[Text] [Anon]

[grapeeater]

[He's been thinking over this for days. Is it his duty or not? It's not like he really needs the opinions of other people... but maybe another perspective might not hurt. Not like any of them here are normal, but some... are closer than he was.]

I've got a question. If you don't care, feel free to skip this over - there's no obligation to answer.

Say you're someone powerful, whatever that means to you. You might have money, you might have skills, or you might have whatever else that gives you an advantage over other people.

Now say there's a threat, something that risks destroying you and the people you have an advantage over. If you do nothing, you might be safe but other people would die. But if you give everything, they might be safe but you would die.

How much are you obligated to give? Be selfish and survive? Or sacrifice yourself for people who might not be thankful? And why?

Comments

[anon text]

[whitehairedprettyboy]

This is hardly a question, really. Why on earth would I sacrifice myself for anyone else?

text;

[loveisanopendoor]

Well, that's obvious. If you have power over your people, then it's up to you to make sure you're doing what's best for them. If there's something that threatens both you and your people, you have to give as much as you can to make sure they're being accommodated for. Your power, if you think about it, comes from the consent of the people, so they're your priority. I mean, if you being there and your power over them is what's making the best scenario for them, in your eyes, you should do what you can to keep yourself in that position, as well. But you have to think about what it is that the people are going to need to prosper, even if it means putting yourself at a personal risk! It's the risk that anyone in a position of power over others has, and it's not something that should be taken lightly at all.

[A princess knows these things, after all! She might not be the most elegant or sophisticated princess, of course, but no one knows the importance of selflessness better than Anna does.]

Have you ever heard of the story of Damocles?

[anon text forever]

[preybeforemeals]

That depends on how important those people are to you.

You're never obligated to die for anyone else. The complication comes in that some people are good at making you think they're worth dying for.

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[angerpoints]

What the hell kind of question is that? If you've got power, you should use it to help people who need it. I don't care what your reason for not helping them would be - whether you're a selfish bastard or you're just too much of a chickenshit to step up and accept responsibility. If you know people are gonna suffer if you don't get involved and you decide to just stand back and let them?

You screwed up. Hell. You might as well've dug their graves and thrown them in them yourself.

[THIS MESSAGE BROUGHT TO YOU BY ONE (1) YUSUKE URAMESHI, who slammed this message out with such unnecessary levels of force that he may have come dangerously close to damaging his keyboard. Clearly somebody got a nerve touched.]

[anon text forever]

[unkinder]

As most have already said, you are under no obligation to save anyone. It's not your responsibility to oversee the survival of everyone else, particularly when you may be at risk as well.

It all relies on whether or not you really care about these people enough that you would risk yourself to save them. And whether or not that is a selfish way of thinking about things is up for the individual to decide, isn't it?

[friendyousohard]

I can believe no one's pointed out how much of an oversimplification this is.

Look, most people are going to agree that the moral decision is to use your power to help. But how you go about that is important, and the degree to which you get involved can determine if you're actually a help or if you just end up making things worse. You're trying to create a vastly generic question out of something that can have hundreds of different scenarios. Depending on the threat, the "power" you have, and all sorts of other factors, getting involved directly in a way that threatens your life might not even be the best way to help! In fact, this may surprise you to hear but it usually isn't.

But I'll assume for the moment that this isn't as much of a general question as it looks like. Because frankly, if you'd never been in a situation like this you probably wouldn't even think to be asking this question. So let's assume for the moment that the scenario is one where your question makes sense. Say... there's an invading army, you have war training and those around you don't. You consider staying back to hold off the enemy while the others try to get their way to safety. You think that's the moral choice, and trying to keep yourself alive is selfish.

It's not. You have valuable knowledge and skills, and if you die they are lost. If at all possible, you want to keep yourself alive, because that could mean the difference between a few lives saved today and a lot of lives saved down the line. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't get involved at all! Using your knowledge and combat ability to help as many people as you can get away, then falling back to guide them personally, is probably the best use of your skills in that scenario. It's still a sacrifice, because we're going with your original assumption that you'd be safe if you didn't get involved, but it's not a sacrifice of your life.

Honestly... those are usually more foolish than noble.