Reasonrules

Thread started with: Later, after someone properly cites problems inherent in the ethics of emergencies, True, you should not make arbitrary decisions. By the same token, you should not construct arbitrary contexts to force conflicts of interests that end up in "who do we kill?" dead ends when you're trying to be clear on a morality of life ethics. One moral thing for a hungry adult to do near a child who has food is to look at reality and ask some questions (i.e., think, reason) -- e.g., how on earth did the kid get the food!?; from where?; is there more?; etc. Self-interest does not equal a range of the moment focus. Rational self-interest holds the context of a lifetime and uses it to project courses of action, including in unusual circumstances. Grab the food from the child? Is the space of this man's life just for the next few minutes? How hard is it to ask the kind of obvious, quick questions mentioned above and seek ongoing life for two? As someone else asked, how did he get into this context in the first place? For example, did he inflict the emergency on himself and the child and whoever else is part of the context? etc. I just happen have read last night Ayn Rand's 4-29-61 letter to John Hospers on this topic. A relevant quote from page 552 (hardcover) follows: "Every code of morality is based on and derived from a metaphysics, that is: from a certain view of the nature of the universe in which man has to live and act. Observe that the altruist morality is based on a "malevolent universe" premise, on the view that man's life is, by nature, a calamity, that emergencies, disasters, scourges, catastrophes, are the norm of his existence. Are they? Observe also that the advocates of altruism always offer "lifeboat" siutations as examples from which to derive the rules of moral conduct .... The fact is that men do not live in lifeboats -- and that a lifeboat is not the place on which to base one's metaphysics." My amen to that is this -- if I ever find myself stuck in a lifeboat with someone else, I'll pray that I get "stuck" with another deeply selfish man -- i.e., a man of thought and action. Then I'll have a better chance to survive the emergency and get on with my life.