2006-09-16 18:19:57 · 16 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
A train is barreling down a track towards a mass of people who have no escape. Their lives are in imminent danger. You could flip a switch to divert the train from the people, yet that would mean the train would collide into the one person you love the most. Would you flip the switch and save them even if it meant your loved one would most certainly die?
2006-09-16 18:31:32 · update #1
Imagining the situation right now i don't think it is possible for me to do so but can't tell you for sure because real situations are much more different from the imagined one.
2006-09-16 19:48:14 · answer #1 · answered by goodbye 6 · 10⤊ 0⤋
This is a mind-distrubing question, similar to ''would you kill an innocent child to save 10 people'' - i had to answer this question in an ethics exam and had two points of view. First of all, the death of 'one' person can save for example 10 ppl by organ transplantation, right? So actually, every healthy person's death saves 10 people, so if a person would follow this ''kill one to save ''more'' principle, it would be ok to kill anyone.
Secondly, a persons heart cannot understand a mathematical formula. ''Knowing'' that 1 isnt equal to 1000 is different than ''feeling'' that your love to 'the one' person is 100000 times bigger than any other feeling and this person is 100000 times more valuable than others. Now, which formula is correct?
However, (assuming that everyone is the most beloved of another person) death of 1000 means that 1000 ppl will lose their most beloves ones and that is 1000 times more than my lost.
As always, this decision has to be done by one's conscience. One cannot answer this question before one experiences this situation bcs it is impossible to imagine the feeling one would have there. I think that i could not do anything, i mean i wouldnt change the direction of the train. but if the question would be ''the train is headed to your most beloved one and you can change the direction which will kill 1000 people?'' in this case, i prefer to not to try to imagine such a situation and i wish that God do not make anyone make such a difficult decision.
2006-09-17 01:52:03 · answer #2 · answered by Zriah 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think knowingly or unknowingly we do offer our lives and the lives of our loved ones every day to save other people. The fact is when we walk out the door into the world we change things so hopefully we change them for the better and we may save even more then a thousand people by doing so. Even in some strange ways bad things or tragedies may end up saving some people in life due to the good in people that may be touched by them. In America we are offering our soldiers up to war according to Bush to save thousands of people right at this time, some of our public relations jobs like cops, firemen, infectious; hazardous; and emergency health care workers, life savers, and others may offer their lives at any time. So I think most of us really can't say no we wouldn't we just don't think about it in those ways.
2006-09-17 01:54:35 · answer #3 · answered by Friend 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. Because the one person who is beloved to me will be very less harmful to the world than those thousand.
2006-09-17 09:52:17 · answer #4 · answered by atulsonak001 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Highly unlikely
2006-09-17 01:24:51 · answer #5 · answered by gizzardout 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I agree with Patricia... Nothing is ours. We are just managers of God's belongings.
In any case, that is what God did: He offered the life of His Most Beloved Son to save humanity, us.
2006-09-17 01:24:50 · answer #6 · answered by tfjea 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I would save my beloved one because i couldn't live with myself losing them...but I would take my own life to save thousands....
2006-09-17 01:30:10 · answer #7 · answered by pussies 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I hope so, but I don't know. How can I. We don't know our reactions until faced with reality. My own life - yes, of course. It would be part of the journey. But my beloved, well, that would be his choice to make. It would be difficult to make it for him.
2006-09-17 02:18:05 · answer #8 · answered by salomeandcat 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
NON00000000000000
2006-09-17 01:30:50 · answer #9 · answered by Norma S 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, I would not offer "my most beloved". However, I would offer my own.
2006-09-17 01:30:43 · answer #10 · answered by Holly 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋