Getting Back To Throwing The Life Preserver

[David Sklansky]

The line between sins of omission and commission is blurrier than most people think.

Suppose you walk by a drowning man who you can save by climbing five flights of steps and throwing him a life preserver. He will certainly die otherwise. Even if you are healthy, some posters argue that you are in no way a murderer if you don't do it. And the effort required probably even absolves you from the crime of "depraved indifference".

But now lets hypothesize that you were totally prepared to save him. Except that just as you got on the stairs, some weird billionaire offered you a thousand dollars not to do it. If you take the money, what does that make you? How about compared to the fellow who wasn't saving him in the first place? Does the answer change if you turned down $1000 but then took his second offer of $50,000?

[Dan Mezick]

Very interesting!! How much money will be needed for me to look the other way, AFTER I have done the preliminary work of climbing the stairs, demonstrating my intent.

Then compare this scenario to the guy that just walked by and DID NOT climb the stairs.

Finally, recognize the subtle shade of gray in the scenario-- you are not really taking an action, simply looking the other way.

I believe the person climbing the stairs does serious harm to himself if he takes the money in any amount. This is because he has already demonstrated his beleifs by his action of doing the preliminary climbing. To take the money in conflict with his beliefs about helping the drowning man in many ways makes him much worse off than the guy in the water.

As for the guy that walked by and did nothing, he isn't experiencing any pain at all. Apparently his beliefs about helping the drowning man were acted out in his behavior of walking by. Accordingly, he's got no conflicts.

If they guy at the top of the stairs takes the money, he also gets a nasty inner conflict that cannot easily be reversed. He's unwise for taking even one cent in conflict with his belief. To fix this conflict, he has to change his beliefs. Not a pretty picture for the guy who took the cash after climbing the stairs. He just entered a living hell.

The guy that walked by is fine, for the moment.

[ QUOTE ]
belief

\Be*lief"\, n. [OE. bileafe, bileve; cf. AS. gele['a]fa. See Believe.] 1. Assent to a proposition or affirmation, or the acceptance of a fact, opinion, or assertion as real or true, without immediate personal knowledge; reliance upon word or testimony; partial or full assurance without positive knowledge or absolute certainty; persuasion; conviction; confidence; as, belief of a witness; the belief of our senses.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Transference]

Moral philosphy on a Saturday Morning? That might be a crime in itself....

On the surface these two scenarios seems strikingly different but I'm pretty convinced these would both be instances of as you so eloquently put it "depraved indifference." The difference isnt purely semantic yet it really doesnt pertain to culpability. That is, by accepting the cash prize as it were you are an implicit accomplice and clearly exposing yourself as allowing fatal harm to another for personal gain. Clearly in neither scenario are you mudering another; you are merely substituting relative levels of 'gain' for not assisting.

So is the hitman who kills for 5 dollars any better or worse than one for 5000? I think in our society at least, with the exception of very rare cases, it is the outcome of the moral wrong rather than the extenuating circumstances that are judged.

Generally I think the scenario is not one pitting omission against commission per se, but rather varying levels of omission.

I think that was organized poorly, but like I said, its a bit early on a Saturday for this stuff! Is there like an underlying point to this one?

[Dan Mezick]

I add here that that the guy taking the cash at the top of the stairs is inviting a host of emotional, mental and physical illnesses upon himself by voluntarily entering into this near-irrevokable belief-conflicted state.

I also find it interesting that the dilemma as stated has PersonB climbing 5 flights of stairs, upward, before facing an intensely personal challenge to his integrity of belief.


Comments?

[queenhigh]

Let's say you're walking down the street with a brand new plasma TV that you bought for $5,000. A child is about to be hit by a car. He'll die unless you drop the TV and push him out of the way. The TV will break, but you'll save the child's life.

Most people would be disgusted by someone who didn't drop the TV to save the child's life. Let's say, and it's a fairly safe assumption, that a $5,000 donation to the international red cross could save a life in a disease ravaged part of Africa. Most people who would drop the TV in a second don't think twice about giving their money to charity as opposed to buying new things.

Is morality an inverse function of psychological distance?

[Blarg]

What if the man offering him $1,000 wasn't a billionaire, but was only a thousandaire?

[ QUOTE ]
Is morality an inverse function of psychological distance?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes. But in more ways than one.

That's why many people who happily give money to charities affecting people so many thousands of miles away they might as well be millions won't lift a finger to help their neighbor next door, their own family, or a stranger nearby literally no matter how much they are suffering. Or even show the smallest courtesy or even acknowledgement.

People, and moral questions, in real life are often all too much for us up close, and it often only becomes possible to think of other people in a moral sense once we can abstract them and see them safely at a distance.

Everybody's a great guy theoretically, at a distance, but up close and personal? It's just so yucky to have to prove. And for some, downright frightening.

[Mayhap]

Why drag George Soros into this? /images/graemlins/confused.gif

Seriously, if you measure this in the light of eternity rather than the context of a single lifetime, you gain when you rescue and you gain when you turn down the billionaire and rescue.
/M

[fyodor]

I personally wouldn't hesitate to climb the stairs. I also wouldn't hesitate to kick the living bejeezus out of the millionaire when I was done throwing the life preserver.

I would drop the tv in a heart beat.

On the other hand I won't give a nickle to 'charities'

But that's just me.

I wouldn't accuse someone else of murder for not throwing the life preserver. I might be tempted to push them in should I happen by though. But then I would throw them a life preserver as well.

[paland]

I think you should just let the fool drown. It's so right on many fronts. He got himself in this predicament (Unless a Tsumani just hit) so it is not your responsibility to babysit the fool.
Plus by drowning, he is helping the gene pool by purging the human race of his DNA and, therefore, his foolish traits can dissappear from the gene pool. One could say that you are even hurting humanity if you decide to save him.

Now if you think that he plays poker and throws his chips away at the table, then you might want to save the fool, but if he is a fish, then he is currently in his element and doesn't need saving.

[bernie]

What's the counteroffer from the drowning guy?

b

[Noo Yawk]

This isn't even close to a thin line. You would be guilty of depraved infifference. The mere act of being the sole person with the ability to save someone would be hard to prove from a legal standpoint, but from a moral standpoint it's a no brainer.
Now if you allow someone to die for any amount of money whom you have ability to save, you are now a cold blooded murderer.

But lets say nobody ever found out and the billionare never again appeared in your life. Lets also assume you are a normal person that has never killed, mamed or hurt another human being.

In the first instance, you have only your conscience to worry about, but you may be able to somehow convince yourself that you couldn't help.

In the second situation, you will always know that you accepted money to allow a life to end, and that is not something you could convince yourself of otherwise.

In any case, you are guilty of allowing another human being to die.

[bernie]

Wouldn't it also be interesting to later find out that the money you recieved was actually the drowning mans'?

b

[Noo Yawk]

I disagree that giving money to a 3rd party to help a child is even remotely the same as dropping a $5000 TV and saving a life that is in immediate and imminent danger.

This is the same arguement David used in the other thread, and it's still apples and oranges.

The child in Africa is the responsibility of the parents. If the parents live in a community where all is shared or given the burden of some type of a "tax" for quality of life, then the community has a responsibility as well.
Any donation would merely be the generosity of a stranger and a kind act. But reluctance to donate is not amoral. We do pay taxes in this country, and part of that tax is to help the less fortunate. So I will argue that every taxpayer does their fair share in supporting those that need help. The misapropriations of those funds by any government however, is amoral.

[Noo Yawk]

[ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't it also be interesting to later find out that the money you recieved was actually the drowning mans'?

b

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, yeah! /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I am sure you have some obscure game theory reason for this post, but OK, I'm justa Magoo, I don't know what it is! Or maybe I am right and you ARE just a weirdo! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

But for entertainment reasons, I'll **attempt** to (probably most pathetically) answer your question!

On the first point, I question whether you are a murderer or not if you choose not to save him just because of the effort required to climb five sets of stairs. It's probably a technically gray area of pure definition, but at the very least you're certainly a JERK if you don't do it.

On the second point, whether you'd take money not to, now we are in even MORE of an ethically and morally quagmired situation. Now you have to ask WHY is this guy offering you $$ NOT to save the drowning man? Who is drowning? Do they deserve what they are getting, or are they just unfortunate enough to have slipped into the sea? Also, you might want to know who exactly it is offering the $$. If it's a mafia hit man, you might do better to take the $$ and back away quietly, forgetting what you saw.

It's even MORE of a quagmire if you'd change your mind for MORE money. This is especially true if you are not given ANY information about the guy in the water or the guy offering the money. Holy cow, they'll probably create a special hell for you if you change your mind for MORE $$!

al

[Al_Capone_Junior]

a

[Duke]

Mug the billionaire and save the other guy.

This question isn't about what you'd take to let the guy die, it's about what you'd take to contemplate killing yourself every day for the rest of your life.

And anyone who wouldn't feel like that is a stone [censored].

~D

[g_evans]

Can I take the money and kick the life preserver to the guy instead of throwing it?

G.

[cianosheehan]

[ QUOTE ]
I think you should just let the fool drown. It's so right on many fronts. He got himself in this predicament (Unless a Tsumani just hit) so it is not your responsibility to babysit the fool.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, let me see. Are you saying that all fools drown? Or all drowners are fools? Does that mean anyone who cant swim is a fool? And anyone who can swim isnt a fool? Or does it just mean that anyone who is submerged in water that is over their depth doesnt deserve to have kids? What if they were, say, knee deep in water? One kid but not two? Or in a bath, say? Would you be half a fool if the water came up to your waist? Sorry, just trying to get my head around this one.

[Homer]

If you take the money, what does that make you?

A hitman, effectively.

[paland]

I was joking.
As for the murder part, Murder is a legal classification and includes the intent to kill. Otherwise it is manslaughter. And not saving someone is not murder. I don't think it would be manslaughter either. I mean, what do you do about someone smoking a cigarette or drinking alcohol when you around them, knowing that it is killing them, albeit slowly. Are bartenders murderers? Are you responsible for saving a smoker if they don't acknowledge that cigarettes cause cancer, leaving them absolved of the responsibility of freewill? Is it murder if you just stand by while someone eats at McDonalds?

[DPCondit]

Regardless of the amount of money involved, you should save the man if he has no other means of survival than your act. However, why would this person be offering you money to let him drown? You may have very real reasons to fear for your own safety if you go against the wishes of this person. If you do not fear for your own safety, then you have to save them of course.

If someone who cannot afford to feed themselves or their children if they lose their paycheck is in a pot with you playing no limit, and you have are in a position to take all of their chips, are you wrong for doing so? I'm going to opt for taking all of their chips every time, to not do so would make me completely ineffective at the poker table.

If I have a choice between taking 20,000.00 and investing for my financial security and eventual retirement, or giving it to a starving person, I am going to invest it. If I have a choice between spending 20,000.00 on things I really don't need, but will enhance my standard of living, or giving it to a starving person, I will spend it. For one thing, giving money away is often a disincentive to productive activity. Spending the money will likely put money in the hands of someone being productive, which in turn stimulates more productivity and more jobs, which helps lift more people out of poverty in the long run without creating disincentives towards productive effort that ultimately reduces everyone's standard of living and creates less jobs for people wishing to be productive.

Don

[MicroBob]

first....let me say that this thread is kind of weird.

okay...now on to the great debate.


[ QUOTE ]
Is morality an inverse function of psychological distance?


[/ QUOTE ]


sure...this issue relates (sort of) to a similar philosophical dilemma of whether you could assisinate a perfectly innocent human-being (a baby...or a guy with 8 kids, whatever) if you KNEW that the act would save 1000 lives.
the innocent guy did nothing wrong.
could you do it?

certainly would be a different scenario if you weren't the one that had to actually strangle the baby or whatever.



regarding charities, starving kids in africa, etc.
i sometimes will buy an extra burger and fries on my way through the wendy's drive-thru and hand it off to whatever
transient-looking type fellow may be hanging around.
in mid-town and downtown memphis they are not terribly hard to find.

i don't do this nearly often enough...and am far less likely to when i am having a lousier week at the tables.

why i feel significantly less inclined to contribute funds to help the starvation and AIDS crises in africa is somewhat beyond me (although the distance is obviously a factor) and also kind of leaves me a bit disappointed with myself.
strangely, i was thinking about such things yesterday and today BEFORE reading this thread.
and my momo, who is not terrible open or philosophical, sent me an e-mail today that she saw on TV that 6 people were murdered at a home in florida. she didn't think anything of it...just another murder story on the news. but when she leanred that the dog was also murdered she said THAT made her a little sad. and then she started wondering what on earth was up with her priorities.

maybe there's some sort of self-reflection-philosophical-quandry bug in the air.

[JGalt]

To many unknown variables to make a meaningful response. Do you mean morally? Legally? In the eyes of God, Buddha, Allah, the Atheist? You have given a question that can be argued till this thread is scorchinig hot. I am sure though we are all curious to your point.

[cnfuzzd]

Dropping by the psychology forum is always a good time.

I havent read any of the responses yet, so i dont know the direction this is going, but i essentially view humanity as a virus with shoes, so i would in no way feel inclined to save anyone. However, unless their is some sort of benefit clearly tied to acting or not acting, it would be impossible to say what i would do in the first scenario. I would definitly trade someone else life for a grand, although i would probably try to negotiate it into ten g's.

peace

john nickle

[Homer]

[ QUOTE ]
Dropping by the psychology forum is always a good time.

I havent read any of the responses yet, so i dont know the direction this is going, but i essentially view humanity as a virus with shoes, so i would in no way feel inclined to save anyone. However, unless their is some sort of benefit clearly tied to acting or not acting, it would be impossible to say what i would do in the first scenario. I would definitly trade someone else life for a grand, although i would probably try to negotiate it into ten g's.

peace

john nickle

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know what to say other than the fact that you wrote "peace" makes me want to punch you in the face. Kind of ironic, huh?

[DPCondit]

Mr. Nickle, I would even throw you a life preserver, although I wouldn't be terribly shocked if nobody else would.

Don

[RPatterson]

What would Jesus Do?

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
What would Jesus Do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Levitate down to water level, walk on water, and pull the guy to safety.

Then Jesus would lecture to the rich man about camels, the eyes of needles, and getting into heaven.

I am basing all the above on biblical myth but it’s the best that I have to go on.

-Zeno

[Zeno]

I would light up a cigar while watching the man drown. When the 'weird billionaire' shows up on the scene and starts offering me money I do the logical thing. I rob the billionaire of all the money he has on his person and then throw him into the water.

I hope this satisfies your morbid curiosity.

Le Misantrope

[jdl22]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
In the eyes of God, Buddha, Allah, the Atheist?

[/ QUOTE ]

In Buddhism the Buddha does not serve as a godlike figure that judges people. He (capitalised only as the start of the sentence) only is an example and a teacher to the followers of his path. One of the primary tenants of Buddhism is that nothing is permanent which means effectively that there is no everlasting god.

[sin808]

I'm curious about why this guy is drowning. Did he fall in, get pushed? Maybe he's committing suicide? Maybe he's terminal, and the guy who offered the $1000 is his doctor, making sure no one interferes with his patient during his suicide. Some people are weird like that, like those people that feel they absolutely have to cut off a limb because they don't feel complete with it.

[Lawrence Ng]

Let's just hypothesize shall we..

First off, it depends on the situation. There are far too many unknown factors and variables so some general assumptions need to be made which bias the situation at hand. And I hate biases. /images/graemlins/mad.gif

Why is this man drowning? If I throw him a life preserver and he rejects it, then I will let him drown. I am a believer in euthanasia and believe that any human being has the right to live or die by their own will.

Why am I being offered money to turn a blind eye and watch this man drown? What is the relationship of the person who is offering me money? What is this man's motive for offering me the money?

Like poker, it's not about the money but about the decisions which lead to the win/loss of money. In this case it's about a human life.

People debate about this as if it were a morale issue of depraved difference, but the larger issue at hand is the motive.

[babigm]

Well, if this is a game theory thing, then the optimal solution that benefits yourself the most is to take the money, then throw the guy the life preserver anyway (and run away very fast). It's all relative, but if this is a single non-repeated trial, being known as a liar is less harm then being responsible for the death or giving up free money.

If you have to repeat this, you probably aren't going to get the money upfront, so you may have to resort to some form of jujitsu to incapacitate them and take the money. Failing that, you throw the life preserver, since there's no leverage for them to give you the money once the drowning guy has died, and you don't want to risk the lose/lose situation.

What about these other similar situations...

What if someone offered you a million dollars to sleep with your spouse? A decent proposal or no?

Or what if you had the love of your life being slowly lowered in to a vat of boiling acid on one hand, and your trusty sidekick tied to a table with a powerful laser moving ever closer to their crotch on the other. Who do you save first? And why are there nipples on the batsuit, how does that make any sense?

[David Sklansky]

The drowning man fell. Change the billionaire to something else. You are on your way to make X dollars on a deal where being two minutes late will blow it.

[Duke]

[ QUOTE ]
What would Jesus Do?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably something involving playing cards and pickles.

~D

[chesspain]

DS,

My clinical opinion is that you have WAY too much time on your hands.

Sincerely,

chesspain

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know what to say other than the fact that you wrote "peace" makes me want to punch you in the face. Kind of ironic, huh?

[/ QUOTE ]
Just out of curiosity, why do you want to punch him in the face? If you have this kind of aggressive tendencies, then you are probably not the kind who would save a stranger. Or if you did save him, you would then proceed to punch the hell out of him.

[Mayhap]

I say, good show old boy!
/M

[Homer]

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to punch him in the face?

Because he stated that he would effectively kill someone if given $1000 and then ended his post with the word "peace". After stating such a horrible thing, how can he write "peace"?

If you have this kind of aggressive tendencies, then you are probably not the kind who would save a stranger.

If your child drowned and you later found out that someone could have saved him/her quite easily, but didn't do so because he/she was given $1000 not to do so, would you want to punch him/her? Of course you would. By your logic, then, you wouldn't save a stranger if you were placed in the same situation because you have "aggressive tendencies".

As a side, the reason I get all riled up is because it disgusts me when someone is willing to trade the life of another for money. Whether the person drowning is a stranger or not is irrelevant to me. That person is someone elses son/daughter/mother/father/friend/whatever. That person is another human being.

Or if you did save him, you would then proceed to punch the hell out of him.

Sigh. I wasn't talking about the drowning person. I was talking about the poster who would refuse to save the drowning person if given $1000.

-- Homer

EDIT -- I also want to say that I find it amusing that you would question why I would want to punch the hitman instead of questioning the hitman himself.

[Noo Yawk]

[ QUOTE ]
The drowning man fell. Change the billionaire to something else. You are on your way to make X dollars on a deal where being two minutes late will blow it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't change anything. Climb the steps and throw him the life preserver. Given the assumption that you have no way of getting help or calling to ensure that this persons life is saved, failing to help a person whose life is in immediate and imminent danger is wrong. Period. legally or otherwise.

[Mike Gallo]

One night I was on my way to Atlantic City for a tournament. I have just enough time to get to the tournament or it would sell out and I would not make it in time.

Right before my eyes I witnessed a horrible accident. I could have pulled over to see if anyone suffered any injuries however I proceeded to the tournament. I did call the state police to advise them of the accident, however I just kept going.

I did this for two reasons.

1) I do not have any first aid training and if anyone did get hurt, I could do nothing about it.

2) I do not like getting locked out of a tournament.

Ironically I made it to the tournament and they sold out by the time I got there. I still feel I made the correct decision.

As far as the drowning man goes, I would most likely throw him a life line.

[Mike Gallo]

My clinical opinion is that you have WAY too much time on your hands.
Mr Sklansky has too much time on his hands, because he chooses to have too much time.

Remember hes a super genius who can do whatever he wants, however plays poker because he doesnt want to do anything else.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

or is Chesspain right, you simply have too much time on your hands?

C'mon Dave, what is the OFFICIAL answer from the EXPOIT?

al

[Peter Harris]

if you don't save the guy and walk past, you're not a murderer. In fact, in some situations, not acting is safest, as you must be sure to preserve your own safety first. Calling a professional rescue service is a good idea.

However, just walking by will be a criminal act in some places, such as France, where one must report and be present at the scene of ANY accident witnessed by oneself.

in situation B, by being prepared to save the person and then choosing not to for a sum of money (or any alternate situation) simply shows you are a person of loose morality. You'd prefer person A to have less chance of survival so oneself has a better chance of a nice situation occuring.

If you can live with that, good for you. If you can't, then save a life.

It's an independent decision, i side with civil liberty.

Regards,
Pete Harris

[TripleH68]

I was once on the way to a golf tournament. About one mile from the course I witnessed an elderly woman walking down the sidewalk trip and take a hard fall. I stopped, helped her to her porch(next door), called rescue and waited with her until they arrived. It was the decent and honorable thing to do. I would save the drowning person definitely.

As a side note, sometimes the casino makes me feel very sad. So many people losing money the need just to feed their fix. Of course I am willing to take their money at the poker table...and sometime this causes dissonance.

[cnfuzzd]

i stay away from all forms of water. Its not compatible with the nefarious fire demons of the underworld.

I didnt say i wouldn't help him, merely that i couldnt positively say that i would.

Im glad there are people like you though that keep my meager faith in this failed experiment called life going, even if i think you are all deluded.

and yes, i do wish peace on the world. In a world filled with stupid people though, its sometimes hard not to pray for nuclear devestation. See Comedy of Hate for more.

peace

john nickle

[scottjack]

[ QUOTE ]
sometimes the casino makes me feel very sad. So many people losing money the need just to feed their fix. Of course I am willing to take their money at the poker table...and sometime this causes dissonance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Screw that....a fool and his money are lucky to get together in the first place....if they weren't losing it to me, they'd be losing it to someone else, or doing something else to part with it.

In regard to the lifeline question:

Local legalities aside, I don't think there is any moral obligation to assist the guy in the water. Whatever action makes someone the happiest, or most content, is what is going to dictate what a given person chooses to do.

If someone is happiest after having done the 'right' thing by helping the person in the water, that's what they'll choose to do. If a person gains contentment by just walking by and not assisting in any way, then that's just fine for them to do that. If the decision is made to accept the monetary offer, then that person is deciding that their happiness is maximized more by taking the money than by helping the person in the water.

The bottom line is that people are selfish, and the choices thay make and the actions they take will be those that best satisfies their need to be happy inside, whether their internal happiness comes to them from money, or from helping someone.

[cnfuzzd]

&lt;&lt;&lt;Because he stated that he would effectively kill someone if given $1000 and then ended his post with the word "peace". After stating such a horrible thing, how can he write "peace"? &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

I didnt say "universal love and happiness" I said peace. The state of non-conflict. Did the person in the water do something in thier life that deserves death. Possibly. POssibly i might save him. I am just saying that, given the paradigm i view the world through i dont think there is any prima facia obligation to save human life. I have done several things in my life that i feel would warrent death, (not kidding, which is sad really) yet i continue to live. Others i know havent deserved to die, yet did. Grafting moral frameworks onto cold reality is simply trying to delude one's self as to the nature of reality. Life is Suffering.

&lt;&lt;&lt;If your child drowned and you later found out that someone could have saved him/her quite easily, but didn't do so because he/she was given $1000 not to do so, would you want to punch him/her? Of course you would. By your logic, then, you wouldn't save a stranger if you were placed in the same situation because you have "aggressive tendencies".

As a side, the reason I get all riled up is because it disgusts me when someone is willing to trade the life of another for money. Whether the person drowning is a stranger or not is irrelevant to me. That person is someone elses son/daughter/mother/father/friend/whatever. That person is another human being. &gt;&gt;&gt;

Hell yeah i would. I would in fact, probably try to kill them. But we already know that i dont follow standard moral theory.

&lt;&lt;&lt;
Sigh. I wasn't talking about the drowning person. I was talking about the poster who would refuse to save the drowning person if given $1000.

-- Homer

EDIT -- I also want to say that I find it amusing that you would question why I would want to punch the hitman instead of questioning the hitman himself. &gt;&gt;&gt;

I wish i could be cool enough to be a hitman. I agree that it is odd that the responder picked you to respond to. Maybe he or she is proud that i am standing up for moral degeneracy.

tranquility

john nickle

[BrettK]

[ QUOTE ]
The drowning man fell. Change the billionaire to something else. You are on your way to make X dollars on a deal where being two minutes late will blow it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Consider this scenario. You buy a lottery ticket and win 300 million dollars. The lottery company gives you two choices. You may either receive all 300 million over twenty years, or receive 100 million instantly. If you choose to receive 100 million instantly, the company will go out of business and hundreds of people will lose their jobs. What would a moral person do? What would someone interested only in material gain do?

My point is that in both my example and your example, it doesn't matter whether you are interested in making the most money or being the most moral. They lead you to the same conclusion. If you save the drowning man, you stand to gain far more than a thousand dollars. One might even argue that what you would gain is invaluable. Such an act is held so highly in the minds of the moral portion of the population that you would have endless permanent reserves of good will and trust.

I find it interesting to note, however, that if a large enough percentage of the population looked at these situations as opportunities for material gain, it would no longer be correct to save the man if you too held this viewpoint. Your potential invaluable stores of trust provided by moral people would have been eroded enough to make even one thousand dollars more appealing.

I agree that it's appropriate to take morality to its logical extreme, and I argue that doing so proves the entire philosophy counter-productive, self-defeating, and *illogical*.

Brett

[Homer]

This all seems so simple to me. You can either:

A) Save someone's life by picking up a life preserver and tossing it into the water

or

B) Take $X in return for walking away and letting the person drown

I don't see how anyone can choose B. Then again, I have no idea what 'prima facia' means and only have a vague understanding of 'paradigm', so it could simply be that I'm too ignorant to analyze the situation on a higher level.

All I keep thinking is: What if the roles were reversed? What would I want the passerby to do for me if I were the one drowning? I would want to be saved, therefore I will do the same for this person. That is the basic philosophy with which I proceed through life. Maybe it is too simplistic, too easy. Maybe I should start thinking on a higher level. I don't think I'm capable of doing it. I don't think I want to.

[Dan Mezick]

It appears that everyone is getting thrown off by this question because of who it comes from.

It's a moral/ethical dilemma posed by a well-known self-admitted analytical mathematician. And one who poses many math problems to readers on this board.

But you'll note this is the Psychology forum, and this is not where David Sklansky posts math/logic puzzles. In fact, I do not believe he has ever posed a math/logic problem here.

Further, he has issued a comment that tries to get the discussion back on track.

We all know the situation as stated, and he asked specific questions about the guy at the top of the stairs, and the guy that walked by doing nothing. And how they compare.

This is CLEARLY NOT a math/logic problem posted by David Sklansky here. It's an moral/ethical dilemma. Note one can apply logic directly to solve this, based on premises.

But all the premises that may be cited in supporting subsequent logic are not mathematical certainties, but rather current beliefs about morality and ethics on the part of anyone that comments on the situation as posed.

[PhatTBoll]

[ QUOTE ]
failing to help a person whose life is in immediate and imminent danger is wrong. Period. legally or otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope. In the US, a bystander is only obligated to help a person in immediate danger if:

A. The bystander was responsible for creating the situation, or

B. The situation is occurring in a place owned or controlled by the bystander (i.e. a restaurant, hotel, hospital, etc.), or

C. The bystander is legally responsible for the victim's well-being (i.e. parent, doctor).

This is just a legal analysis, and I understand that the original question was not meant to be a legal query. I agree with the poster who said that there is a clear moral obligation to save the stranger, although there should be no legal penalty for not doing so. However much money is being offered to the bystander is irrelevant to moral considerations IMO. You are either compelled to save him, or you aren't.

[easypete]

[ QUOTE ]
Suppose you walk by a drowning man who you can save by climbing five flights of steps and throwing him a life preserver.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think everybody missed one thing. If the guy drowns, it is the fault of the owner of the life preserver who decided it would best serve it's function 5 flights above the water.

Take the money.

[David Sklansky]

"However much money is being offered to the bystander is irrelevant to moral considerations IMO. You are either compelled to save him, or you aren't. "

What if, for some unknown reason, saving him COSTS you a very significant amount of money?

[carlo]

Doctors do this all the time--wade in and wait for the malpractice suit.

[J_V]

Now who's muddying the waters? This seems like a much, much tougher question. What if saving him costs you ever dollar you own?

Not taking at infinite amount of money to save him would be easy for me.

If I was faced with being on the street it would be harder.

[paland]

[ QUOTE ]
What if, for some unknown reason, saving him COSTS you a very significant amount of money?

[/ QUOTE ]
What if the guy in the water is a Charles Manson and you save him. Then he goes and kills a certain Sharon Tate, who happens to be pregnant with your child. Are you then guilty of killing your own child?

Really though, you don't know why the guy is in the water. Maybe the Mob threw him in there because he was a jerk and was a hired killer who double crossed his boss. Maybe he was susposed to drown and you screwed it all up by saving him.

[jdl22]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">En respuesta a:</font><hr />
The line between sins of omission and commission is blurrier than most people think.

[/ QUOTE ]

Having read the thread and reread this original post you are doing well to make this point. Most if not all responses would change if something were slightly altered in the question.

Here are some comments about the overall thread:

I think when determining crimes or other moral issues the key is intent. Suppose I tell a friend he should start playing poker because I think he would enjoy it and with proper study could become a great player and make a decent amount of money playing. If this friend becomes a desolate gambling addict as a result of my nudging then I have still done nothing wrong. If I get a person I don't like to play because they have addiction problems and I think they will end up down and out then I have done something wrong even if they somehow manage to win millions of dollars.

In this case it's not clear the intent of a person who would not climb the flights of stairs to save the drowner (word?). If it's just laziness that's pretty weak and I'm the laziest person I know. Even then it could be argued that you intend to kill the person because not going up 5 flights of stairs is more important. That's a fairly wishy washy argument though.

In the case of a guy offering you a sum of money it seems you absolutely intend to have the guy die to get the money. You could only have bad intentions so it is clearly an immoral act if the quantity of money is small.

However, there has to be an amount you would take. Suppose there wasn't. To put a cap on the amount you could take, that would mean that you would turn down all of Bill Gates' money (or the IKEA guy, not sure which has more these days). With that money you could save tens of thousands of people so clearly that is better. We could argue what the value of one life over another is, but surely the argument would result in the conclusion that sacrificing one person so that tens of thousands can be saved is appropriate.

[Matt Ruff]

[ QUOTE ]
The drowning man fell. Change the billionaire to something else. You are on your way to make X dollars on a deal where being two minutes late will blow it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to tie in all the subthreads, let's further stipulate that X = 10,000, and you plan to donate the money to the Red Cross, who will use it save two lives (at $5,000 per) in disease-ravaged Africa -- but, one of the people the Red Cross will save is Charles Manson, who recently escaped from prison and fled to Zimbabwe, where he works repairing broken plasma TVs.

Now what do you do?

-- M. Ruff

[Cerril]

Whew, tough one. Of course that's such a basic ethical dillema that you can't just answer it easily (obviously). You're looking at a lot of basic problems here lumped together though.

Heap problem - The idea that it's hard to define a 'heap' of something, say rocks. There are points where it's definitely not a heap, and points where it definitely is a heap, but there's a huge grey area where there's reasonable disagreement. But just because you can't define the exact rock that turns it from a small pile into a heap, it doesn't mean there's no such thing as a heap. So even if we all agree that it's immoral to kill someone directly and that it's not immoral to let someone you aren't aware of die, there can still be a legitimate middle ground where disagreement is allowed (and vice versa, even if we agree there's a grey area it doesn't mean that nothing is black and white).

Relativism - This is of course what you're driving at. Is there an absolute 'immoral' or 'moral' tag we can put on every action. I pretty much don't let anyone else's happiness or even life intrude on my decisions, moral or otherwise, except as they impact me personally. I care absolutely zero for starving people far away, or prosperous ones for that matter. I will always choose a local charity over a global one, and generally if I have money I'll buy one or more friends a nice lunch or dinner, or a present for someone I know. That said, I suppose I have a bit of an aberrant streak or a bred-in tendency for compassion or whatnot, because I don't feel comfortable directly witnessing suffering, and in a case like this I'd be willing to put forth a fair amount of effort just to not have the knowledge that I caused, indirectly, suffering to someone in contact with me. My threshold is pretty low though, as to what I'd consider the minimum necessary effort to sleep well at night.


So if you want my personal opinion I'll just start with the statement that it's only my opinion and would apply to precisely the people who agree with me and applies to no one who doesn't &lt;natch!&gt;

Assuming there's no ignorance involves, I know this guy's in danger, I'm in the best/only position to help, and all the other things that are assumed there, then there's nothing that would make not helping him a good decision. I just couldn't be happy with any other decision and that's enough.

Ditto about taking the money. I think of myself as an amoral person to the extent that I could accept money in the hypothetical situation 'if you take the money some random person you don't know and have no attachment to will die.' There's definitely a sum that would keep me from thinking twice about that. But I've got some emotional investment in this drowning guy now, so I couldn't accept any sum (again, there might be a sum with seven figures that would change my mind provided all the other 'ifs' were absolute, involving anyone ever finding out, that sort of thing. I'd like to say there isn't though, if I weren't in dire financial straits where declining would risk the livelihood of someone close to me).

In fact, I'd generally think a person who was able to make the commitment to saving the random person and then accepting a sum of money to let them die as worse; though to be honest I think I'd just have a hard time deciphering their motivations. This is all assuming of course that this event is attached to your normal life and that you aren't aware of the future (i.e. your decision to save the guy comes before you're aware of the choice between money and his life)

One last bit of clarification. I would generally never hold someone responsible for anything that happened exactly as it would had he not been there at all. There are definitely times where a person's presence and inaction exacerbates a problem (especially when there's expectation involved), but most of the time just standing by isn't something I'll personally hold someone accountable for (though I might not want to be their friend - consider them someone I could depend on. That would be the expectation and a mistake on my part)

[RydenStoompala]

You're not guilty of murder if you do not climb the stairs and toss the life preserver. The effort required does not absolve you of depraved indiference, if you have no physical disabilities that would potentially threaten your own health if you made an effort.

The second part, the price of acceptable lifetime angst, can be given a monetary range in certain social groups(based upon upbringing, peer pressure, religious beliefs and socio-economic location) and forms the basis of the gene pool that feeds the legal profession.

[Joe Tall]

Money has totally messed you up.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[Noo Yawk]

Thanks Phattboll. I didn't mean to imply that it was illegal, but It's pretty interesting that bystanders have no legal burden whatsover.

Now if they were offered money not to help, would you now have a legal issue? Just curious as there now appears to be intent.

[Gabe]

The situation you outline is culturally specific, as far as morality is concerned. If the drowning person were a slave or non-citizen in ancient Rome, or a Jew or a Gypsy in Nazi Germany, it would have been quite all right to let the person drown. In Twenty-first Century Western Civilization, it would be seen as wrong, given our moral conventions. In fact, in any society based upon the New Testament, the Torah, the Talmud, or Quran it would probably be wrong, given the way you’ve proposed it. If this situation were a common occurrence, our society would probably institute legislation making it a crime, not as bad as negligent homicide, but worse than failure to report an accident.

The above assumes the money you received was used to buy something like a new Rolex. If you used the money to provide public health care, it would be acceptable. In fact, when most of money is used to provide reliable public transportation, we consider it acceptable, even tough a portion of the money is used to buy Rolexes for the shareholders of the transportation company.

[SenecaJim]

Yes! I know the answer to this one. If you don't help the drwoning man you will go to jail because of the " Good Samaritan Law". I saw it on Seinfeld.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
What if, for some unknown reason, saving him COSTS you a very significant amount of money?

[/ QUOTE ]

Save the guy and send him a bill.

[elwoodblues]

No question on this one for me - Save him. When the billionaire offers the money - punch him, then save the guy.
The guy who doesn't save solely based on the money is the lowest of low.
----

Some of the posts reminded me of a legal problem. You see someone drowning out in the ocean. You don't know how to swim, but feel like you need to help. You jump in to save the guy and he drowns.

You are opening yourself up to liability because someone who was capable of saving the man (i.e. someone who knew how to swim) might not have gone in after him thinking that you had the situation covered. Moral of the story is that you are generally not legally obligated to render assistance. However, if you do choose to render assistance, you have to do it in a non-negligent manner.

[andyfox]

The difference between what David has called "depraved indifference" and murder, or being an accesory to murder, is at the heart of two movies, the current release Collateral and the classic film The Third Man.

In Collateral, Tom Cruise plays a hit man. Cruise lectures his taxi driver, played by Jamie Foxx, when Foxx is disgusted when he sees Cruise in action. Cruise asks him is he's heard of Rwanda. When Foxx says yes, he has, Cruise tells Foxx that 50,000 people died in one day there, the most ever in one day since Nagasaki. And what did Foxx do about it, asks Cruise: did he join Amnesty International or Oxfam or any other human rights organization to try to do some good? No, he did nothing. Yet now, seeing Cruise "off one fat Angelino," he's all upset.

In The Third Man, Orson Welles plays a black market drug-runner who is selling tainted penicillin, resulting in the death and suffering of many children in post-World War II Vienna. In the famous ferris wheel scene, Welles's friend (Joseph Cotton) takes him to task for what he is doing. Welles asks Cotton to look at the people on the ground below them. But he doesn't refer to them as people, he refers to them as "dots." Welles then asks Cotton to tell him what he would really do if he offered him 20,000 pounds for each dot he could eliminate. Would he really be moral, or would he start counting the dots and multiplying them by 20,000?

In both movies, the "heroes" are tainted themselves: they're shown as kind of lazy losers, only moved to action when they actually see the victims, and then they help only with reservations.

In general, the farther away the victims, the less people are concerned with morality. Of course we're shocked by one body falling on the roof of our car (as happens in Collateral); we're generally indifferent to thousands of deaths on the other side of the globe.

In the case of the man who makes no effort to go up the stairs, I would indeed consider him guilty of the "crime" of depraved indifference. It's not like we're asking him to swim out a few miles and save the victim; there's no danger involved to the potential savior. (In both movies, BTW, there was danger involved for the heroes.)

Now the "hero" goes up the stairs and is getting ready to do the good deed, but he's bribed out of doing it. My sense is most people will judge him harsher now that he is not helping solely because of money. Because now he was involved and turned away from involvement for a selfish reason. (One could argue that a person who originally refused to help also turned away for selfish reasons.)

We rationalize a lot when the victims are invisible, or far away, or when we're not involved. Strategic bombing was supposed to make war more humane by shortening war: the civilian population would be so terrified that it would demand an end to war; we wouldn't see the kind of horrible combat in the trenches like in World War I. But it didn't happen. Instead, war got more deadly, more clinical, as the victims of bombing became invisible, too far away to see them as even "dots."

The line between sins of omission and commission is less clear than most of us would care to admit, perhaps because it makes us too uncomfortable.

[David Sklansky]

Bingo. Regarding some subjects, having Andy Foxitis evidently helps you think straight.

[PhatTBoll]

Without doing some exhaustive research, I would say that there is a legal problem, at least for the billionaire. Whether the bystander is responsible for the death in this situation is questionable. I think the answer depends on the specifics. For example, did the billionaire have anything to do with the victim's plight, did the bystander know about any connection between the billionaire and the victim, etc.

Of course, I'm not a lawyer (yet), so you may want to ask somebody with more knowledge than some dude whose only credential is a B in Criminal Law.

With regard to the follow-up question of whether the bystander is morally compelled to save the victim when the bystander would have to spend a substantial sum of money, I think the answer is clearly no, assuming the victim is a complete stranger. I don't think you are ever morally compelled to put yourself in significant risk to save a stranger's life.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

Seems like either way you'd be an [censored].

[Cerril]

Third man is exactly what I was thinking, though I've never seen it. Just one of those cultural references that sticks with you, I suppose.

I think the reason people judge the one who takes the money more harshly is because it's nearly impossible to understand his motivation. He places some value on human life, but it's a distinct dollar sign. The one who places no value on human life is regarded as some sort of cynic, or terrible human being who doesn't care at all for anyone else. We might hate him, but we might also pity him. He's insane, not understanding something everyone else gets perfectly.

The one who takes the money is seen as someone who understands the value of a human life. It's somewhere between a walk up a flight of stairs and a specific sum of money. We'd be more uncomfortable with the person who views us all as dollar signs than the one who doesn't see us at all, I think. In part, this is because we have very little perspective to figure out how to handle the second person.

&lt;edit: I love homicidal philosophy!&gt;

[Jman28]

[ QUOTE ]
All I keep thinking is: What if the roles were reversed? What would I want the passerby to do for me if I were the one drowning? I would want to be saved, therefore I will do the same for this person.

[/ QUOTE ]

What if you were the guy offering the money? What would you want then?

(I'm not saying I wouldn't save the dude)

[PokerFoo]

[ QUOTE ]
The line between sins of omission and commission is blurrier than most people think.

Suppose you walk by a drowning man who you can save by climbing five flights of steps and throwing him a life preserver. He will certainly die otherwise. Even if you are healthy, some posters argue that you are in no way a murderer if you don't do it. And the effort required probably even absolves you from the crime of "depraved indifference".

But now lets hypothesize that you were totally prepared to save him. Except that just as you got on the stairs, some weird billionaire offered you a thousand dollars not to do it. If you take the money, what does that make you? How about compared to the fellow who wasn't saving him in the first place? Does the answer change if you turned down $1000 but then took his second offer of $50,000?

[/ QUOTE ]

What a bizzar and interesting topic Ive run across here while looking for poker psychology /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

I submit that the bystander who would do nothing is shameful. That being said there are many factors to concider that might prevent a person from not helping. The belief that someone else will help is likely and second only to fear for ones own life. The bystander is not guilty of any moral crime, however he will have to live with his indifference and it may not sit well.

One has to ask, what kind of person would you like to be? The kind who has the virtue of selflessnes and would help, or the indifferent kind. Would you feel ashamed if in retrospect you could have helped but didn't? Guilt is the real issue here isnt it?

Regardless of the criminal or moral liabilty of the hypothetical question posed, I would HOPE that I would be the kind of person who would help.

Foo

[skierdude1000]

Make the offer to me at least 1 million and I'd hire someone else to run up the stairs for 50k

[DiceyPlay]

50K is no where near enough for me to forgoe saving a life. I would need enough to make a difference in the world as a philanthropist(sp) to not save a life and go for the money. In other words, the good for all of humanity that would come from not saving this life would have to outweigh the not saving/taking of a life. 50K = nice car = downpayent on house &lt;&gt; a life. Sheeeesh ... it's not even close.

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
The difference between what David has called "depraved indifference" and murder, or being an accesory to murder, is at the heart of two movies, the current release Collateral and the classic film The Third Man.

In Collateral, Tom Cruise plays a hit man. Cruise lectures his taxi driver, played by Jamie Foxx, when Foxx is disgusted when he sees Cruise in action. Cruise asks him is he's heard of Rwanda. When Foxx says yes, he has, Cruise tells Foxx that 50,000 people died in one day there, the most ever in one day since Nagasaki. And what did Foxx do about it, asks Cruise: did he join Amnesty International or Oxfam or any other human rights organization to try to do some good? No, he did nothing. Yet now, seeing Cruise "off one fat Angelino," he's all upset.

[/ QUOTE ]

Vince's (the Tom Cruise character) question wasn't fair. The problems in Rwanda were beyond the ability of any one person, organization, or even nation to solve. Who can even clearly identify the bad guys given the muddled history of the region?

[ QUOTE ]
In general, the farther away the victims, the less people are concerned with morality. Of course we're shocked by one body falling on the roof of our car (as happens in Collateral); we're generally indifferent to thousands of deaths on the other side of the globe.

[/ QUOTE ]

We aren't necessarily indifferent, most of us aren't in position to directly do anything about something happening 8000 miles away. But when placed directly in position to do good, the good are more likely to do good than the amoral or immoral.

[ QUOTE ]
In the case of the man who makes no effort to go up the stairs, I would indeed consider him guilty of the "crime" of depraved indifference. It's not like we're asking him to swim out a few miles and save the victim; there's no danger involved to the potential savior.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point Andy, one with which I agree.

[ QUOTE ]
Now the "hero" goes up the stairs and is getting ready to do the good deed, but he's bribed out of doing it. My sense is most people will judge him harsher now that he is not helping solely because of money. Because now he was involved and turned away from involvement for a selfish reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

What the person could do with the money might matter. A man in desperate need to provide medical care for a member of his family might be judged a little less harshly than a man who would use the money to buy something extravagant or useless.

[ QUOTE ]
We rationalize a lot when the victims are invisible, or far away, or when we're not involved.

[/ QUOTE ]

Other than pay my taxes I don't do much if anything for people far away or those I'm not involved with. But there is one person close to me where I have been put in a position where without my care and support that person would in all likelihood not be among the living. Providing that support has cost me dearly (time, money, and lost opportunity), but in a sense the ordeal has helped me grow and become a happier person. Another person was almost equally in position to help but didn't. That person now has far more time and money. But it is hard for me to imagine that person happy or fulfilled.

[ QUOTE ]
The line between sins of omission and commission is less clear than most of us would care to admit, perhaps because it makes us too uncomfortable.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great post Andy, and I only wandered into this sub forum because I saw you mention something going on here in another post late last night. Thanks.

Regards,

Rick

PS Is there an AndyFoxites thread yet and if there is could you provide a link?

[Poker21]

Strategic bombing was developed to save civilian lives not force a population into hating a regime. Terrorism is used to frighten populations not strategic bombings. Furthermore if a population wanted a coup to unseat a leader there wouldnt be a war in the first place.

[andyfox]

Lots of points to discuss, Rick. Let's save them for when we see each other next week.

As far as Andy Foxitis, this is the first mention, I believe, of the disease. I had accused David of having David Sklanskyitis, so he was just zinging/humoring me.

[andyfox]

The theory behind strategic bombing was that it would terrorize the civilian population and that population would force it's government to stop the war. Strategic bombing was seen as a form of terrorism. All of the early strategists (Douhet, Hart, Mitchell) were clear on this point.

[tpj]

I dont know if this has been brought up before, but here goes...

Say you save the drowning man. Then the next day, the same guy is drowning again... and you save him...

and the next day. and the next day...

now, how many days go by before you no longer feel obligated, or are you always obligated to save him?

and furthermore, if you learn that this guy is going to be near the lake, are you then obligated to go supervise just incase he might fall in?

and you know he visits the lake everyday...

tpj

[HentaiGaijin]

There are only four parameters to this question of relevance:

1. A person will die if you do not act.

2. You will lose some significant amount of money if you do not act.

3. You have the ability to act.

4. You have a limited timeframe in which to act.

Many of the answers here try to qualify themselves by adding additional parameters, but that is outside the scope of the original question.

The relative value of the person who will die is not relevant to the question. You don't have time to find out if they have lived a good life or if they are a sociopath. You don't have time to query whether or not they want to die. You have to weigh the situation without qualification.

Therefore, the question is simply "does the value of the life of an average person of unknown characteristic outweigh a certain value X in money." This is the moral kernel of the problem.

Since we do not know the character of the person we are to save, it is difficult and possibly meaningless to weigh the moral question in terms of the value of that person's life in the future. Maybe this person will go on to save other lives, invent technologies, and win at poker. Maybe this person will go on to be a mass murderer, invade another country, etc. Either way, we cannot know so we cannot base our decision on this consideration. We cannot possibly claim to have some perception of what value the "average human" brings to society.

Some argue that the person must be saved "because it is just the right thing to do" but that answer begs the original question. If you hold that human life has an inherent value, you must make an independent thread of argument as to why human life has that value. In my opinion, the best answer to this question avoids such ontological deadends.

The simplest solution to the moral question is to ideologically reverse our role with the drowning person. If we were drowning, what value would we place on our own life? Most people would say that no price is worth their own death. They would want to be saved. Therefore, to place a price on the life of the victim is to place a price our own life.

This is the only reasonable answer given the defined constraints, without extensive and unnecessary ontological debate.

[BadBoyBenny]

[ QUOTE ]
But there is one person close to me where I have been put in a position where without my care and support that person would in all likelihood not be among the living. Providing that support has cost me dearly (time, money, and lost opportunity), but in a sense the ordeal has helped me grow and become a happier person. Another person was almost equally in position to help but didn't. That person now has far more time and money. But it is hard for me to imagine that person happy or fulfilled.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is so true Rick. I honestly don't know what you meant by 'in a sense' because I know other people in similar situations to yourself and they have grown and become happier in every sense that is meaningful. Cheers to you for doing the right thing (whatever it was) and you deserve all the contentment you receive.

[John Cole]

Andy,

Of course, Cotton's attraction to Valli also motivated him, and this may complicate the matter a bit further.

In Rwanda, a group of rebels came upon a girls' school. They demanded the girls, both Hutus and Tutsis, separate. Nearly twenty teenage girls instead held hands, and all were slaughtered.

David's question is easy to answer--or it should be.

[andyfox]

I don't think I'm giving much away to say that at the end of Collateral, the hero (apparently) gets the girl. We like our endings clean and neat, the moral of our story unambiguous. Contrast that with the ending of The Third Man.

[John Cole]

Rick,

Happier? Yes, I agree. Better? Yes. I know some people think you're crazy, but I don't. I would hope I would have the heart to do the same.

[John Cole]

Yes, at the end of The Third Man we miss Harry Lime. And this gives us pause. Why is it we identify with him? (Just a rhetorical question.)

[andyfox]

Nobody else has his panache, his big, broad smile, his screen presence. Holly is a hack and a drunk. The good cop is smug and sanctimonious. All of the other characters are a bit strange, either too Viennese or too creepy (or both). Harry's loaded with personality and his unwillingness to get rid of his old friend on the ferris wheel gives him a human touch (just as Tom Cruise getting Jamie Foxx to talk back to the dispatcher gets audiences a bit on his side as well), despite his inhuman(e) dots and cuckoo clock speeches.

He is a monster, but no doubt about it, audiences always loved Harry Lime.

[TiK]

I think a joke I heard recently applies to this situation...

A man walks up to a woman at a bar and asks her "Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?" She looks the guy up and down, and replies, "sure, I'll sleep with you for a million bucks." The man then asks her, "well then how about for five dollars?" The woman screams "what do you think I am, some kind of whore?!" the man replies "Well, we've already established that, now we're just negotiating a price..."

This joke is in response to whether the crime becomes any different whether you accept the smaller bribe, or the larger bribe while turning down the smaller bribe.