Scenario: how altruistic are you?

[Foxaèr]

You see a vehicle speeding toward an injured child on the road. The only way to save the child is to place your vehicle between the child and the speeding vehicle. Do you do it?

[Edwardo Piet]

I would want to and know I ought to. But my basic survival instinct would stop me.

Ironically if I were feeling suicidal it would be a lot easier to make such a sacrifice. Even if I wasn't quite depressed enough to attempt suicide but I was almost there.... some situation like that would give me a reason to kill myself because it would totally take away the problem of myself feeling guilty about how my family and friends would feel after I died. That problem would go away once I feel justified that I have killed myself for a morally good reason (to save a child). But when I'm in my normal non-suicidal and functional mood (which is basically all the time nowadays... I haven't been suicidal in over 6 years) my survival instinct would be too strong to allow myself to sacrifice myself.

So, in all brutal honestly, most of the time what I feel I ought to do morally in theory and what I actually succeed at motivating myself to do in practice are very much different.

I wonder if it were my own biological child if it would be instantly easier to sacrifice myself for biological reasons. I don't know what it's like to have a child of my own but from what I hear it's a very very powerful feeling. And it would be my own genes. So from the selfish gene's perspective saving my own biological child would be on par with saving myself. And therefore on par with the intensity power of the survival instinct. So that may be a lot easier to do.

[c172]

No. I'd be too afraid of overthinking what was happening.

[Minimalist]

I'd pray for the car to miss.

[brewer]

How do I know if the kid isn't committing justifiable euthanasia and they just picked a really shitty method.

[Minimalist]

Right you are, MH.

The old "mysterious ways" routine!

[Cyberman]

How do I know if the kid isn't committing justifiable euthanasia and they just picked a really shitty method.

If that's the case, then that kid has also a shitty disregard for others. I believe that everyone has the right to end their life if they choose, but they absolutely do not have the right to involve innocent people.

I'm sure I've spoken about the incident relayed to me by a former friend who works as a railway signalman. A driver friend of his was doing his job as usual, when he caught sight of a figure standing on the track in front of his speeding train. It was far too late for the brakes to do any good; the only thing he could do was to sound the horn, try and warn the guy off. But he simply stood there, head bowed. Then at the very last instant, the guy looked up, right into the driver's eyes, and smiled. That driver has never worked since.

[Mermaid]

That is really easy for me. I would not hesitate.

[Edwardo Piet]

Well you're an objectively better person than me then.

[Mermaid]

Meh. I have insurance.