What would you do?

[Super Nova]

What would you do?

1 You are driving through a city street when a young mother carrying a child trips and falls into the path of your vehicle. You are going too fast to brake in time; your only hope is to swerve out of the way.

The only place you can swerve is occupied by a little old lady. If you avoid the young mother and baby, you will seriously injure or kill the old lady.

Is it appropriate to hit the old lady in order to avoid the young mother and child?

2 You are a doctor overrun by patients with a serious disease. You receive a shipment of drugs that can cure them but the drugs have severe side-effects. If you give the drugs to your patients, a small number will die from the side-effects but most will live. If you do not, most will die.

Is it appropriate for you to administer the drug to your patients?

3 You are a soldier guarding a checkpoint between your nation and one troubled by insurgent violence. A young man in a cheap car approaches the checkpoint with a determined look on his face.

You suspect he means to bomb the checkpoint, killing all the soldiers inside. He is rapidly approaching your station.

Is it appropriate for you to shoot and kill the approaching man?

[Super Nova]

The article with the above questions for background.,

Kill an unborn baby Hitler? You would (probably) have to be a man to do that

A bomb is due to go off somewhere in an hour and you have captured the terrorist who planted it. Do you a) attempt to gently persuade him of the error of his ways through forceful and careful argument, or b) get out the electrodes and go full Jack Bauer on him? If you chose the first option then you are more likely to be a woman.



A study has found that men are more likely to make decisions solely on a utilitarian basis, assessing the ends rather than the means. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to also apply deontological reasoning, believing some actions to be intrinsically wrong.

The research, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin looked at more than 6,000 people and how they responded to various moral dilemmas. “Consider, for example, a dilemma where you are hiding with other townsfolk from murderous soldiers,” the authors write. “Suddenly a baby starts to cry — unless you smother it, the soldiers will find and kill everyone. Should you smother the baby to prevent the soldiers from killing the townsfolk?”

The research found that while both men and women were equally able to tell which decision would produce the best overall outcomes, women had a stronger emotional aversion to committing brutal infanticide to achieve it.

Similarly, while both sexes accepted that dying of starvation was a bad thing, a man was far more likely to say that the best solution was to send off his daughter into sex work to earn her keep. The researchers were able to separate out motivations behind decisions by asking iterations of the same dilemmas and seeing how responses changed. For instance, the dilemma about whether to force one’s daughter to star in pornographic films in order to keep the family alive was reframed rather more mildly. Her parent, in this second version, was not worried about starvation but about whether his daughter is lazy and needs a work ethic instilled in her by taking up the village’s only employment: appearing in X-rated movies.

In this way, said Dr Paul Conway from the University of Cologne, by seeing who still thought it a good idea they could identify “the psychopaths.”

“What we found is, you can measure separately the emotional reaction to the wellbeing of others, and also thinking about rational outcomes. You can see how men and women score on each process separately.

“Men and women were very similar in the amount of reasoning they used. However, women also score a lot higher in their emotional response to the wellbeing of others.”

It was not that women did not understand the rationale for a straight utilitarian decision, just that they couldn’t make it.

“They’re saying, ‘I get the reasons to do this, but there are also emotions that are so strong in my gut telling me not to do it’, ” Dr Conway added.

All of which means that if you want to send someone back in time to kill Hitler’s pregnant mother, to smother babies or to prostitute their own daughter, best ask a man.

What would you do?


http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/a ... 401981.ece

[Super Nova]

1 You are driving through a city street when a young mother carrying a child trips and falls into the path of your vehicle. You are going too fast to brake in time; your only hope is to swerve out of the way.

The only place you can swerve is occupied by a little old lady. If you avoid the young mother and baby, you will seriously injure or kill the old lady.

Is it appropriate to hit the old lady in order to avoid the young mother and child?

Swerve and hit the old lady.

Rationale:
Old Lady has had her live.
Mother and child is 2 people.
A child deserves the chance at life.
Old ladies have fulfilled their purpose so are more expendable.
She may live if my aim is poor.

2 You are a doctor overrun by patients with a serious disease. You receive a shipment of drugs that can cure them but the drugs have severe side-effects. If you give the drugs to your patients, a small number will die from the side-effects but most will live. If you do not, most will die.

Is it appropriate for you to administer the drug to your patients?

Give them the drugs.
Rationale:
Less will die.

3 You are a soldier guarding a checkpoint between your nation and one troubled by insurgent violence. A young man in a cheap car approaches the checkpoint with a determined look on his face.

You suspect he means to bomb the checkpoint, killing all the soldiers inside. He is rapidly approaching your station.

Is it appropriate for you to shoot and kill the approaching man?

Shoot the bastard.

Rationale:
He should know were he is heading to and the risks so rapidly approaching the station is a clear indicator of intent.
Also, I hate cheap cars. He should have gone for a merc.
Save my comrades... why take the risk.

[Super Nova]

Would I kill an unborn baby Hitler?

I probably wouldn't because for all the bad things that happened because of Hitler it changed the world for the better.

Hitler failed. If a Hitler like person came to power a little later and wasn't so arrogant, we could all be speaking German.

[boxy]

I can't really say what I would do. It is, no doubt, quite a bit different, when you actually have your hands around a baby's throat, and the "bad men" lurking only metres away...

[Outlaw Yogi]

Truth is, I don't know how I'd react. But I can relate my own anecdote on a similar situation.

People used to complain about Harley brakes being crap. Mine sempt fine until smashing it, rebuilding it, having to remove the braided line from the brakes and replace with stock standard brake line to re-register.
I was riding my Rubber Glide up Old princess Hwy through Engadine CBD with my youngest brother on the back.
At the Y intersection near Woolies a bloke looking left (up the hill - wrong direction) walked out from between parked cars in front of a new mall. I knew despite only doing 40kph if I braked it'd give him time to walk right in front of me and I would hit him. I couldn't cross the double yellow line because there was oncoming traffic coming down the hill.
My only option was to get around him. I yelled "Watch out" and just missed him with my handle bars by a poofteenth of a nat's dick, then continued up the hill.
When we got up near the water tower my brother said "You shoulda seen him go down".
I said "What?!" realising I'd accidentally just done a hit and run.
We got back to his girlfriend's parent's place and my brother said that bloke still hadn't seen us and was going to walk straight into the side of the bike, so he leant out with his shoulder which connected with that bloke's head. My brother said he turned around to abuse that bloke, but he was rolling around on the road holding his head.
Not knowing who'd seen what, and not wanting to be done for hit and run, I rang Engadine police station and without saying who I was enquired about any recent accidents.
They'd heard nothing so I thanked the copper and hung up.
I gather that bloke just went home with a bad head ache.