Here is a classic series of questions that I have wrestled with other students and colleagues for many years. It is a thought experiment designed to tap into our intuitions over these matters and to then search for consistency and metatheory behind our "moral instincts".
In the following scenario imagine you are in some weird situation wherein you can only save one of the the two options given in each question. There is no possible way to save both, nor would sacrificing yourself help in any way towards saving them and they will both die. If you do nothing, they will both die (and, I suppose, that is an option). You know that when you save one of them, the other will most certainly die (or be destroyed). Assume there is no other relevant information than what is given for each question (i.e., in the child or adult question, assume they have the same status otherwise in all ways that may affect your decision, the only difference being that one is a child and one is an adult).
You can only rescue one of each of the following, which do you save?
a) A child or an adult
b) A stranger or your dog
c) Your entire family or the entire canine species
d) A bottle with the cure for cancer or your brother
e) Lassie or A Convicted Murderer/Rapist
f) Your spouse or a Nobel Laureate
g) A petry dish with 15 fertilized human eggs or 1 small child
h) A dog or a fish
i) A dog or a rat
j) A dog or a human being on life support who has been declared "brain dead"
k) Your spouse or the greatest artist of all time
l) A child or a 95-year old adult
m) A stranger or the greatest piece of art ever created by human hands
n) A dog or a human being on life support in a perpetual coma (with no chance of ever coming out of the coma, although they are not brain dead).
o) Lassie or Hitler
Perhaps we can give two answers to each (if they are different):
1) what do you think you would actually do and
2) what do you think should or ought to do.
Now, after you've answered a) through o) can you provide some kind of principles or basis upon which you are guiding your decision making? Are the decisions consistent with one another? Are the principles consistent?
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4 comments:
A) a child
B) my dog
C) my entire family
D) my brother
E) Lassie
F) my spouse
G) 1 small child
H) a dog
I) a dog
J) a dog
K) my spouse
L) a child
M) a stranger
N) a dog
O) Lassie
The reasons for my answers are based on personal attachments, beliefs, and my opinion on the importance between the choices available to me. For example, a child has his entire life ahead of him when an adult has lived their life, or the coma patient who has no hope of ever living their life again. Choosing a loved one, whether my dog or a family member is based on pesonal attachments and what is more important to me.
Sheryl.
a)a child
b)a stranger
c)my family
d)cure for cancer
e)lassie
f)my spouse
g)small child
h)dog
i)dog
j)dog
k)spouse
l)child
m)a stranger
n)coma patient
o)lassie
My decisions are merely based on who i think has more worth, or who I think is more morally sound. I dont own a dog, so any question that entails between choosing a dog or a stranger, I would have to choose a stranger. However, when it comes to choosing between a dog and less moral human beings, such as Hitler and a convicted rapist, then I feel that the dog would benefit more from life rather than the latter options. My reasoning behind saving the children in each case would be that a child has more to offer than an adult, as they are eventually going to be coming to their maximum potential, whereas the adult could be hitting their pinnacle or even coming down from it. these are some of my reasoning behind my choices.
a) child
b) i guess dog
c) family
d) brother
e) lassie
f) spouse
g) small child
h) fish
i) rat
j) i suppose dog
k) spouse
l) child
m) stranger
n) reluctant dog again
o) Lassie
For most answers I decided based on the value that one as to either me or society over the other. If something meant a lot to me than I chose it over something that did not mean as much to me. If neither had significant value to me, I chose the one that had more value to society. On most dog ones the decision was difficult because I used to love dogs but my parents decided it would be just fantastic to have 9 of them. Since then I have come to have very little liking of the canine species. My parents dogs suck and have made me almost hate dogs. I believe other than that my decisions are very consistent with each other. The principle with which I made my decisions remained the same throughout the questions.
what i would do/(what i ought to do). if there's only one than i believe what i would do is also what i ought to do.
a)A child
b)A stranger
c)my entire family
d)my brother/(bottle with cure for cancer)
e)Lassie
f)my spouse
g)1 small child
h)a dog
i)a dog
j)a dog
k)my spouse
l)a child
m)a stranger
n)a dog/(person in coma)
o)Lassie
For my decisions I first thought about which choice personally means the most to me, such as my spouse, brother, or dog because i used to have a dog. When that didn't apply i thought about which choice was better for society, or could offer more to the community later in life, such as choosing a child over a 95-year old adult. Then there were some choices where what chose might not be the right thing but it is what i would probably take when put in that situation. There were two choices like that where my personal feeling went against my principles.
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