If it helps answer your question, take this hypothetical situation: you are told that a random person in the world age 40 or below (arbitrary decision to keep 90 year olds out of the equation) will die long before his/her time, unless you immediately sacrifice your life to save theirs. How long would you require to think about it to come up with your decision?
Several threads here and on the Pit talk about weighing human lives versus those of animals, for example, or discussing overpopulation, crime statistics, and so on. How do we determine just how much a human life is worth? Many would agree that it would be abhorent to kill one person deliberately, even to save hundreds - after all, that’s what many argue stem cell research is, for instance.
But when do the scales tip the other way (as they might in discussions of the death penalty)? How do we deal with all these changing priorities? When and how do we decide that it’s worth putting a family in the poorhouse to save fifty spotted owls, or decide that national political policy X is worth a few lives worth of collateral damage (fill in the blanks with whatever you like), or any of the other issues this concerns? In short… look at the subject line.
I would probably sacrifice my life, as long as it wasn’t painful. I don’t really like my life, that’s why. And if someone could have a good life in trade for mine, i would gladly do it.
I don’t know that I would sacrifice my own life for anyone else’s. I have no children, so that’s off the table. I love ** Pump Action Gerbil ** enough that I’d certainly consider it, but I can’t honestly say I would.
But in a larger sense, I don’t hold with the idea that human life, simply because it is human, is automatically the most valuable form of life on earth, trumping everything else. Not even close.
But it isnt’ up to me, so my opinion doesnt’ really matter.
stoid
Especially since I have such a problem typing apostrophes properly. How pathetic am I, eh?
Well, to be honest, I don’t consider my own life to be worth much (no, not a cry for attention, just stating my personal viewpoint). I’d probably save just about anybody’s life, unless I was damn sure that the person in question was a dickhead.
At the moment I wouldn’t need to think more than a couple of seconds. I have no way of knowing that person’s relative value, therefore I couldn’t legitimately sacrifice my life for his. He/She’D have to die.
I think the big unstated factor in all these debates is the concept of relative worth. Making blanket statements like ‘all people have the same rights’ and ‘animals deserve to live’ seem to ignore the fact that we all (certainly most of us) place different lives on different scales.
I certainly place my family’s lives above that of an axe murderer, and wouldn’t hesitate to kill him to protect them. This is how justice works. Sliding scales of value. Me, my family, my freinds, my acquaintances, complete strangers, people trying to harm any of the above, miscellaneous criminals, enemy soldiers, animals. Thats about how I value individual human lives. I imagine most peole have a similar scale whether they realise it or not.
How do I justify this? Morality, and logic based on evolutionary principals. We should be doing the best we can to protect our own genes and those who will assist in protecting those genes.
I can’t evaluate the worth of a random stranger so they die.
Well, seeing as I said “nope” before I even got to this sentance (Expecting the question to be if I would or wouldn’t, not how long I’d think on it)… Not very long.
If it’s a completely random human, I have no way of knowing what (s)he is worth. Could be the next mother Teresa (I’m… Pretty sure I spelt that wrong). Could be the next Dahmer or Hitler. Judging from the average of humanity, I wouldn’t think it’s likely to be worth it.
Why would I have any reason to sacrafice my life for a complete stranger? I value my life to much to throw it away. That sounds like something a suicidal person might do.
**
That’s difficult because life isn’t worth the same to everyone. If I died today would you cry a river of tears? Probably not and I take no offense at that. What if your wife or mother died? They’re lives are probably worth more to you then mine so you’d have a stronger emotional response.
**
Well I can’t think of many examples where killing another human being would be pleasant. And yet I could ethically do it if I had good cause.
**
The same way we deal with anything else. We try to determine what the results will be and act accordingly. I can’t give you a blanket answer to cover all situations.
Marc
I’d like to think that if I (God-forbid) was involved in a car accident that people would at least stop to pull me from the car before it burst into flames…
I’ve done things that, looking back on it now, were stupid in order to save people or animals. I once stopped on the side of the freeway to rescue a dog that was stuck on the median and scared silly… I could have been hit by a car I suppose, but for me, the risk was worth taking. I would have felt so much regret and self-hatred to leave that dog for dead… I HAD TO DO SOMETHING.
Then there are the people who save lives at their own expense every day. Firefighters, lifeguards, etc., could be injured or killed saving lives of anonymous people, but they still do it… These people do not ask themselves “Is that person drowning out there worth saving? I wonder if he’s a good person?” It is another human life.
According to most of the posters above (i.e. MGibson), these people are suicidal and don’t value their own life? I doubt that.
Now I don’t expect an unqualified person to try and save a drowning person, and I don’t expect a weakling to pull me from a burning building, but if you are ABLE to help me out with a limited risk to your own life, I’d expect you to do it… because I’d do it for you.
Many of you had better hope someone like me is around when you need a helping hand, because judging from the posts so far, there aren’t many like me out there.
I once saved a drowning girl. I was not a lifeguard but I knew how to swim and I’d taken a water life saving course.
**
My quote is taken out of context and you’re not being fair. Go read the OP again
**
In his question there is no option to risk my life as death was certain. My options are save his life and die or let him die and live. With those being the only options I will choose my life over any strangers.
**
A firefighter will not enter a building if it is to dangerous, even to save a life. There’s a difference between risking your life and a sure death. I think you’re being unfair to most of the posters above (i.e. Me) and I think you owe them an apology.
**
So as per the OP you’d expect me to die so that you can live? That hardly seems fair.
Marc
That’s very heartwarming Acco. But it doesn’t answer the question in any way.
The question isn’t whether you would risk your life to save another. It is whether you would knowingly and certainly sacrifice your life to save another. As in: you will definitely die if you do it. And not even to save someone close to you but to save a complete stranger.
I don’t think that it is in any way callous to say no to this question. Certainly from my point of view, I value my life over a strangers and I know that my death would cause grief to my family, my girlfriend, my friends. I wouldn’t wish to inflict that upon them.
pan
ps seems a bit more IMHO than GD to me, but never mind.
You’ve made a mistake. Every one of the examples you’ve given is of risking one’s live in order to save specific people in specific circumstances.
The hypothetical situation was me or one random person under the age of 40 of all the billions on earth. Bye-bye random guy.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect if you ask a firefighter or police officer they’d most likely answer the same.
If I see you bleeding on the side of the road, I’m going to get help for you. But I’m not about to start jumping off cliffs because it might save the world. You’re on your own just as much as I am.
Let’s put it another way: If you received a phone call from some one you didn’t know and were told that you had to kill yourself right there or that person would be killed before you hung up, which would you choose?
It’s a mite different from picking a dog up off the side of the road, no?
So I’m supposed to sacrifice my life (not just risk it) for the sake of some random stranger? Fat chance. Sorry, but human beings just don’t work that way. Nor should they. It’s a zero-sum game to trade one human life for another–on the whole, humanity neither gains nor loses from the sacrifice. Yeah, it sucks to be Random Stranger’s friends and family after he’s dead, but it would cause just as much suffering for my friends and family if I sacrifice myself for the sake of Random Stranger.
No, really. Why are you looking at me like that?
The more interesting question, and the one I thought the OP was going to ask, was how much a human life is worth in cash. Nobody much likes to do that, but assigning an economic value to a person’s life actually makes a lot of other decisions easier. If you want to ask whether a human life is worth the lives of fifty spotted owls, it helps to know how much a human and a spotted owl are worth.
Yes, I believe I’d do it, for the same reason I’d endanger my own life to help somebody being robbed or attacked. Here’s how my reasoning works: I feel that in any given situation, the person who has a choice has the greater responsibility than the person who has no choice.
For example, suppose I’m on the subway, and a woman is being robbed at knife-point (or gun. whatever). She had her situation forced on her. She has no choice whether she is going to participate in the altercation or not – she was just minding her own business and was attacked.
I, on the other hand, am not immediately involved. I have options. I can move to the next car and ignore her plight, or I can help. Since I am young and healthy and not caught off-guard, I am better prepared to deal with it than she is, and would feel obligated to do so.
So, on the same reasoning, if I was offered a choice to die or have some random person killed, I would feel it was (what I perceive to be) my duty as a Christian and a human being to give up my own life. Now if I were actually faced with the choice, I don’t know that I’d have the guts to go through with it, but I hope so.
The UK government does actually put a value on life. It is £1 million per life. They do this when deciding whether increased safety on roads is worth the extra cost associated with the safety feature - if fifty lives will be saved and the feature costs £10 million then it is “worth it”. Not sure exactly where I came across this, but I’m pretty sure it was on http://www.statistics.gov.uk a few days ago.
From another point of view, your question is unanswerable. Money only exists as a placeholder for trade. It is, if you like, “abstracted trade”. By asking the question, you’re extrapolating the use of money beyond that at which it has any sense. The answer is “not applicable”.
For those of you who would definitely sacrifice your life to save another’s, consider that you could probably save a few lives right now without even giving up your own.
Specifically, you could save up some $$ and travel to a poor part of the world where simple measures to improve such things as nutrition or water facilities would likely save a few lives in some remote village.
Granted, there are charities that already do this, but I believe (and I’m just guessing) that you could still save a few additional lives with an extra pair of dedicated hands.
The problem with this is that it’s hard to know that you’ll certainly be giving up your life for another’s. Even in the worse of situations, one is hopeful that they can save someone’s life without losing their own. That, and not all saving people would require putting yourself into as much danger as the other person is in, or at least it doesn’t seem like it to one at the time. Take last summer for example, we were doing story time on 4 Tree island (portsmouth, NH) with a bunch of little kids. One of the families that read with us had a very active 18 month old boy. Eventually the family went on their merry way to another activity and we ate lunch. During lunch someone pointed to the isles of Sholes steamer, and I noticed the baby was running headlong for the cliff, which had about a 10 foot drop to the rocks and water below. His mom was talking to a friend, and didn’t notice until I ran and grabbed him about a foot before he would have gone over the edge. If he’d run over the edge, he might have been seriously hurt or even killed in a fall that high, and probably couldn’t swim. I, on the otherhand,believed I was less at risk because: a. I knew the danger of running off the edge b. had I misjudged and fallen myself while stopping him from falling, the distance is only about twice my height c. I can swim. In this case my risk of injury seemed less than his, and no one got hurt, though his mom looked like she was going to have a heart attack(I bet that’s the last time he’s allowed to wander off outdoors.) However, maybe I could have pushed him away from the edge but have built up too much speed in trying to catch him that I couldn’t stop and fallen and broken my neck on one of the rocks below, but I couldn’t know that when deciding what to do, could I? I bet that there are very few cases in which one knows that the outcome of helping someone will lead to their own death; it’s unfortunate and commendable, but difficult to know in advance.
I’d like to think that I would do it, but I can’t be sure because I haven’t been in that situation before. The only problem I would have with sacrificing my own life would be if a. the person was a murderer, rapist etc. or b. if I had no way of knowing if the person that would be killed existed, would be saved by my death or wasn’t dead already. That’s my only disclaimer.
