Your Moral Dillema

How do you know he/she isn't a person with an intellectual disability, wandered off, and didn't know any better? Or, that he/she went out on the ice to try to save his/her dog or--GASP--another human?

 

Its hard to say, but my first reaction was that I would probably save the dog especially if it was my wifes favorite dog that she rescued and nursed back to life, if it was one of the other 2 she would get over it.

It may sound really jacked up but I would rather see someone else grieve a loss than to see my wife have to go through it.

 

I'm having an incredibly hard time believing that some of you are standing at the edge of this lake or whatever it may be, see the dog and the person dying and you sprint to the dog and get him out. And this argument of they should know better is a bad one in my opinion becauuse we don't know thee circumstances. If he were standing on the frozen lake with a sledgehammer hitting it, then sure I would let natural selection take over, but if he is just walking then no way could I get the dog first.

 

Okay - my bad. I am not reading through this entire thread to see if this viewpoint has been tabled. I'm on Sub time and it's all mine so ...

... here's my quip on this and I"m playing by the rules for this scenario.

I love my dogs and I am responsible for their well being. That being said — they can be dumber than a bag of hammers. I accept this and I accept that I must do my due diligence to look out for the stupid buggers.

On the other hand we have a full grown adult out on the ice ... ice that has clearly been depicted as unsafe. First question: Why the fuck is this person out there? Shouldn't they know better? I mean here I am in a position to save them because I'm not falling through the ice. Probably because I've evaluated the situation and determined that I'd be a bloody moron to venture out there in the first place without a really good reason.

Now like you say, I'm not supposed to know this person — But nonetheless, I have to question the factors that brought them to this fictitious moment of their own demise.

My dog on the other hand? Probably ran out there after a rabbit — 'cause that's what dogs do.

The only caveat I can see is if this adult "stranger" ventured out on the ice in an effort to save my dog, then I might have a moral dilemma. Otherwise ... IMHO there's too many callous adult strangers who expect others to save them and not nearly enough thin ice to look after them appropriately.

Flame away — I don't care. I'm busy getting drunk and sunburned w/ my stolen Friday off — 'cause I'm efficient like that.

Oh, and just for good measure. All bets are off if it was some random child. Then I'd have to save the kid and beat the parents for letting him out there. Unless of course is was a black kid - then it's the dog.

— that is all.

 

Sorry to pile on another "seriously?" post, but... seriously? Believe me, I respect the love someone can have for their dog, but are you really comparing the grief your wife would feel after losing her dog to the grief a 10 year old girl would feel after losing her father? Maybe the random adult doesn't have a daughter, but odds are he/she has a husband/wife, parents, siblings, etc.

Most of us have probably had an immediate family member or very close friend die at some point in our lives... imagine the grief that followed that, then imagine that they died in the situation we're talking about, and that someone chose to save their dog instead. That is 0% justifiable.

And maybe it was stupid for the person to go out on the ice, maybe not. Accidents happen; sometimes ice appears to be safe and isn't. I don't think neglecting to get out your drill and ruler to check the exact thickness of the ice means you deserve to die because you're such an idiot.

 

Shit happens, and I'm not going to blame a human for making a mistake when choosing where to step on the ice. Being from an area that never snows, I have zero experience with walking on an icy lake, so I'd probably be the first one to fall through.

Save the human. You don't know anything about the human, but the odds are that they're a decent or not-evil person, and those are worth more than a dog, no matter how precious and playful and adorable. You will never miss that dog like the people in that human popsicle's life would miss them.

 

Yes that is exactly what I am comparing, but this is coming from someone who has an attachment disorder so I really don't see or value family the way most people do and because I mostly worry about things that directly effect my quality of life I would rather see a 10 year old girl grieve the loss of her father than see my wife grieve the loss of her dog that I had a chance to save.

That is my gut reaction to the question posed it is of course hypothetical so don't get to worked up about it.

 

Look, I'd have a responsibility to save my cat. I have already dumped way too much money into keeping him alive. You expect me to walk away from that kind of investment? He's like an old car now. You change the oil, you replace the transmission. You want to squeeze every mile out of it until it shits itself to death in your driveway one morning. Then, yanno, bury it in a plastic bag out back where the next home owner finds him when he's digging a new pool. That's the American way.

 

It would depend on the situation, generally speaking you would think a person would know where they should and should not walk out on a frozen lake / river ( being from Texas I don't even know what ice is but my ass sure as hell isn't walking on it ). Given that, 9 times out of 10 my dog. That person made a choice and shit happens, that is not on me. If it was a child then I would really be missing my dog, but a random adult more than likely not. In regards to their family? Maybe that person should have considered that before putting themselves in that situation.

 

I chose the pet but hear me out. If there was a cliffhanger moment where I had a person in one hand and my dog in th other, believe that I will let my dog go. I couldn't live with myself after looking someone in the eye and then letting them die.

But given the choice between someone I have never met or seen in person, like if all I had to do was push a button, I wouldn't even hesitate. I am walking home with my dog at my side.

 

Man, people are really really reaching to try and invent a reason to justify letting the person die. I mean, it's one thing to own your decision to save the pet over the stranger, but it's pretty telling how many people have the need to blame the adult on the ice. Is that really the determining factor? Fine, your pet and a random adult are about to die. You can save one of them. It's neither of their fault. The details are irrelevant. Which do you save?

If you're going to save your pet it seems somehow worse to me that you (generic) are also blaming the dead guy in the process.

 

Let's look at it realistically.

If I think it will be covered by the news, the person.
If I think there's a chance of a reward, the person.
If I think the person has a probability of being a shit bag (read:stereotype), then the pet.
If it's an old dog, the person.
If it's a kid, the person.
If the dog saved my ass at some point, the dog.
If I will feel guilty about the person, the person. Immediate reasons being struggle, personal connection, or the most feasible choice.
If it's a fat fuck 250+ pounds, the dog.
If the dog and person are in the same hole, the person.

 

Yeah I think only Pow and I are factoring the difficulty factor of being able to rescue an adult person due to their size. I may have a fighting chance with a kid, but any adult, I would probably end up going down with them. And i just am not that much of a hero. Can I just say if I had a life vest and long rope, I would toss it to the person.

 

So, why is it that people who are saying they would rescue the dog suddenly inventing the parameter that the ice was clearly marked as dangerous and nobody should have been out there in the first place?

It reveals something interesting, I think.

 

Statistics now show that 58% of this board, if given the chance, would kill this puppy:



Also, am I the only one who sees the irony of the responses in this thread, after this thread was posted the other day?

Your move, Idiots.

 

Just because someone fell through the ice doesn't necessarily mean they were being exceptionally stupid. Accidents like that are almost always preventable, but sometimes there are areas where the ice is thinner, or maybe someone forgets to re check the ice after there have been a couple warmer days, etc.

How about we say an evil madman kidnapped your dog and a random 35 year old normal looking man off the street. The madman is going to kill one of them, and you have 15 seconds to decide who lives. You can't stop him and you can't talk to the kidnapped man. DUN DUN DUUUN!

 

I'd save the human, just in case Phil Collins is watching.

 

The person. This isn't even a question, let alone a "dilemma".

In fact, I'm legitimately disturbed by all the people that voted "pet". I think you have to be a psychopath to value the life of an animal over that of a human. I'm both scared and disgusted by people who think this way.

It's been mentioned before in this topic, but none of the pro-animal people have actually answered it;

If your loved one (parent, child, husband/wife) died because a stranger decided to rescue his dog instead, how would you feel about that stranger? What would your emotions towards him/her be? Would you be fine with the decision?

 

I would hope it would be one of those things you would never know, if there is a witness to rat you out, then why aren't they helping to play hero? Seriously, if this is somehing that actually happened to me, I would think it would be a situation where I would hope nobody rubbed salt in the wound and passed that info along. If I was somehow the person who possessed this information, I certainly wouldn't feel the need to pass it along. Some things people are better off not knowing