Just my thoughts here: I wouldn't say morally bankrupt so much as maybe they feel more empathy towards animals that cannot change their circumstances while feeling that humans have a chance to do so.
Kool and the Gang. Proud of you for loving your dogs so much. But if I'm that random stranger, do you recklessly disregard my saftey? Because damn. There is only one dog I have ever truly loved. It belonged to a friend of mine and has since died. It was called Hobbes. It had the personality of a human and more smarts than most of them. But on the real, I don't care if faced with saving that dog who I loved more than most people and a stranger who is sentient, has hopes, dreams, ambitions, a family, parents, perhaps children, a lover or is just some basement dwelling troll who writes shitty Youtube comments to start flame wars, they in my mind are a part of as Joe Rogan calls them 'Team People'. I for sure have their back before Hobbes
Please. Have you tried parking anywhere important on the weekends? It's a drag. We gotta thin the heard by any means. I'll save my best friend over some random dude. Besides, what if they [do meth/beat their kids/skimp on taxes/listen to Coldplay]? I can't take that chance! In all seriousness, though, should I actually get faced with such a perilous decision, I'd most likely save the person. I'm not that cold-hearted. However, if we're talking about hypothetical people that don't exist, I'd pass 'em up in favor of my dog. Bite me. Dcc, you're killing my Friday. This is a depressing thing to think about.
No kidding, eh? I didn't see the discussion going this way at all. It's been a friendly debate with lots of joking in our office for the last three days. That's how I envisioned it playing out here. We've had enough heavy threads for the last little while.
That's my line of thinking right there. If there's one thing I hate it's seeing those damn Christian Children's Fund commercials when I'm trying to watch Adult Swim. I'm sorry little Shabooboo doesn't have any clean drinking water, but maybe his parents shouldn't have had a damn kid if they're broke and living in a shithole country. Last time I checked, pulling out is free. I will never give to any children's' charity because I already have a kid of my own to take care of. In the case of this discussion, the human should have better sense than to be walking around on ice. Here's a question for all of you pro-human voters: What if after pulling the person from the ice and leaving your beloved pet to drown, you found out that the person you saved was morally reprehensible to you? That they were a convicted child molester, or an abortion doctor, or any number of things? Hell, what if you found out you just saved me or Ballsack? EDIT: Just so there's no misunderstanding, I voted to save Dixie, my pitbull.
I only know a bit about Canadian law insofar as it applies to the multitude of ways in which I can get sued. Also, a bit of contract law. However. If you are going to say that you owe no duty of care to someone whose life you have the chance to save and then back up that claim by going into case law and saying "yeah, well, there would be no legal ramifications if I didn't save him, so I'm good to go here", you are a fucking psychopath. I don't know. Maybe because I have one of those jobs with a fiduciary responsibility to other people (and yes, I have saved lives in that capacity). Maybe because I'm a thinking, feeling human being. Maybe because I'm itching in a line to go off on overseas humanitarian missions somewhere. But Jesus Christ, if I saved the life of an animal over that of a human being, I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror afterwards, nevermind looking in the eyes of that person's loved ones.
Here, let me construct this a little differently. Would you save a random stranger or a random dog? Most of you will probably answer "the stranger"; if you picked the dog, please post your reasoning and seek a therapist. Now, back to the original question: save a random stranger or your dog? Remember, the only thing that has changed is its value to you. The value/worth of its life is exactly the same as the worth of a random dog's life. The only thing that's changed is that, in contrast to a random dog, this one licks your face and snuggles up with you at night, and makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. So if you picked the dog, guess what? You're a selfish cunt. It would be more entertaining if you were being facetious. Explain to me how this changes the moral calculation.
I am one of the few that said save your dog. This sums it up exactly for me. I person should have better sense then to walk out onto ice, my dog on the other hand doesn't(maybe due to my neglect). My dog is like a part of my family, so it isn't saving a dog, it is saving a family member. Plus if a person is dumb enough to walk out on the ice i consider it culling the heard.
I absolutely would save the person, not the dog, and I am really amazed that 1/3 of the people on this board would save the dog. I thought the moral dilemma was like when your wife and your daughter break through and you can only save one. Am I on Candid Camera, or something?
How did you get the idea of this starting a friendly debate? "Oh man yeah we'll let a dog/person die *snicker*".
And what would your answer be mister Matic? Just to let you know, one of them is behind that door listening.
In Soviet Canada human life is worth less than a loaf of bread, so the premise of choosing the person over the dog (two loaves of bread AND tomato seeds) probably seems silly to them.
I have a cool idea for our next discussion- Out of the people voting to save the dog, how many of them are aroused by beastiality?
Well, since I work in healthcare, I obviously have some sort of sense of wanting to help other people. Of course, I would probably save the person (assuming they weighed as much as my 25 lb dog and I didn't have to try in vain to haul a 200 lb male from icy waters), have to perform CPR, break a rib while performing CPR, and get my ass sued for breaking a rib while performing CPR, and not even have my dog around to comfort me in my time of misery.
Let's be honest, Frank - you'd let the dog die so you could add it to your paleo-approved list of meats. I jokes, I jokes. But seriously, why are we even still discussing this?
Did you ever think about how much more meat would be on an average human than an average dog? I have... a lot.
Well, if we're speaking in hypotheticals, and I had a wife and daughter and this event happened . . . I'd like to think that I would save the wife, because the daughter would be more likely to be revived after the hypothermia slowed everything down. (God, didn't you even SEE The Abyss?!) Most likely, though, I wouldn't be that clever or calm in the moment, and would desperately try to save them both unsuccessully, drowning all three of us. (while there's a dog on shore laughing at me) I have to say, after thinking about the original question, I am not sure why the qualifiers were put in there. Maybe all dog-lovers will hate me, but I would certainly save a random human over your dog, and I would save a random human over my own dog. I think it's because I value human life more, but if I'm honest, I think the guilt would drive part of that. I would not be able to sleep at night if I save a dog and let a person drown-freeze.
Actually, one of the girls here used that as an argument against the guy who had picked the stranger. She asked him if he could only save one: his wife or his daughter, who would he pick? It played out perfectly for her, because her bottom line was that you should first choose those who are unable to save themselves. Her thought was that anyone who naturally thinks that way would immediately choose to save the child. Oddly enough, everyone who had picked the dog option in the first question instantly chose the child option in the second. Except that same guy. He said it would be far more difficult and not nearly so black and white. Everyone else picked saving their child without any debate. The discussion came up because this same guy (again) recently turned his cat into the SPCA since his girlfriend is allergic. This is not the first animal he's given away. I made the comment that, if the tables were turned, my S.O. would just have to get an allergy shot or something because that was a dealbreaker. From there we somehow made it to the "who's more important, your pet or a stranger?" discussion.
Just as a side note, the word "fiduciary" isn't really the word people are looking for here. But yes, you don't generally owe a duty to rescue a random person in peril. That's the general common law in the US, as far as I know in the UK, and so I would imagine probably the same in Canada since we're pretty close common law cousins. Anyway, substituting my cat for a dog, I'd probably save the human but it's not sociopathic to feel torn by the decision. It's not morally reprehensible for this to be a really hard thing to try and conceptualize and daydream about. That said, ultimately, I believe you should save the person. I can't say what I would do for certain since it's really not something you know until you're there, but I think I would save the person. And forever hate myself because my cat is part of my family and it would tear me to shreds. Also she just looked at me so I feel extra judged right now. And I'm one of those people who takes meds in order to have a cat because otherwise I'm allergic.