Poll: Your Pet is Drowning, and so is a Stranger.

[k3v1n]

My pet, sorry "total stranger" but if I'm putting my life at risk it's going to be for someone/something important to me, now you can proceed at calling me a monster or whatever.

 

[Do4600]

The implications of these results disturb me. Pets are anthropomorphized; owners place complex cognitive states on animals that simple do not exist. Anthropomorphization is a misplacement of a sense of empathy which evolved as a means to determine the emotional states, and as a result, the motives of conspecifics. It's dysfunctional to anthropomorphize animals because our cognitive depth is not equivalent to theirs.

A person can create empathy with a cockroach, but the entire cognitive depth of a cockroach would almost certainly be equivalent to something that a person does involuntarily or by compulsion. A dog by comparison is obviously more advanced than a cockroach but by no means is it even close to the cognitive depth of a human being.

A dog lacks the depth and specific traits of a human; in order to fully use our conspecific empathy on animals we must project the lacking human depth onto them. The traits that are projected onto a dog are obviously going to be ones that the owner finds pleasing. In essence, a pet owner actually creates a good portion of his pet's "personality". That's why your pet always seems to "understand" you when the mean, old, nasty world never seems to, because they ARE reflections of yourself. This is in nearly all situations a harmless delusion, we can explore ourselves through our pets.

To me this represents the awful ability of people in modern society to trap themselves in comforting delusions while selfishly dehumanizing everybody that is not them. It represents the core of our flaws as a society and a species and this poll is extremely depressing for this reason. It shows that a majority of our community at the escapist condones the dehumanization of a person to the point of letting them die to save an animal that facilitates a comforting illusion.

I've never given any credit to the assessment that people who play video games are less empathetic to people, but this poll gives me reason to reconsider that assessment because this community at large is all people who play video games. Or perhaps it's the fact that people who play video games are given hypothetical situations all the time and their decisions have trivial outcomes, making them unreliable in hypothetical situations.

The choice to save your pet over another human being is a choice of delusional narcissism that culminates in sociopathic betrayal.

I suggest the people who voted to save the stranger be paired with one another and the people who decided to save their pets be paired with one another. The people who decided to save their pets must imagine the sensation of being allowed to die for the other persons pet and the people who decided to save the stranger must imagine how to comfort the other person of the pair who lost their pet and we will see how everybody gets together in their pairs.

I'd like to end this post with a hypothetical situation(they seem so fun!)

Let's pretend you're on vacation somewhere swimming in a natural spring. Children are playing and laughing, people are throwing sticks and frisbees to their dogs, others are sunbathing. You hear an almighty crack and the water begins to ripple and froth. You feel as if an icicle has been shot through your spine as panic and adrenaline grips you. You feel the water lurch underneath you as the earth around you seems to jump suddenly. People are screaming and running in all directions. As you swim to the bank in the throes of hysteria you feel water rushing past you, the flow is so powerful that your legs burn under the strain and soon become useless.

For a moment all you hear is the sound of a voice above you. You can't understand what the voice is saying, your mind is shivering with panic. Wildly you look above you to see where the voice is coming from. On a huge tree branch just two and half feet above the water you see a woman reaching out towards you with her mouth open in a scream. You reach towards her and at the same time you feel something churning in the water next to you, scrapping your back. Your hand grips her upper arm but slips off suntan lotion, then your hand falls on her rigid forearm and past fur. The last thing you see in sunlight through grains of silt and gravel is a balding sun burnt man holding the legs of a woman roughly and awkwardly tugging a rather large Irish setter by it's collar and paw out of the water while it's running in midair. After that your eyes feel they've been slit by razors as the gravel whips past them and you're inexorably pulled downwards into the darkness of the sinkhole.

Jagged shelves of rocks tear and pulverize your body as you fall. Soon the instinct to breathe is impossible to resist and you gasp inwards pulling water, mud and rocks into your broken body. Immediately you feel the previously inconceivable pain of your body lurching as it fails to respirate and liquid fire seems to spread through your whole body.

Your mind is now lost to the unimaginable torment, insanity and grief particular to the sensation of being destroyed, the last sane thought that you have before death is that the woman was screaming "Molly" to her dog and not to you at all.

 

[Ultra Man30]

I'd do everything in my power to save both. My dog is my best friend and the stranger is a potential friend. Together they have potential greater than my own. I couldn't live with myself if either one died.

 

[Brandon237]

You're completely missing the point here. We're not talking about human lives compared to one another, we're talking about the life of an animal in comparison to the life of a human.

I put value on my pet's life, my point is that unless the human drowning is a monster of some sort there is -no- contest here, but so many people would save an animal before a human.

Mr. Prager was right, and it sickens me to admit it. Even one person voting to save a dog over a human is something that should merit a facepalm, but the numbers are close to even.

NO.
You have missed the point here, of your own thread even.
It is not "an" animal, it is an animal to which you have a great personal attachment to that has made a significant contribution to your life.
It is "a" person, one to whom you have no connection.

And it is not just close, people to save the pet outnumber those like you at the moment, so maybe stop calling half the people who used that poll monsters and think about what you have actually asked, not what you THINK you asked.
Random animal and random person, I save the person, but that is NOT what you asked. Which even you seem to have forgotten with how you are phrasing these responses.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I dont care about the law, or risking my own safety. I cannot allow the death of a human being if there is a possibility that I may prevent it.

Is idealism a crime?

Um, no? I said you weren't required to do so - you may choose to do so, but by making that choice you wave responsibility.

And it's nice that you don't care about your own safety. However, just because you feel that way doesn't mean that anyone else is required to feel that way. You said inaction was a crime - it is not. Your choice to not allow the death of a human being is just that - your choice.

Also...

Are you a robot? * Your determined belief in saving others while risking yourself makes it sound like you've been programed with Asimov's laws. If I'm talking to an artificial intelligence, it would be the best to know that, as AI has different rules (Asimov's Laws) than humans do.

[sub][sub][sub]* In case it isn't obvious, I intend this as good-natured humor, not an insult. It is very honorable that you feel that way. I just find it a bit amusing that you are so determined to stick to a moral law that is so similar to Asimov's law.[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[INeedAName]

I don't comment on these threads often, but I just got here to say that I'm really saddened, and ashamed, that so many people would put the life of an animal, even one who you really care about - I get that (really, I do) - before the life of an actual human being.

What if that stranger had been someone you cared about (a whife, a child, a sibling, or whatever), and someone had a chance to save them, but rejected him/her in exchange for their pet? I don't know about you, but I would be mightily pissed at that person.

I'm not religious ( at all), but I believe in the saying that 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you,' and if I picture my sister drowning in that whirlewind, I would want her to be saved instead of the animal. But if you're fine with that stranger letting your loved one die in stead of their pet, sure, go for it.

 

[bojackx]

Hmm, I hate these contrived dilemmas. And they always are "can only save one" is contrived as nothing is so absolute, especially something like drowning. You should always consider and balance who can stand waiting longer.

And if you get to the point of absolute certainties like "evil guy kidnaps your family, makes you chose which to live" is no real choice. it's like choosing to have your right or left leg amputated with a chainsaw I LIKE BOTH MY LEGS!!! Or something else trite like lose your hand or have your nose chopped off.

There is no right answer.

I'll tell you what I'd do, I'd save FIRST whichever would maximise the chances of the most people being saved. Generally I'd save the stranger first as dogs are generally naturally good swimmers, I've never heard of a dog needing a swimming lesson but generally humans who haven't been explicitly taught to swim drown as soon as they land in water deeper than their nose height.

That's not a valid answer for this question. The point is that you have to make a choice, not that there's a level of problem solving to it, and so the smartest of us can find a way of saving both. The actual part about the way they are going to die isn't really important for the question. He could have said there's two trains; one heading for the stranger and the other heading for your pet, and both of them are unable to move out of the way without your help, but there's only enough time to save one. The idea that you have to choice to save one is still there, but I guess in this one there's fewer ways to poke holes.

It really annoys me when people take apart hypothetical questions and poke holes in them because they can't just make a choice.

 

[Sneezeburger]

[SNIP] My pet should know better than to go swimming in a whirlpool with a complete stranger.

Haha.

Honestly? I'd save my cat. Its selfish and probably wrong but fuck i love my cat. Its probably ethicaly and moraly wrong but..
well.

Spoiler

EDIT:
Also this.

And people choosing their pets don't need to "grow up" and it's not sickening like you say. Some people get such a close attachment to animals, that they would do anything for them.

I would also save your cat.
But it has to have fallen in with the Tardis. Bobbing and floating like a little boat. Looking just slightly offput.
The stranger would be hard pressed to be cuter.

I could fight crime..everytime someone was about to blow my brains out i'd just pull my cat out my pocket (we'd work that out later) and they'd be all AWWWW.
Foolproof.
Off to fight crime kcya.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

And these, by contrast, are the basics your ethics - "I choose what I like more". I don't think you grasp the concept of ethics, they're here to help us make decisions that often *contradict* what we think is better for us personally. You really don't need ethics to just do whatever the hell you want.

Let me ask you this. If it were a family member you loved drowning, and someone who would do a great deal of good for the world is too (shall we say, someone who is donating, and - if they survive - will continue to donate, vast amounts of money to charity). Who would you save?

Yes, I guess it is selfish of me to say that I'd save my pet. But it's also something I don't think I could reasonably be blamed for, and if the roles were reversed, I like to think that I'd understand if someone left me to drown to save their pet. (Obviously I can't say if I would, since I've never been in the situation)
That doesn't make people who'd save their pets the monsters so many people in this thread are making us out to be.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

Snip

I'm not going to continue to argue with you any further. It is clear to me that neither of us are going to convince the other, and to be honest, I find your views disturbing. I guess though, that you probably think the same about me

 

[Ieyke]

How could anyone justify killing 20 billion to save 6 million? Only if you refuse to see the bigger picture and choose to be close minded to the rest of the universe could you make such a cruel selfish decision.

Nah. I see the bigger picture. I just don't care.
I'm not cruel or selfish, just pragmatic and coldly logical.

You folks can waste your time acting like White Knights for all I care. I've been there, done that, and now I know better. I'm a Knight In Sour Armor with jade-colored glasses.

Proud of that are you?
In case you didn't realize, not caring is exactly what I'm chastising here. Every choice, even the choice to do nothing or ignore a problem, is a conscious decision that your brain has to make. If you just sit and watch a house burn instead of doing something you are choosing to let it burn. You can't hide behind jadedness.
So when you choose to act "pragmatic and coldly logical" you are doing it for a reason, in your case I'd guess just plain laziness.

Proud? I guess I may as well be.
Chastisement? As if you think you're significant enough to chastise me. Ha.
Why would anyone "hide" behind jadedness? I'm not trying to hide that these things are technically irrelevant to me.
Laziness? No. That's just practicality. Calling it laziness doesn't even make sense. As I said, I'd save the drowning woman/alien civilization if I could, as long as nothing I actually care about is going to suffer as a result.

The funny thing is that, for all you self-righteousness, my way is the more genuinely heroic. I don't save someone because I feel "I have to" and because "others will judge me if I don't". No, I do it because I'm simply inclined towards helping, and no one can shame me into saving an unknown over something I KNOW is worth saving.

You have been judged, Ieyke. There is no arguing against such moral self-righteousness. These people seriously sound like fundamentalist christians ffs.

I have been judged and find it highly comical. Their naive sense of moral superiority is cute.

 

[Slayer_2]

I'm not going to continue to argue with you any further. It is clear to me that neither of us are going to convince the other, and to be honest, I find your views disturbing. I guess though, that you probably think the same about me

You're the disturbed one? I hope I never end up a whirlpool with your dog is all I can say.

This thread saddens me greatly, and I find it ironic that so many people here always complain about the state of humanity, yet openly admit they'd let a member of their own species die to save a pet. That's far worse than reading trash magazines or being stupid in my mind.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

Bigoted? I know your views, and they are stupid.
No, you don't. You have made absolutely zero effort to understand the other side of the argument. You've come into this thread and called anyone who disagreed with you, and most of humanity "entitled selfish assholes"

Is this is a joke? I'm guessing you are a supporter of gay rights, no? And how do you feel about "homophobic" views? You think they are immoral and illogical? Well, you can fuck right off if so, because you are being hypocritical and according to this viewpoint, you are no more "right" than the Right. I suppose you missed this quote though..

This is perhaps the only reasonable argument you've presented so far, and it's not even yours.
Please learn some communication skills, insulting people isn't the way to win an argument.

 

[bauke67]

Wow, the fighting here is absolutly epic!
And now to join you all, I'd save the person.
I've lost dogs before, it was too bad that they were gone, but it honestly didn't affect me much.
I don't think I'd sleep easily if I let a person die though, so for me the choice is easy.
A pet, even my own, is still just an animal to me, and I value the life of a human being above that of any animal.

But seeing the great big duality here, and how many people disagree with does raise a lot of questions:
If so many people disagree, is it not me who is "wrong"?
Then again, the same can be said for the opposite.
How is it, that views on general values and ethics differ so much, regarding this subject?


Another thing, for people who'd save their pet: if you owned, say, a hamster instead of something bigger like a dog or a cat, would your answer still be the same? Just curious.

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

My pet is a fish, so it's kind of a win-win to choose the stranger.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Panda was saying that the reason this is not a morally subjective situation is because logically, anything that causes less overall suffering is the ethically correct thing to do.

I stand behind that firmly, and there is no hypocrisy at all. This is part of why I didn't want to open the can of worms in this thread, it's a topic that takes a lot of time to explain, and that's assuming I don't get hit with a "TL;DR". I'll try to be brief.

"Net" suffering is not the same as simply deciding in any given scenario what will be the best short-term result and choosing that outcome. There are long term ramifications one has to consider, in addition to rippling effects that the implication of saying "this is morally correct" have upon society at large.

Let's use the scenario of the dog and I'll skip the details and grant that in this specific instance of pet vs. human the pet's death would cause more short-term suffering than the death of the human. Is it still immoral to save Fido? Yes. A society in which it is socially and morally acceptable to save a dog over a person is going to have a great deal more net suffering than the society where Fido drowns, even if on the micro level the death of Fido is more acutely felt.

Why? Humans have a high capacity for suffering, and the death of a human will generally ripple through dozens, even hundreds of individuals who will all suffer in turn at comprehending the news that they have a friend or family members who drowned. Even if in one specific instance the short-term gain favors saving a dog, it's still not a good idea to set a societal standard where that is acceptable.

To give a different example I heard Sam Harris use, imagine you have four sick patients with no families in the emergency room, and by killing one you could save the other three. Is that a moral thing to do? No, even though the short term suffering arithmetic clearly favors killing one to save three, the long term consequences in living in a society where any minute someone might kill you to harvest your organs leaves a lot to be desired. Short term gain, long term failure.

 

[MANIFESTER]

Wow, quite the anger storm going around. Anyway, I shall take a few minutes to throw in my choice as well.

I chose the person. Which is oddly at a lesser percentage than the pet right now. Now, I could throw in real world factors such as a thrashing person (who I would promptly knock out before attempted to swim with them out) or that a whirlpool is mostly like to kill me during the rescue attempt, but that isn't the point of the post, it is a moral conundrum. So I chose the person because I value human life over my pets. Some people value pets as family. Fine fine. I love my cat dearly, and I would be greatly hurt by her being gone. She has been a friend and companion for...almost ten years now. But she is still an animal. I couldn't sacrifice another human life just for a few more years with my pet. And it isn't because people are more valuable (Not even sure if I would say that for sure, since in truth I don't most people, most complete strangers) But it is because I could not bring that sense of loss to this stranger's family and friends. I have lost people close to me, and I could not bring that feeling to someone else. I know I shouldn't judge the people that voted for their pet,but I would like to ask them to not bring their pets to the beach so I have a better chance of being saved.

 

[Pandabearparade]

You're still on this about how horribly monstrous people who don't agree with you are? More like an intolerant, self-righteous green knight, complete with oversized sense of importance and wooden armor of sanctimoniousness. I don't know why green, it just seems fitting.

Green armor fits just as well. Of all the parties in America it's the only one I view as left-of-center, and I'd vote for them every time if they had even a tiny, tiny chance of winning.

 

[tmande2nd]

My dog...can swim

Its a Golden Retriever that is almost an amphibian.

 

[Aesir23]

I would scream for help. I can swim well enough to keep myself alive but probably not well enough to keep some thrashing person/animal above water as well.

That said, if I could swim well enough to do so then I would save the stranger. This is primarily because, while I love my dog dearly, I simply can not justify sacrificing a person and causing immeasurable pain to their friends and family just to save myself some grief.