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Hypothetical situation: Would you sacrifice yourself for someone else?

Would you sacrifice yourself for someone else?

  • Total voters
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Anagram

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The tragedy in Colorado this past weekend and subsequent debate about it on DP has got me thinking a lot about the value of your own life versus other people's. It has led me to wonder whether or not the logic I use to answer this scenario is accurate or not.

Situation: You have the choice between being killed or having one other random person on the planet being killed. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, the random person would never have known his life was in danger.

My logic here is pretty simple. I have more control over how I influence the world than I do over some random person. I believe that over the course of my life I will do more good than the average person and will have more time to do it, as I'm 18. Therefore, I would choose to save myself.

Still, even though I don't see any flaws in my logic, it still feels like a completely wrong decision to make. It feels selfish and cowardly. Is it presumptuous to assume I can do more good than the average person? Should morality be not be reduced to a logic puzzle? I don't know, but I'd like to hear what other people think.

I'm only 18 years old. I admit that there are people who know better than me about this sort of thing. One of the most important things to me is to be able to always draw a moral line and make sure I'm on the right side of it. And I feel like the value a human ought to place on his/her own life is one of the most important questions in morality that needs to be answered, which is why I'm trying hard to come to some kind of quality conclusion here. I would appreciate anyone's advice.
 
There are three issues that may help in making decisions like this. First: one's survival instinct may be one of the strongest, if not THE strongest instinct that we, as human animals have. Second: morality is relative both to the individual and the situation. There is no "ultimate" truth and "right" and "wrong" are fluidic concepts. Third: there is no such thing as true altruism. Everything is a transaction.

So, how does this play out in your dilemma? Firstly, your own personal survival instinct causes you to choose to live. Is this right? Is it wrong? It is neither. It's an instinct that all higher animals have. Secondly, as far as being on the "right" side of the moral line, that depends on what your moral line is. Is it right? Is it wrong? It depends on you. What you are really asking, though is NOT whether it is right or wrong. What you are really asking is can you accept your decision to choose yourself to live, since this is the choice that you want to make? You've already identified your morality. What you're struggling with is whether you can accept that morality or not. My question would be, why couldn't you?
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
There are three issues that may help in making decisions like this. First: one's survival instinct may be one of the strongest, if not THE strongest instinct that we, as human animals have.
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Definitely.

Second: morality is relative both to the individual and the situation. There is no "ultimate" truth and "right" and "wrong" are fluidic concepts.
Click to expand...

Fair enough.

Third: there is no such thing as true altruism. Everything is a transaction.
Click to expand...

I can agree with this too.

So, how does this play out in your dilemma? Firstly, your own personal survival instinct causes you to choose to live. Is this right? Is it wrong? It is neither. It's an instinct that all higher animals have. Secondly, as far as being on the "right" side of the moral line, that depends on what your moral line is. Is it right? Is it wrong? It depends on you. What you are really asking, though is NOT whether it is right or wrong. What you are really asking is can you accept your decision to choose yourself to live, since this is the choice that you want to make? You've already identified your morality. What you're struggling with is whether you can accept that morality or not. My question would be, why couldn't you?
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I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that I've already drawn the moral line by providing my choice already, and that what I'm really asking is whether I can accept the line I've drawn? Forgive me if I've misunderstood, especially since it's 3 am here and very tired.

If that is what you meant, then I suppose that the reason I can't accept it is because it flies in the face of what most other people believe, and even though ad populum is a fallacious argument by itself, its still a strong point against what I believe.
 
Anagram said:
Definitely.



Fair enough.



I can agree with this too.



I'm a little confused here. Are you saying that I've already drawn the moral line by providing my choice already, and that what I'm really asking is whether I can accept the line I've drawn? Forgive me if I've misunderstood, especially since it's 3 am here and very tired.

If that is what you meant, then I suppose that the reason I can't accept it is because it flies in the face of what most other people believe, and even though ad populum is a fallacious argument by itself, its still a strong point against what I believe.
Click to expand...

Yes, you got it right. That's exactly what I'm saying. So, your comments lead to another question. If morality is relative, and you have already set your own personal moral line based on you and your experiences, how can you expect to compare that to someone else's moral line when you do not have their same experiences or perceptions?
 
Anagram said:
Situation: You have the choice between being killed or having one other random person on the planet being killed. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, the random person would never have known his life was in danger.
Click to expand...

Random person I don't know? Absolutely not. I don't believe it's a matter of morality, it's simply survival.
 
Yes, in the vast majority of situations I would; and I do believe there is a moral imperatived to do so in almost all cases.
 
As I said in your other thread, the only person in this world I would gladly give my life for is my daughter. As long as she's alive and still needs me, I will never risk leaving her motherless. Sorry, other people, no matter who you are, you don't matter compared to her. When she's an adult and doesn't need me anymore, things will be different. Then I might consider risking my life for others. Loved ones first, obviously, children always first and adult strangers a very distant second.

In some situations, where there are no children involved, I may chose to save only myself and to hell with everyone else. I don't think it's morally wrong and I certainly don't think it's cowardly. Saving one own's life is a basic instinct and, while it can be highly commendable to overcome this instinct and lay down one's life for others, it can also be an incredibly stupid thing to do if you have people in your life who depend on you and need you. As for the cowardice angle, I believe it only comes into play if the person has a clear opportunity to save someone's life as well as their own and chooses to run and leave the other person to die. That is a clearly a coward. Someone who values their own life above that of random strangers and refuses to die for people they don't even know is not a coward in my view. That's just a normal person with normal survival instincts.
 
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In this situation, logically and ethically, I would have to go with sacrificing myself. And there's basically one reason why.

The other person never gets to consent. I do.

This situation is not equal. It's not just whether they die or whether I do. It's not just the one-to-one value of our lives.

It's also the fact that I have total control and they have none. I'm deciding their fate for them without their input. I'm not sure I can live with the idea of killing someone without their consent, when I could have given mine.

In the Colorado situation, me choosing to live doesn't necessarily condemn anyone else, and we're all in the same situation with the same degree of awareness, so it's different to me, and more acceptable to save myself.
 
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i cant know unless i am in such a situation:(

but if the ones i should save are my beloved ones ,i would do it!!
 
Anagram said:
The tragedy in Colorado this past weekend and subsequent debate about it on DP has got me thinking a lot about the value of your own life versus other people's. It has led me to wonder whether or not the logic I use to answer this scenario is accurate or not.

Situation: You have the choice between being killed or having one other random person on the planet being killed. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, the random person would never have known his life was in danger.

My logic here is pretty simple. I have more control over how I influence the world than I do over some random person. I believe that over the course of my life I will do more good than the average person and will have more time to do it, as I'm 18. Therefore, I would choose to save myself.

Still, even though I don't see any flaws in my logic, it still feels like a completely wrong decision to make. It feels selfish and cowardly. Is it presumptuous to assume I can do more good than the average person? Should morality be not be reduced to a logic puzzle? I don't know, but I'd like to hear what other people think.

I'm only 18 years old. I admit that there are people who know better than me about this sort of thing. One of the most important things to me is to be able to always draw a moral line and make sure I'm on the right side of it. And I feel like the value a human ought to place on his/her own life is one of the most important questions in morality that needs to be answered, which is why I'm trying hard to come to some kind of quality conclusion here. I would appreciate anyone's advice.
Click to expand...

Implying you're in the state of mind to make such a decision....
 
Anagram said:
The tragedy in Colorado this past weekend and subsequent debate about it on DP has got me thinking a lot about the value of your own life versus other people's. It has led me to wonder whether or not the logic I use to answer this scenario is accurate or not.

Situation: You have the choice between being killed or having one other random person on the planet being killed. If you choose to sacrifice yourself, the random person would never have known his life was in danger.

My logic here is pretty simple. I have more control over how I influence the world than I do over some random person. I believe that over the course of my life I will do more good than the average person and will have more time to do it, as I'm 18. Therefore, I would choose to save myself.

Still, even though I don't see any flaws in my logic, it still feels like a completely wrong decision to make. It feels selfish and cowardly. Is it presumptuous to assume I can do more good than the average person? Should morality be not be reduced to a logic puzzle? I don't know, but I'd like to hear what other people think.

I'm only 18 years old. I admit that there are people who know better than me about this sort of thing. One of the most important things to me is to be able to always draw a moral line and make sure I'm on the right side of it. And I feel like the value a human ought to place on his/her own life is one of the most important questions in morality that needs to be answered, which is why I'm trying hard to come to some kind of quality conclusion here. I would appreciate anyone's advice.
Click to expand...
The Selfish Gene - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Read the book - it'll help resolve some of your moral issues on this subject or at least give you the biological aspects of the situation so you can reach a more informed decision.

Dawkins does an excellent job presenting his evidence and it's been updated with two additional chapters since it's original writing in 1976. One of these chapters introduces the concept of memes - you may have heard of those? They are Dawkin's concept from this book's update. :)
 
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An interesting dilemma. If it just picks a person at random, I would sacrifice myself. You never know, it might pick a single mom with four kids trying to hold down a job. It might pick me anyway if it just picks a person. Plus I don't have a lot going for me right now anyway. :(
 
Hell no. Me > them.
 
My answer is no, and it's not because of any rationalization from utility which I'm skeptical of, it's because I do not want to die. My existence is important to me.
 
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