A Father's Agonizing Choice

[Jazzy]

Scenario:



You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don't he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don't have any doubt that he means what he says.



Question source



What would you do?

 

[The Dragon Master]

That's hard. One the one hand you don't want to do it, since your child's last thought of you is of you killing them and it would haunt you forever. However, I wouldn't really want another innocent person to die. I think I couldn't be able to do it, I don't think I could live with myself if I hung my own child.

 

[DrLeftover]

I don't think any reasonable person can honestly say what they will do until faced with that decision.

 

[Jazzy]

I don't think any reasonable person can honestly say what they will do until faced with that decision.

Let's just pretend you're faced with it right now. What would you do?

 

[Bluezone777]

The way I look at it is you are guessing he means what he says. One cannot read the minds of another. He could merely be testing your loyalty by way of seeing if you would betray a love one to protect another. If the son is to die anyway by way of this guard or by you then it would be foolish to commit an act of murder based on the thought that if you don't do as the guard says that it might result in another person's death. You are also assuming that this guard won't end up killing this other person at a later date regardless of your choice.

 

[Locke]

Another person's evil does not soil my own soul.



If a man would put that kind of decision before me, there's nothing whatsoever stopping him from putting that other person in the noose next.



These questions are fundamentally flawed, in that they assume the one providing the ultimatum can be trusted. Anybody who is willing to take a human life without provocation is not somebody I would trust.

 

[Locke]

l don't know. If there was a way to get killed myself so l wouldn't have to decide l'd go that route.

Faced with that choice l'd make a break for it myself and hope to get shot and killed or throw myself onto the electric fence.......l think.

Tough one and l hope none of us will ever have to make that choice although many have already had to deal with that or something very close to it.

Hello Dee_Jay.

 

[El Churro]

There would be nothing plausible I could do. If I would, hypothetically, pull the chair from under my son I would have to live with that for the rest of my life, and I would be doing it for this sadistic bastard's enjoyment. I do not believe his threat of killing another innocent inmate, as he probably would do that anyway, just to give him some more entertainment. I would refuse to do it.