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Moral question

Should one of the men be forsaken?

  • forsake the last guy

    Votes: 8 47.1%

  • do not forsake the last guy

    Votes: 9 52.9%
  • Total voters
    17
  • Poll closed .
ashurbanipal said:
Everyone dies. Better to die without the stain of murder on one's soul. I would not throw anyone overboard, though I would do everything possible to survive, and keep everyone alive, for as long as possible.
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If you're going to die anyway and believe in the hereafter, why not volunteer and die with sacrificing for others on one's soul.
 
They all die.
 
At the end of the day, someone is going overboard. You can draw straws, play rock paper scissors, king of the raft, whatever, but two men live, one man dies. Mankind survives. These questions arent as difficult in real life as people want them to be. The 'noble' thought of all three dying together is just plain stupid.
 
Luftwaffe said:
There are three human beings on a raft out in the sea. They are all rather the same; each is your average Joe, a good guy who does his work and gets along well with those around him.

This raft however is made of a material that doesn't have enough buoyancy to be able to keep all three men afloat, evident by its slow descent into the water the longer the three men stay on it. The water below is icy cold and the temperature combined with the moisture is enough to kill a man after hardly a dozen minutes of exposure (guy becomes unconscious and then drowns/dies of hypothermia).

The raft does however, have the buoyancy to support two guys.

Should one be forsaken? Simple moral question, there is no right or wrong. But this is mainly a test to see what you would do.

EDIT

There is no other option. You either forsake this man or have him hang on with the rest. You may give reasoning and you may debate other's reasoning.
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The good old kill a million to save a billion situation.
The answer is actually a lot simpler than people would think; if no option exists to save them all then the fewer that die the better.

Since the decision maker does not appear to be one of them and does not seem to have any connection to any of them then the choice making here is a lot easier moral-wise, and there should be no moral concerns for picking one randomly and letting him go. After all morals are relative to the situation and it is never immoral to pick the most moral choice of those available.

If the decision maker was one of the three or had connection to one of them - then things get confusing.
 
Luftwaffe said:
There are three human beings on a raft out in the sea. They are all rather the same; each is your average Joe, a good guy who does his work and gets along well with those around him.

This raft however is made of a material that doesn't have enough buoyancy to be able to keep all three men afloat, evident by its slow descent into the water the longer the three men stay on it. The water below is icy cold and the temperature combined with the moisture is enough to kill a man after hardly a dozen minutes of exposure (guy becomes unconscious and then drowns/dies of hypothermia).

The raft does however, have the buoyancy to support two guys.

Should one be forsaken? Simple moral question, there is no right or wrong. But this is mainly a test to see what you would do.

EDIT

There is no other option. You either forsake this man or have him hang on with the rest. You may give reasoning and you may debate other's reasoning.
Click to expand...

Not that you've given this option, but I'd suggest that each of the men takes a turn, rotating, 10 minutes in the water and 20 minutes on the raft. The weight of the third man in the water, holding onto the raft, would not alter the buoyancy of the raft with two men on it. The 20 minutes on the raft, every half hour, should provide sufficient time for recovery prior to reentering the water. Depending on the time the men are stranded at sea, nature will take its course and one of the men will expire before the other two. At that point, the remaining two men can remain in the raft until rescued.
 
I don't think I would sacrifice the other guy. If I survived I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror. But in the moment, who knows what I would actually do?
 
This is basically the trolley problem.

I'd sacrifice one to save two. In general, that's a fair trade. In general.
 
Winchester said:
you're going to die anyway and believe in the hereafter, why not volunteer and die with sacrificing for others on one's soul.
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Well, first, the OP asked us to consider the situation from a neutral view, outside that of any of the three people on the raft. So that would be like me volunteering someone else for suicide. My reply was meant to simply express what I see as the primary ethical concern within the situation.

That said, the reason suicide is wrong in most instances is because it abdicates one's duties towards others. If death is both certain and immanent, then suicide is acceptable. However, from the point of view of one of the guys on the raft, I would not be certain that death is immanent, for me or either of the other two. From God's point of view, the OP instructs us to treat it as if there are no alternatives. But there's no way the men on the raft could know that there is no solution.
 
I would seek any viable alternative first.


If none were found, better one man die than all three.
 
Luftwaffe said:
There are three human beings on a raft out in the sea. They are all rather the same; each is your average Joe, a good guy who does his work and gets along well with those around him.

This raft however is made of a material that doesn't have enough buoyancy to be able to keep all three men afloat, evident by its slow descent into the water the longer the three men stay on it. The water below is icy cold and the temperature combined with the moisture is enough to kill a man after hardly a dozen minutes of exposure (guy becomes unconscious and then drowns/dies of hypothermia).

The raft does however, have the buoyancy to support two guys.

Should one be forsaken? Simple moral question, there is no right or wrong. But this is mainly a test to see what you would do.

EDIT

There is no other option. You either forsake this man or have him hang on with the rest. You may give reasoning and you may debate other's reasoning.
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That basically sums up the total human experience. The three should work together towards the survival of the group, not turn on eachother. Bail water, inflate the raft, sleep in shifts....
 
Luftwaffe said:
There are three human beings on a raft out in the sea. They are all rather the same; each is your average Joe, a good guy who does his work and gets along well with those around him.

This raft however is made of a material that doesn't have enough buoyancy to be able to keep all three men afloat, evident by its slow descent into the water the longer the three men stay on it. The water below is icy cold and the temperature combined with the moisture is enough to kill a man after hardly a dozen minutes of exposure (guy becomes unconscious and then drowns/dies of hypothermia).

The raft does however, have the buoyancy to support two guys.

Should one be forsaken? Simple moral question, there is no right or wrong. But this is mainly a test to see what you would do.

EDIT

There is no other option. You either forsake this man or have him hang on with the rest. You may give reasoning and you may debate other's reasoning.
Click to expand...

Leave the priest in the water and paddle away from him like mad.
 
Find an iceberg. Cut a hole in it. Take the third guy and kick him in the ice hole.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Not that you've given this option, but I'd suggest that each of the men takes a turn, rotating, 10 minutes in the water and 20 minutes on the raft. The weight of the third man in the water, holding onto the raft, would not alter the buoyancy of the raft with two men on it. The 20 minutes on the raft, every half hour, should provide sufficient time for recovery prior to reentering the water. Depending on the time the men are stranded at sea, nature will take its course and one of the men will expire before the other two. At that point, the remaining two men can remain in the raft until rescued.
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10 minutes is too long. Not to mention, the game is over once the clothes get wet since you can't dry off and warm up before your next dive in the water from the rotation. That option would effectively forsake all the men.

There is however, the unknown in regards to what happens in the days succeeding the day on when the decision to let one go or not is made.
 
Jerry said:
That basically sums up the total human experience. The three should work together towards the survival of the group, not turn on eachother. Bail water, inflate the raft, sleep in shifts....
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That would fall under the "don't forsake anyone."

You're choosing to not forsake anyone and hope that something happens before you all perish. Could be a wise and moral choice. Who knows?

There was a situation in my theology book in which a boat capsized and nearly all the food and water was lost. An old uncle with his nephew had been out in the ocean trying to beat a world record. The uncle surmised that if he stayed on board, what little food and water was left would be consumed too fast and they would both die. He committed suicide and jumped off the boat in order to better ensure the nephew's safety, only for the nephew to be rescued hardly two days later.

This problem shares a vague resemblance to that situation. Do you take your chances with the risk of everyone dying, or do you not take too much of a risk and dispose of one of the members in the assumption that rescue won't come for a long time?
 
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Luftwaffe said:
10 minutes is too long. Not to mention, the game is over once the clothes get wet since you can't dry off and warm up before your next dive in the water from the rotation. That option would effectively forsake all the men.

There is however, the unknown in regards to what happens in the days succeeding the day on when the decision to let one go or not is made.
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Yeah. My thought is that killing one member of their crew simply extends the likelihood of slow starvation for the other two.
 
Luftwaffe said:
That would fall under the "don't forsake anyone."

You're choosing to not forsake anyone and hope that something happens before you all perish.
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What do you mean "the" don't forsake anyone?
 
Rock Paper Scissors

Best of 3... no.... 5!...no...7!...no...393!
 
Jerry said:
What do you mean "the" don't forsake anyone?
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The bottom option to not forsake the "last guy" (throw his ass off the raft). Teamwork would fall under no one being forsaken right off the bat and taking the chance that something good, a boon of sorts, would come soon.
 
Luftwaffe said:
The bottom option to not forsake the "last guy" (throw his ass off the raft). Teamwork would fall under no one being forsaken right off the bat and taking the chance that something good, a boon of sorts, would come soon.
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Oh this is a poll thread? Mobil devices don't show polls.
 
Jerry said:
Oh this is a poll thread? Mobil devices don't show polls.
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Are you using the app? Also, although it may be a little slower, I think you could take off the mobile site setting (if that's what you're referring to).
 
Luftwaffe said:
Read the edit. You will address this question directly.
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But that's a stupid edit. So long as there are rational options, your whole moral question fails.
 
I would not forsake the last guy. Instead I would try to emulate this guy
eddie.jpg
Eddie Rickenbacker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Cephus said:
But that's a stupid edit. So long as there are rational options, your whole moral question fails.
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No, because everything possible and rational still falls under those two options. Forsake the last guy or don't.

The format is that you choose one of those and then give your reasoning. It's direct so as to ensure NO miscommunication. He stated reasoning and left it at that (that reasoning resulted from the second option being chosen since everyone working as a team would mean the last guy was not forsaken). As such, you failed to correct me, my moral question and it's very direct options STAND. It is impossible for you to come up with a rational solution that would deviate from any of those two options outside of forsaking two members instead of just one (which is to be assumed irrational here since the raft can hold two people).
 
Luftwaffe said:
Are you using the app? Also, although it may be a little slower, I think you could take off the mobile site setting (if that's what you're referring to).
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ForumRunner and Tapatalk don't show polls, either. No big deal I'll cast my vote when I'm on my laptop later.
 
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