Moral Dilemma #128

[Infected Mushroom]

Somehow (especially if this is set in America)... I really think the hospital is going to get sued no matter what it does.

You might as well assign the supplies and evacuate based on a mechanism of chance (assign a random number to each and every patient and then use a random number generator to generate an ordered list). Those near the top of the list are given priority for supplies and evacuation, the others are abandoned. Morally, that's about the best you can do.

You're going to end up in court no matter what you do if they have that sort of thing.

So you aren't going to choose based on who is most likely to survive, or on the age of the person, or on any other thing? You would just choose randomly somehow (how would you get the random number generator considering no electricity?)

Everybody as you say is ''critically ill.'' Sure they may be varying degrees of critical illness but with limited supplies and limited ability to evacuate, no one's life is more important than someone else's just because their condition is less serious (more likely to be saved) or based on any other arbitrary criteria.

Anything other than Chance seems arbitrary and discriminatory. If I were skilled in math I could perhaps work out probabilistically some kind of expected optimum method of saving the most lives given the exact sets of ailments I have but I don't have the training to solve that math problem and I doubt anyone else at the hospital has. That kind of a mathematical solution I expect, would require collaboration between doctors and very mathematicians and we don't have the time for that.

From the perspective of an average hospital manager, Chance is the most impartial here. Since Chance picked, you also get to say God picked it, hence you are absolve from personal liability (though like I said, you're going to get sued ANYWAYS and this hospital is likely that last you'll run no matter what you do).

No random number generator? Then simply tear up slips of paper and write names down... put them into a drawer. It's lottery time.

If you resort to chance, its likely to balance out. If the patients you likely couldn't have saved anyways come up near the top of the list, they should die off relatively quickly, thus opening up more room for those below.

Its like a really insane university campus residence wait list except its life and death...

[Shaggai]

So you aren't going to choose based on who is most likely to survive, or on the age of the person, or on any other thing? You would just choose randomly somehow (how would you get the random number generator considering no electricity?)

Everybody as you say is ''critically ill.'' Sure they may be varying degrees of critical illness but with limited supplies and limited ability to evacuate, no one's life is more important than someone else's just because their condition is less serious (more likely to be saved) or based on any other arbitrary criteria.

Anything other than Chance seems arbitrary and discriminatory. If I were skilled in math I could perhaps work out probabilistically some kind of expected optimum method of saving the most lives given the exact sets of ailments I have but I don't have kind of a brain and I doubt anyone else at the hospital has. That kind of a mathematical solution I expect, would require collaboration between doctors and very mathematicians and we don't have the time for that.

From the perspective of an average hospital manager, Chance is the most impartial here. Since Chance picked, you also get to say God picked it, hence you are absolve from personal liability (though like I said, you're going to get sued ANYWAYS and this hospital is likely that last you'll run no matter what you do).

No random number generator? Then simply tear up slips of paper and write names down... put them into a drawer. It's lottery time.

If you resort to chance, its likely to balance out. If the patients you likely couldn't have saved anyways come up near the top of the list, they should die off relatively quickly, thus opening up more room for those below.

Its like a really insane university campus residence wait list except its life and death...

If someone is more likely to be saved, their outcome is more likely to be affected. Therefore, it should be weighted towards them.

[The United Regions]

So you aren't going to choose based on who is most likely to survive, or on the age of the person, or on any other thing? You would just choose randomly somehow (how would you get the random number generator considering no electricity?)

old hat and paper trick never works, I would defiantly stay with the patients, trying to send out people for help. I would provide those in critical condition [but a chance to live with the best care] I would comfort and treat the children. I would try to evacuate the remaining patients as well, fighting if necessary

Oh and I would Euthanize [at their request only of course] those who will not survive and are in serious pain or face major suffering

[Infected Mushroom]

Everybody as you say is ''critically ill.'' Sure they may be varying degrees of critical illness but with limited supplies and limited ability to evacuate, no one's life is more important than someone else's just because their condition is less serious (more likely to be saved) or based on any other arbitrary criteria.

Anything other than Chance seems arbitrary and discriminatory. If I were skilled in math I could perhaps work out probabilistically some kind of expected optimum method of saving the most lives given the exact sets of ailments I have but I don't have kind of a brain and I doubt anyone else at the hospital has. That kind of a mathematical solution I expect, would require collaboration between doctors and very mathematicians and we don't have the time for that.

From the perspective of an average hospital manager, Chance is the most impartial here. Since Chance picked, you also get to say God picked it, hence you are absolve from personal liability (though like I said, you're going to get sued ANYWAYS and this hospital is likely that last you'll run no matter what you do).

No random number generator? Then simply tear up slips of paper and write names down... put them into a drawer. It's lottery time.

If you resort to chance, its likely to balance out. If the patients you likely couldn't have saved anyways come up near the top of the list, they should die off relatively quickly, thus opening up more room for those below.

Its like a really insane university campus residence wait list except its life and death...

If someone is more likely to be saved, their outcome is more likely to be affected. Therefore, it should be weighted towards them.

It isn't so simple though.

People in critical condition aren't just ''saved'' and that's the end of it. Supplies have to be constantly expanded even to keep someone ''saved'' continuously alive. I expect it's the same for those who have less of a chance of surviving.

It's not like you put in a few quarters into a machine and then the game is good to go. You have to keep throwing in the quarters even to keep those who are ''likely to be saved'' from sinking. And you only have so many quarters.

Its entirely possible that you blew your limited quarters to save just 4 people who were ''most likely to be saved'' when had you used a method completely by chance, it turned out that many of the less likely to be saved people ended up getting saved through the expenditure of less resources.

[Central Slavia]

The loved one. Five strangers aren't worth a friend or family member.

This.

[Benuty]

The loved one. Five strangers aren't worth a friend or family member.

Their families could say the same of you after you were done visiting their funerals.

[Shaggai]

The loved one. Five strangers aren't worth a friend or family member.

Their families could say the same of you after you were done visiting their funerals.

Precisely. Sure, if you don't save your family member, you'll grieve, and so will all those who knew your friend or family member, and that's terrible. On the other hand, if you do, you're making five families and friend groups suffer exactly the same thing.

[Prezelly]

Their families could say the same of you after you were done visiting their funerals.

Precisely. Sure, if you don't save your family member, you'll grieve, and so will all those who knew your friend or family member, and that's terrible. On the other hand, if you do, you're making five families and friend groups suffer exactly the same thing.

Or it is a whole family tied on the track with no attachments to anyone outside themselves. In which case no one really suffers

[Upper America]

Step 1: Take out a knife
Step 2: Cut the ropes
Step 3: Get in the paper for saving 6 lives!

You didn't say anything about cutting the rope.

[Neutraligon]

old hat and paper trick never works, I would defiantly stay with the patients, trying to send out people for help. I would provide those in critical condition [but a chance to live with the best care] I would comfort and treat the children. I would try to evacuate the remaining patients as well, fighting if necessary

Oh and I would Euthanize [at their request only of course] those who will not survive and are in serious pain or face major suffering

You have been ordered to evacuate, meaning you are not allowed to stay behind.

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I'd save the person I'm close with. No contest.

[Shaggai]

Precisely. Sure, if you don't save your family member, you'll grieve, and so will all those who knew your friend or family member, and that's terrible. On the other hand, if you do, you're making five families and friend groups suffer exactly the same thing.

Or it is a whole family tied on the track with no attachments to anyone outside themselves. In which case no one really suffers

Except the people who die. Also, most people have more than five family members/friends, and the problem didn't state that it was a single family so that's not a reasonable assumption.

[Prezelly]

Or it is a whole family tied on the track with no attachments to anyone outside themselves. In which case no one really suffers

Except the people who die. Also, most people have more than five family members/friends, and the problem didn't state that it was a single family so that's not a reasonable assumption.

Its just as reasonable to assume they are from five different families, it only said that they were strangers and didn't specify who they were.
This seems to be basically a test of how much of a risk you are willing to take, only using lives as the currency risked

[Pandeeria]

The morally correct thing to do is to kill the loved one. I would hope that that is what I would do but I'm not sure if it came to it that I would be strong enough.

No, the morally correct thing is to kill the five people, because who gives a fuck who they are? Peasants are never worth saving.

You fucking win this thread.

[Greed and Death]

morals are bad.
Problem solved.

[Pandeeria]

Easily would save my loved one.

[WestRedMaple]

Oh and I would Euthanize [at their request only of course] those who will not survive and are in serious pain or face major suffering

You have been ordered to evacuate, meaning you are not allowed to stay behind.

Which is not the same thing as not having the ability to stay

[Neutraligon]

You have been ordered to evacuate, meaning you are not allowed to stay behind.

Which is not the same thing as not having the ability to stay

So you would leave the patients who are being moved, thus reducing those able to keep the alive. And the police can force you to evacuate.

[Exxosia]

I would save the loved one all the way up through several billion people I don't know.

[Oppressia FTDOF]

Kill the loved one and listen as the rails grind their bones to a pulp. Ain't anybody ever seen Star Trek?

[Pope Joan]

This is a bogus question, designed to support the proposition (false Anselmian hypothesis) of substitutionary atonement of Christ.

If God decided beforehand (since he must, since God knows all) that it was expedient to kill his Son in order to satisfy some prior edict which he himself had enacted, then God is the greatest child abuser in history.

[Infected Mushroom]

how's this even a dilemma?

almost everyone would have saved the loved ones...

not quite as controversial as the OP thought it might be I guess... go figure.

[The New World Oceania]

This is a bogus question, designed to support the proposition (false Anselmian hypothesis) of substitutionary atonement of Christ.

If God decided beforehand (since he must, since God knows all) that it was expedient to kill his Son in order to satisfy some prior edict which he himself had enacted, then God is the greatest child abuser in history.

Here's a moral dilemma.
A philosophical theologian and a critical theorist are in a room. You have one bullet. For the good of yourself and humanity, which do you shoot?

[Settrah]

Who gives a fuck about 5-20 people in the grand scheme?

People die every day. Millions. Literally millions. I do not find myself experiencing sadness over these people, because they have never met me, and I have never met them. They are just a face. They mean zero to me.

5 people on top of that, is not going to make a bit of difference.

In this context, I decide the direction of the train, and I chose to save the person I am close to, and sacrifice the 5 or 20 something others, because the person I value has more personal value to me than the nameless faces. I'm not even going to try and cushion this with a fancy -ism, it is what it is.

What if one of my other loved ones, was also in the path with the strangers? Well, it's simple, I didn't know for sure at the time, you shouldn't blame yourself for something you were not previously informed about. That isn't your guilt to bear, it's the guilt of the person who failed to tell you in the first place.

[Senyosu]

This is a bogus question, designed to support the proposition (false Anselmian hypothesis) of substitutionary atonement of Christ.

If God decided beforehand (since he must, since God knows all) that it was expedient to kill his Son in order to satisfy some prior edict which he himself had enacted, then God is the greatest child abuser in history.

Here's a moral dilemma.
A philosophical theologian and a critical theorist are in a room. You have one bullet. For the good of yourself and humanity, which do you shoot?

Both. Tie them close together side by side or back to back, then fire the gun at point blank range and hope it passes both heads cleanly.

Everybody wins.

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In regards to the question in the OP, the loved one.