Would you save a stranger?

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My morality would suffer if I sat around and did nothing about it. Not only would I help, but I would make sure to put in as much effort as I can.

If weapons were involved, no. If there were too many assailants involved and my attempt would be almost certain to do nothing but harm myself, no. But if there seemed like a significant chance that my involvement could actually bring about a positive outcome, especially if I had pepper spray on me or somesuch and there was only one or two attackers, then yes. Otherwise I am not thinking things through. It is best to realize when a phone call can do more than just providing another body to be beaten on and treated after.

And how would helping a total stranger be the right thing to do? Like I said, it depends on the context. How do you know the person being attacked is innocent? What if the person was trying to shoplift?

would you save the human stranger that you don't know over a loving pet that you do know?

Unlikely.

I'd save a stranger

Yes, most people would not.

For those of you who would personally not save the stranger they don't know over the pet they do know and love... beyond yourself, if you were to be a statesman of your position and evangelize a position for others to also follow, what position would that be? Is it the same as your own, or do you only hold that position for yourself.

Is human life that you do not know not more important then the animal you do know? If it isn't, thats fine, I'm only trying to understand where you're coming from.

I often help people with small things. I have never seen a fight or anything so I have no idea how I'd react. I've often thought about what I'd do and I think I'd help, but I also know I have the tendency to completely freeze up in situations like that.

A1. Almost all of my traits are the exact opposite of what gets a person into a seat as a head official. If I had any chance I would have to lie about virtually everything, not to mention miraculously start enjoying public speaking, hand shaking, and looking people in the eye.

A2. The animal I know is more important than the human I do not know.

You can't answer accurately now because you don't know what the circumstances will be under the situation.
Of course most would say "yes" at this stage, when you aren't in danger yourself or faced with pressure to do something else.
Take accounts from hard times in history or hard times in other places. For example, I read a book about personal accounts from defectors of North Korea, and when the huge wave of starvation and famine hit in the 90s, these people who told their stories said that they had to walk by dying babies and orphaned young children with protruding ribs. It was shocking at first, but eventually they "got used to it." When you're also hungry/sick/dying, just like the people around you, you wouldn't save a stranger. They felt bad about it later, but at that point it was just life.
It's a survival mechanism: one's own needs > someone else's.

Last edited by jmnixon95 on 07 Aug 2011, 2:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

How can you make such an assumption?

Q2: I, and the majority of aspies I've come across on WP are the same way. What I was asking in this question though was what position do you think other people should hold, and why?

Q1: I suspected that, but I'd like to know the why behind it.

Emotional connection.
How obvious can an answer be, really?

well fine, that is an animal.

now substitute that animal for the most prized non-living item in your life. Would your emotional attachment to that non-living thing. Many people have at least one material item of value to them that feel is just too important to trade for anything.

the point is,.. since there are always gradations in what we value, is human life of the highest value, of equal value to other living things, or does it just depend on how you feel about the circumstance. I am trying to distinguish whether the opinions given are just out of emotion(and that in real life, they would save the human being), or, in real life, they really would act out of their emotions and save their pet dog over a human stranger.

I might say I'd prefer to save the pet dog, but that is only in spirit, and in reality, I rank the animal below human life, and save the stranger. But that is just me. It is not out of emotions either, as I do not know the stranger while I know the pet, or the house, or the collectors dream mobile (or whatever prized item that you do own or wish to own). It is out of the belief that the human life is more important then saving an animal, a car, or a house, a trophy, family memorabilia passed down for many generations, etc.

It's impossible to say and not worth talking about until you're in a situation where you must choose between the two. One doesn't honestly know what they would do until they are faced with the crisis. Of course most would say that they would save the stranger, but would they? What state is the stranger in? Are they, say, drunken from a night of partying, or are they a doctor who just completed a long and tedious surgery of removing a brain tumor? Most of the time, that can be seen as irrelevant, but still. Either way, some wouldn't do anything about it, or, if their own conditions were right, they might try to assist the person. Some feel that they don't have any right to judge whether someone needs saving or not, but that's just silly because, in the end, you have to act on whether or not you'll do anything about it based on your judgment.

That's my thought. Naturally, I'd like to think that I would. But I can't say whether that's true because it's never happened to me. Maybe none of us would/could when the time came, no matter how much of a hero we want to be. Or, maybe all of us would, because in the split second we are needed, we don't have time to think and weigh the options. It's act now or don't.

My own self-doubts revolve around the fact that I'm slow to process things. Often I see something happen and it takes me so long to process it, that it's over before I realize what's happened. I worry that that would happen to me in the moment I am needed. I would hope it didn't, but what if it did? And then I would beat myself up for the rest of my life.