Fine, count me amongst the uncivilized in your universe then. So you think this is on par with your two other examples. Wow.
Ah, but you’re painting a scenario wherein saving the dog is likely to ultimately save more people than saving the murdering child molester. Ergo, your hypothetical scenario does nothing to refute the notion that humans are more valuable than dogs. In fact, it indirectly and ultimately appeals to that very same principle!
Looking at life through my religious moral beliefs, I would save the human. Humans are greater than animals.
Were I to remove them somehow, and look at life purely scientifically, the dog gets saved. At that point, the stranger is just another animal in the grand sceme of things (although a rather smart animal). My dog on the other hand is a faithful companion.
I do like the poster who pointed out that we let people die every day. This is in fact true. We are generally far enough removed from it, we don’t think about it. Like it or not, everytime you buy a luxury, you took resources that cool have been used to help the needy, and used it for pleasure. We, as humans, have the resources to end a great deal of death around the world. But we waste a good deal of it on things that we don’t “need”. Human nature I suppose.
Nice sidestep. Let’s say the dog is retirement age.
[nitpick] JThunder might have been implying something, but it was you who did the inferring.[/nitpick]
I’m with JThunder here, in that I infer some basic lack of moral capacity and/or judgement in those who would elect to save their dog over the life of a human stranger. It really is a no-brainer, human beings have hopes and aspirations, fears, and, potential way beyond those of the smartest canine.
For the record, you might love your dog, but your dog doesn’t love you.
For the record you have no clue what the dog “feels”
The Great Unwashed wrote
quote
For the record, you might love your dog, but your dog doesn’t love you.
On the contrary,my dog loves me more then anything! She proves it to me everyday.
I still say “SAVE MY DOG”
Really?
How about a severely retarded human? Do you really want this to be about rescuing whoever is smarter?
Human beings have more potential to do good, and more potential to do evil. There isn’t anything intrinsically valuable in “potential.”
The basic question is this: Why are humans more worthy of saving than dogs?
The answer you’re giving is: They just are!
Julie
For the record, I don’t care if my pets don’t love me so long as they act like they do.
Julie
Wow, this debate suddenly heatens up. I’m sorry if I contributed to it, though it appears I didn’t directly. Shall we try to cool down a bit? 
I’m sorry if I offended anyone with my remarks. I simply wanted to point out that I always got the impression that there is a rather general consensus that whatever the legal duty there may be, there at least is a moral duty to rescue strangers where you can do so easily. It is codified in most European legal systems and recognized as a moral duty in the U.K. and the the U.S. AFAIK there is no recognized exception in case you also found you had to save your dog. This leads me to the conclusion that the majority opinion in these countries on this specific question is that you should leave your dog and should rescue the stranger.
Whether anyone’s specific feelings on this issue are genuine is anybody’s guess; it seems clear to me that those feelings are not commonly shared. Which is not to say that we cannot understand them; part of the denouement of Harry Mulish’s The Assault turns on this specific point.
I should further point out that abstract examples such as this are misleading as to the actual actions of people. In reality things are never very clearcut and people may surprise you for the worse or for the better.
“A severely retarded human”? One less smart than a dog? Mmm! That’s a whole other hypothetical – talking of which:
If there’s nothing intrinsically valuable in human potential then presumably you’d answer “No,” to the hypothetical, “If a stranger was drowning and you could save them, would you?”
If I may act all high and mighty for a second:
Some people think that our intelligence makes the Earth our ward.
Some people think that our intelligence makes the Earth our prize.
Boo to those second guys. 
My remark “Whether anyone’s specific feelings on this issue are genuine is anybody’s guess” may seem inflammatory as well, for which I again apologize.
In this context it should be “Whatever anyone’s specific opinions on this issue are (which, admittedly, the OP asked for),”
Well, I’d probably be in the water after one of my girls before I even noticed there was a human behind me. I monitor my dogs very closely when they’re not in our house or fenced yard, and would be in the water the second I thought they were in trouble. By contrast, why in the world would I be watching a stranger?
And no, I wouldn’t hear the human and turn back to go after him. I tend to be oblivious to everything else when someone I love needs me. Hell, even if I did hear the human, I wouldn’t turn my back on my dog. For one thing, by the time I swam back to shore and went out after the human, they’d both be dead. For another thing, I just couldn’t.
I wouldn’t be able to live with the idea that the last thing my sweet girl saw was me, the person she loves, trusts, and depends on to take care of her, the person she runs to when she’s hurt or scared, turning my back on her. The idea the she died, not just frightened and desperate and gasping for air and not understanding what was happening, but feeling abandoned by the center of her universe would eat away at my soul.
So yeah, I’d save the dog, hands down. If that makes me a horrible, unethical person, tough titty.
sghoul
Exactly. We feel quite differently towards those who are close to us. We still mourn the 3000+ who died on 9/11, as we should, but we are largely indifferent to the much larger number of people who die, every day and under similarly tragic circumstances, in other parts of the world. I don’t care about the homeless guy sleeping on the sewer outside my building nearly as much as I would if he was, say, my brother. It’s just the way humans operate. How could we care for everyone as much as we care for those close to us?
And some humans care about their pets as much as they care about the rest of their family.
Actually, I think you’re quite right in that matter. I think that the majority of people do consider human life to be vastly more valuable than animal life. That’s one reason why the laws against killing humans are generally more severe than the laws against killing animals – even beloved dogs.
I don’t. That’s why one of my previous examples talked about rescuing innocent babies, who are decidedly less intelligent than the average dog.
I don’t care if the human being is severely retarded or a scientific genius. He or she is still a human being who needs to be rescued.
I’d try to save any drowning animal.
Julie
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Yes, very clever to nitpick someone for whom English is not the mother tongue. Full marks to you.
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Cite? On what grounds can you make a definitive statement like that.
Would you save the human if there was no dog to worry about, and all you had to do was to push a button?
Why bother, since there’s already millions of homeless/starving/suffering strangers dying as we speak, right?
(In a twisted way, this thread reminds me of the “one vote doesn’t make a difference” discussion. I think in the end it comes down to the psychological perspective of how much control you perceives as having over your surroundings. My WAG is that people who feel they have no control over the world (over people) would choose the dog. I think there was a pyschology experiment done, showing that people who use salt shakers before tasting the food have the same perception of lack of control.)
I would save the human, with or without the dog in the picture. I’m not a pet-owner, although we used to have a rabbit, pet chickens, and turtles (not all at once) while I was growing up.
Well I would rescue the drowning stranger before the turtle. Then the order would be the rabbit then chickens(youngest to oldest). Well actually I guess I’d leave the turtle for last. Darn these moral dilemmas are tough.