Random Morality Question

[funion987]

So, as the title says, this is pretty random, but in one of the Saw movies (I think maybe Saw VI), the main character is presented with a choice of whom of his employees to let live; both are in a death trap in which only one of them can survive.

The first employee is a young man in his twenties with no family. The second is a woman in her fifties with a husband and kids. Who should you let live?

I hope this is not too macabre for the forums.

 

[smichhertz]

Let me preface this by saying I’ve never seen any of the Saw movies.

I would probably be wary about picking someone at all, as doing so would be scandalously going along with that psycho’s plan. I’d refuse to be a part of it in any way.

Of course it’s easy for me to say that now, it’s another matter when I’m threatened with death.

 

[white_sheep]

The woman.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

Woman. Maybe the young man could escape somehow?

 

[FightingFat]

I would probably be wary about picking someone at all, as doing so would be scandalously going along with that psycho’s plan. I’d refuse to be a part of it in any way.

I think this is a good answer, however, if you have an opportunity to save either one of them, that is acting for a good. You would not be responsible for the death(s), you have not acted to murder those people someone else has, so you are not morally culpable.

 

[sw85]

If I recall the movie correctly, the character had to act to save one’s life or the other because a failure to act would ensure that both of them would die (and gruesomely). More importantly, the decision was immediate: once made, the other would die pretty quickly.

I don’t know how I’d react in situations like those. Might just allow myself to die once I realized the situation I was in, rather than put myself in a situation in which my own continued will to survive would cause others to die in terror and pain.

 

[funion987]

Well, actually, while there are a lot of those types of traps in the movie series, this one is where an onlooker, who is not directly involved in the trap, had to make the decision between the two victims of which one to save.