Survival vs. High moral

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They could be clones of myself; I wouldn't care.

Hell, I'd let the whole human species die other than a couple of people to live, and I'm not particularly bothered if I live or die. It's like 4 billion ants.

Because you don't like people very much in general, or?

Because I have no connection to them (and I never will).

It's not like or dislike, it's apathy.

It'd be like asking someone if they'd die for four billion innocuous viruses. Most people would say no.

People tend to have an empathetic connection to others, an unspoken bond. Mine isn't there (I bet it's part of my ASD).

I know where you're coming from.

It's difficult to deal with. The best way to create a connection to other people that isn't naturally there is to create an artifical Theory of Mind. Nothing else has worked for me, at least.

I don't care that I am how I am.

It seems utterly overwhelming to have some form of feeling for everyone.

It is. But I can't help it, and I wouldn't change it. People are just so complex, so precious, like works of art. I may not automatically copy people's emotions or connect with them on an instinctive level, but that doesn't mean I don't care. Destroying something as wonderful as a human being seems to me nearly the wrongest thing anybody could ever do.

To everyone who have such trouble with the questions posed here, stop looking for “flawed logic”. These are just thought experiments and interesting ones at that IMO. There will never be a situation where it could happen, and one person on the tracks can never stop a train. The realism isn’t the point at all, it’s just a “what do you think you’d do if” question. But I still treat it as if it could happen to make it interesting. Don’t be such killjoys! C’mon, play nicely with the other children

But there is a difference. People who take jobs that are dangerous usually take them because they are risk takers or very interested in the line of work. Personally I would never take a job I thought was high risk. People who commit suicide don’t wish to live.
Those who smoke or don’t exercise enough (I’m certainly guilty of the latter) know in theory that they’re more at risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Yet no-one truly believes that it’ll happen to them. Someone else perhaps, but not them. And even if it does it’s so far into the future, they might not even live long enough to see it anyway. Most people have problems with long-term effects of anything, they can’t grasp long-term thinking. But in a situation like qawer describes, things happen quickly and I think that is far more likely to trigger people’s panic and survival instinct than something that might happen decades from now.


I think you mean 7 billion ants, considering there are currently 7 billion people on this planet.


You’re right about the first part, that it wouldn’t be moral reasoning in a real situation, it would be down to ”them or me”. And that’s exactly how I have treated the question, as if it was real.
If I had to watch them die or if I had spoken to them, even known them well, I would still pick ME. My life matters more to me. my life is all I have. It’s the sane for them of course, but that’s not my problem when my life is on the line. I choose me. I can’t live without me. Had I been asked this question 3 years ago, I would have chosen them to live, because I was suicidal and I wanted to die at the time. Now I don’t and if push came to shove, I’d do what it took to survive myself.
I do not care at all about people I don’t care about. There have even been plenty of people in my past who I liked just fine but had no or very limited emotional connection to.


The only charity I have supported is Sea Turtle Restoration Project. I support them when I can because I love turtles and they do great work for them. I have never donated to any human related charity and I don’t see me doing that.
Those commercials you mentioned, the ones with close-ups of children and whatnot, they are so manipulative they only make me annoyed and if I had ever thought of giving to anything like that (which I never have considered, so it’s hypothetical), then those commercials might have been the deal breaker that stopped me because anyone trying to sucker people into things just rise the bile in me (as well as all my defences and defiance).

As for pushing someone down on a track in order to save a group of people, I wouldn’t have interfered there at all.
I would fear both that a) the person might try to throw me down instead (and likely succeed because I’m not strong; and them might get the same idea, so maybe I should flee the moment the situation arises so no-one throws me at the train), and that b) I would be prosecuted for it. I’m not willing to do time in order to save anyone I don’t’ care about.
Of course, if anyone wants t add realism here, I so look forward to explaining to the psychiatrists why pushing that fatso down before the train saved people, lol Can anyone say “preventive detention”?

AS for the classic Hitler example: I wouldn’t have killed him. Our history is based on Holocaust and WW2 happening, and we have no idea what the world would look like today if it hadn’t. My grandparents’ wedding was postponed because of the war; if they hadn't IDK if my mother had been born. Or maybe events would play out so my parents didn't meet without the European part of WW". So I might even have a personal stake in the matter, and even if it could be proven somehow that it didn’t, I’d still fear that I avoided one catastrophe (Holocaust) just to influence events so a worse one would take place, like say a nuclear war.
Quite frankly, based on what I learnt in history class, I'd say something would have happened in Europe with or without Hitler, because Germany felt strongly that the conditions of the end of WW1 were unfair.

Last edited by Skilpadde on 25 May 2013, 5:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I would willingly sacrifice myself in order to save 10,000+ people.

Or just one other person.

I have my reasons.

I believe in Nieztche's theory that morals is relative. Dying for 10000 people will achieve nothing, we do not know there is an afterlife or not so self preservation is very important. I would not be there to recieve the praise or good feeling.

Knowing me?

Truthfully, probably, I'd get so overwhelmed by the choice that all of the people and me would probably all die because I'd not make a choice. Not because of anything about morals or survival, but because in real time, I would not be able to cope, and no matter how much anything else was taken into account, I'd just freeze, and neither the morals nor the survival would matter.

However, while I have a survival instinct my instinct to not hurt others and to do the right thing is stronger. But I don't think that would actually matter. I think realistically, I'd just not act, because I'd be incapable of acting.

If they are extremely similar to me, I’d have absolutely zero qualms about letting them die to save myself, and this is a big understatement. In fact, I’d happily let them all die a horribly painful death if I got any benefit out of it, no matter how small. After all, they’d do the same if given the choice, wouldn’t they?

Yeah. Executive dysfunction. Very, very sucky. I have to remind myself that I am very unlikely to be in a situation where other people's lives depend on my acting quickly, because I am afraid I would freeze too. Having to act fast to help somebody just doesn't happen that often. Usually it's something you have at least a few minutes to think about and plan.

It's much easier to help people out when you have planned it into your schedule. Like doing a shift volunteering somewhere.

Planning it out... Heh. "I can't help you today, it's not on my schedule!" But I guess that's how emergency workers manage it. They plan exactly how they're going to act, because they get training, and then they already know ahead of time so they aren't frozen in overload.

Concerning the "trolley problem":
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsGDVOCLVQ[/youtube]

I didn't flick the switch. Not because I liked the one person over the five, rather I didn't care if five or one died. I could give a smart answer like, I'd let science and its physics figure it out and decide for me (if five people are in the way, then five are in the way), but I won't.

I didn't push the person either in the second, as that's just throwing another person into the mix that I also don't care whether he or she lives at the expense of the rest that I also don't care if they live or not.

Ah, sweet, sweet apathy. Or emotional disconnect. Or whatever it is.

I wouldn't want to do anything in either scenario as both feel like personal dilemmas to me.

I wouldn't either. From that video in the first one I suppose I would flip to kill one. I suppose it's better 1 dies than 5. That or do nothing if I thought there might be consequences to flipping the switch.

In the second I don't care about any of those people and don't want to go to prison. Pushing the one guy to save others would probably get me put in prison for murder. I'd rather just be passive and let whatever happens happen and not involve myself.

If it was my cat I was saving (or maybe a person I actually care about of which there are very few), especially if I somehow knew I wouldn't go to prison, I'd shove them.