> "A situation arises where you can either save
> your own child from death or contact the
> emergency services in order to save the lives of
> ten other children. You cannot do both, and there
> is no way to save everyone. Which course of
> action are you morally obliged to follow?"
>
> This was question number fifteen. I talked to a lot of people about this one, and many of them had a great deal of trouble deciding which one to choose. Remember that it's "what are you morally obliged to do" and not "what would you do".
>
> Pretty much everyone I talked to said they ultimately decided the right thing to do would be to save the ten other children. I understand this viewpoint completely --- like Spock said, "The needs of many outweigh the needs of the few." However, I chose the answer "Save your own child". I think this one is the morally required choice.

I went with most of the pople you talked to and against the majority of those who took the test by saying "save the ten other children." Of course, being too young to be a parent I don't have the full perspective on this, but the question did make it very clear that it's not what you WOULD do, but what you SHOULD do. If this situation ever happened in real life, I would almost definitely save my own child. I'd like to think I would then attempt to save the others, even at the expense of my own life, but I'm not too sure. I answered the way I did because I reckon you don't have a particular moral loyalty to your own child. In pretty much every other way, of *course* you have a loyalty to your child, and that's why if push came to shove I'd probably save him/her. However, if we're talking what is *right* then I don't think you have the right to kill ten strangers to save one person, no matter what their relationship to you.

I found this question extremely hard to answer when it came to it. I suppose it was because it was such a horrific scenario, I just couldn't imagine what it would be like to be in this situation. However, it would be a lot easier if it was to do with your own life. This is because you are the one person to whom you are ultimately responsible (unless you believe in God, which I do - I'm leaving Him out of it for the moment) and it is because of this that put against anyone's life, I hope that I would sacrifice mine. It's weird how I found that one so much easier, when I am the person to whom I have the greatest bond.

Phil-"Oh well, I'm rambling. I may offer a small prize to someone who can find anything coherent in that lot"-bee