Poll: Save One Or Save Many

[BabySinclair]

I'll be pissed about it but the many. My fiance would leave me if I sacrificed others to keep her safe. That and in any scenario like that I would likely default to logic and that dictates I save the greatest number of lives unless that action would lead to more death in the end. The immediate is not as important as the long run.

Then the next step is kill all positive emotions left in me (there's not many as is) and pursue bloody vengeance on whomever put me in that situation with the rest of my life detached from human interactions and no romantic interest ever again.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Nobody linked Star Trek yet?

Well here it is.

 

[Hazy992]

Logically I'd be all utilitarian and save the many, but I'm human and I can't turn my emotions off so I'd mostly like save the people close to me. Sorry world :/

 

[Nietz]

It seems like a hard choice at first, but then I would just ask myself: "What would Spock do?"

 

[Mayhaps]

I know this is a thought experiment but I find it very unlikely that I'd be faced with a heat of the moment situation where I'd get to choose between saving one or the other, knowing the one I didn't choose would die.


With that said: I choose the comfort of me and my 'loved ones' above the potential cancer cure and all that every day. I don't donate 5 dollars to the cancer fond, potentially saving millions. I might buy some cookies on the way home though.

I actually am one of those world parents or whatever they're called, monthly donating to UNICEF. But they are more about human rights, abortion being one of the things they offer to do, so if anything I might have prevented the birth of the one who would cure cancer.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I know the correct and more logical answer is to save many, but I'd save one.

 

[Dimitriov]

Well I chose the "loved one option" because that is my priority. But as I would rather sacrifice myself than a bunch of (presumably) innocent people, I'd probably just end up dying while trying to save everyone.

Of course, I have definitely had days where I would have just said "Fuck 'em!"

 

[Scipio1770]

I have a loyalty to the people that I love, and that loyalty obligates me to save them. So, if I had to make the choose that is what I would do, and I don't necessarily think it's the morally wrong choice. We all have are own moral codes that we live by, and mine happens to demand such a loyalty from myself.

So you're saying you would value a loved one over thousands of people. So if I had to choose between my dog and you and your whole family, it's morally permissible to pick my dog?

 

[game-lover]

I'd probably be frozen in indecision or pick the loved one OR obviously need to be in that particular situation to know for absolute certain.

On more than one occasion, I've mentioned how selfish I am. My life and my well being matters more to me than most anyone and anything else. No effing self-sacrifice here.

Taking that... I'd probably be in the selfish thought of asking myself if I could deal with losing someone I love. Probably that answer is a no. So the many would probably lose.

However, the many are more likely to shove me into indecision if I were to learn that perhaps most of them are children. You know... little ones who when they grow up will be the ones that cure cancer or whatever in the future. That might be a larger crisis.

Worse still would be choosing through those children with potential important futures and my nephews. That'd just be simple torture.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I'd have a hard time with this one. I don't think I'm really qualified to decide who lives and who dies.

 

[SEXTON HALE]

No option to let them all die?
Disapointing.

 

[Mike Laserbeam]

It's one of those impossibly difficult questions to answer, I can't truly come down on one side or another. But, I think on a purely instinctive level, I would probably save the loved one.

I think being put in this situation my mind would probably pretty much go blank and I'd come to having saved the one I love. Logically one should probably save the many, but when faced with that impossible choice I know that I wouldn't think logically but purely emotionally. Thus, loved one saved!

 

[theSteamSupported]

This is an unnecessarily dark dilemma, which I cannot give a definite answer for as it's taken out of context.

I know this is to decide whether I prioritize the rights of the few or the sake of the many. I honestly can't answer, since there's so many questions to pose. Who are these people? Are they aware? Does the loved one know her death would save lives? How did I end up here? Is the choice made by murder or ignorance? Why is death the only option? How will my decision affect me?

The keyword here is, yet again, context. Never make generalizations.

 

[Tanakh]

yeah...but...not just literally

we cant comprehend 1000 people, they are jsut a humber. But my point is they are important because they are people, not that I can understand choosing the loved one

but if you could imagine that WE and OUR loved ones were on the other side of this equation..get what I mean? I'm not about to say 1000 other people dontmatter...because to so many people out there "I" am just one of those "other people"

What do you mean by we?

I have been in several places with 1,000 others, and it is not hard at all to imagne being in their shoes, 1000 brothers, sisters, mothers, sons. The grief you will cause by killing them, comparable to a small natural disaster bur aggraviated by beind done not by chance or God, but by a human.

Still, I would kill each and everyone of those with a knife before letting the person I love the most or I die. Of course after that i would probably be quite mental, but the other option is just one that i would never take, no matter what.

Edit: Nothign against your PoV, it's just that the phrase "we cant comprehend X" almost always rubs me the wrong way. We can comprenhend almost anything we can ennunciate if we give it a little time to think about it.

 

[Mercsenary]

OP reminds me of the ethical/philosphical train problem. Basic set up is:

There is a train coming. There is no way to stop it. You control where the track switches. On one track there are 5 people on the line. On other one.

Who do you choose to die?

The 5 or the one?

What if the 5 were convicted murderers? What if they weren't and the one was a world famous brain surgeon?

and so and so forth.

 

[C F]

I want to say it would depend on the situation, but the first question that popped into mind when thinking about it was:

"What have the many ever done for me?"

Yeah, that's probably not the best question to open with, but I guess it reveals my answer right off the bat. It's the "one is a tragedy, a million is a statistic" issue. I'm not omnipotent; I'm just a human who has a limited self-centric perspective. If I don't know the thousand at risk, I'm going to save my loved one. It's easy to de-personalize the masses.

CAPTCHA: "all singing"
Well, I suppose that would be one of the best ways for them to die. I wonder if I could organize a thousand people to perform Queen's We Will Rock You as their last act on this Earth? Oh, that would be fun.

 

[Gigano]

I'll go with the person I like.

So long as I didn't cause their situation, the others are none of my responsibility to begin with, so there's really no dilemma.

 

[Jedoro]

What few loved ones I have, have displayed some sort of loyalty to me. I reward loyalty.

 

[SirDoom]

Completely depends. If the situation was such that, with no input from me, both the loved one and the group would die, I'd save the loved one for sure. I have relatively few people I even let close to me, and I'll be damned if I let one of them die to save a hundred nameless faces.

Alternatively, if the situation was such that one group would die without any input whatsoever, then my morality obligates me to not get involved. In this situation, by not taking part, I am not causing any harm. By taking part, I sentence either the one or the many who would have otherwise lived to their deaths in order to spare someone else. Unless literally every single person I cared about on this planet was about to die, I would leave this one alone.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

I'd save the person that was close to me, because why should I care about the lives of a bunch of faceless nobodies who I've never met, nor will I ever be likely to? Their deaths would mean nothing to me, while, say, my mother's death would crush me.

So I wouldn't save the many on the risky hopes that they may be able to cure cancer or establish world peace (*coughbullshitcough*).