and as everyone stood up and began packing their bags, Luka sat there lifeless and muttered aloud, "what am I if not a weed?"
-