Atlas has another reason to shrug...

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In Perke Avot I:15

R. Hillel says:

If I am not for myself, then who is for me?
If I am only for myself, then what am I?
If not now, then when?

In Sfira 62, Baba Metzia R. ben Petura brings up the issue of two men in the desert with only enough water for one to survive to get back to civilization. If both drink then both die. R. ben Petura says: Both should drink so that one should not see his brother die before his eyes. R. Akiba responds: Nay. One should drink and live and the other die. He asserted that one's own life takes precedence. The halacha was with R. Akiba and not with R. ben Petura.



ruveyn

Easy to say if you're the one getting the water.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Nothing amusing here. This is the basic question underlying triage or any rationing of vital resources. A hard question.

ruveuyn

Personally, I'd rather not have to make that choice for myself. If it came down to my wife or daughter, you'd better bet I'd choose in favor of my loved ones.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Hi ruveyn,

I take it that "Life Boat Ethics" comes close, as with the pithy address label:
http://www.vbm-torah.org/halakha/lifeboatethics.htm

I will always wonder why example questions used in ethics will often use "known & certain facts" when such "facts" are seldom the rule in reality. That might be my Bayesian observations being an influence again.

But, how often is "certain" knowledge of useful "facts" available in adverse situations? This is a problem, as such a line of weighted reasoning can usually sink Singer, and the "Monty Hall Paradox" can have deadly consequences if succumbed to in real emergencies. I can easily picture the companion dying of thirst with the other person still having his bottle half-full of water, and then, just as death strikes, over the very next sand dune, an unexpected caravan with plenty of spare water.

Uncertainty can certainly turn a "Brave Captain" in the unfornutate lifeboat into a murderous fool with each freakish opportunity, and being in a lifeboat, "something" has already gone bizarrely wrong.

Old Age is top priority in Brave Captain's jetsam protocol with impending threat of doom, and impairment is probably a close second, but the use of the phrase "Brave Captain" for making life & death decisions for others was left in the lurch in the movie version of "Abandon Ship!" with a Randian tempting Tyrone Power.

Tadzio

That is how I would bet. Blood is thicker than water.

ruveyn

Rand is one of the last Romanticists, which explains her rather weird plotlines and philosophies. Romanticism largely began in 1812 as the bourgeoisie started attaining power and largely turned their backs on the enlightenment philosophies (Smith, Descartes, Franklin, etc.) The first major conflict with the Romanticist cultural icons was in 1848 when Communism began and Anarcho-Syndicalism became prominent. Between 1848 and the 1940s, there was an actual war carried out between the groups, although never official. The Long Depression (1873-1898) saw the most brutal fights. Romanticism came to an end at the end of World War II for the most part. But Ayn Rand remained as one of the last holdouts.

Hi ruveyn,

Then it is otherwise OK, if I'm not directly related to the Angels?

Then since it's OK otherwise, if I open my doors to the Angels, is the advice not to look back still valid?

Tadzio

You're extremely delusional if you believe this.

There is nothing more corrosive to the Human Condition than unbridled selfishness. The whole of Atlas Shrugged floats on the delusion that people are somehow born productive or not productive, which goes right against the actual spirit and letter of the free market.

It's just a smoke and mirrors game for elitists