I hate this question!
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Group A 1 people
Group B 10 people
One of the group will die in ten seconds.
You get to choose which which group to live by pressing a button. Which one do you choose, and why?
Or do you choose not to press any button at all?
I suppose if one can save more lives one would press the button for group B but then there is a chance that the decision would be made for you but it might still end up killing more people and one had the chance to do something about it by pressing the B button. So there is more of a possibility that one might choose the B button. If one decides not to make a choice, then they still have made a choice by leaving it to chance when they might have done something in a situation in which they had a limited amount of power to decide.
Group A your lover OR your sibling OR a relative(one person)
Group B ten STRANGERsDepends here on which person it actually is. If a spouse or one's child or immediate family then far more of a possibility that one would choose button A. This might be quite horrible if one looks at it but thats the way humans are wired. They tend to think more in terms of connection and things which relate closely to them selfish instincts. I would be hard pressed to make a judgement here on the ethical or moral values regardless of which choice is taken.
In real life, I think one can relate to these analogies as maybe thinking of wars and other natural disasters for example. When close to home with the death toll towards the lesser end, one feels it a lot and when further away maybe with a higher death toll it loses it's impact even though it has the same end result of people dying. More or less.
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Your answer is similar to the answers of people i know.
It would be interesting to see other Quran-alone peoples' answer...
.... maybe you're right about "instinct" or the way human are wired to solve this kind of problem.
hmmmmm.... -
Your answer is similar to the answers of people i know.
Glad to know I'm not an oddball.
maybe you're right about "instinct" or the way human are wired to solve this kind of problem
I don't know if it can be taken as a problem to solve? It's more like an interesting situation to study what humans would do, making it devoid of judgement or of a 'right' answer by some criteria? What if those ten people are all serious multiple sex offenders/murderers and in the other room you have your child? What if you saved their lives instead of your child's? What if the 10 people you save are all in their 80's and don't have much tenacity for life as opposed to you killing your wife in her mid-twenties in the other room with whom you have a family/ or your brother who just graduated with honours and much zeal for starting his life? Possibilities, motivations etc are all grey areas and the 'right' decision becomes fuzzy. These possibilities might be what go through one's mind when trying to make a decision or trying to justify their decision. Since the people are complete strangers it becomes simple to justify it in some ways. I don't know what the 10 sec is hoping to achieve other than making sure that the person has a gut reaction (like psychology tests with the hot/cold words).
It would be a rather black and white answer that yes it's better to save more people than one but is that always the case? The mystery deepens.
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Samia and siki choose to let chance or fate to occur. Their decision have good merit,too. I assume your answer is based on this, correct me if i'm wrong.. Because human does not know or certain of the future. Perhaps the bomb won't goes off at all unless you press a button. Or the ten people in a group are not really strangers..
If there's time, i would consider the people's deeds - are they murderers, rapist, kinapper, perverts.. -- and then choose the group with less bad people, even though that group has only one person.
532 Because of this did We ordain unto the children of Israel that if anyone slays a human being-unless it be for murder or for spreading corruption on earth
But, i doubt bad people would want to confess during a life-death situation. ...I guess that could be one of the reason why people would prefer to choose to save someone they know rather than strangers. Not only because you love that person and have connection, but the fact that you know that person as not a threat (at least) to you.
A murderer (who kills intentionaly without good reason) would probably choose the group of 'bad' guys.
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I think I explained the grounds for my choice. As for murderers and "bad guys", were they convicted by a court? Perhaps they were already punished? Otherwise, it's not the duty of some individual to punish them, so I stand for my expalnation. Only God has the authority to take one's life, unless for self defense (left for the individual) or corruption on the earth (left for the authority).
This "question you hate" returned me back to the story of Abraham could God have really ordered him to "slaughter" his son? How would He order someone to commit a big sin? Is He contradicting Himself? Maybe this calls for another thread!
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Salaams all,
I think each of us does consider the following ayah in making our decisions - and then we decide.
071.026
YUSUFALI And Noah, said "O my Lord! Leave not of the Unbelievers, a single one on earth!God Bless.
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If dont know whom are in the 2 groups, i cannot make the choice.
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Salaams magi,
they say "the first looks count"
I think we don't give our guide/ the subcontious enough credit.
Salaams.