On moral dilemmas: The needs of the many Vs. The needs of the few

[Jemini]

We see this theme coming up a lot in stories. One famous example of late would be The Last of Us, in which the game's final challenge in the scenario is whether to let the girl you've been escorting the entire game be killed and dissected to find out why she's immune to the zombie virus and potentially save all of humanity, or fight to save her and keep her alive.

In Star Trek, meanwhile, Spock would famously say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" as though it were his mantra, pushing it as a standard of logic that it is preferable to sacrifice the few to benefit the many, and to do anything else is a decision couched in emotion.

Fictional scenarios like the above repeat themselves again and again in fiction, often with it taken to the extreme of sacrificing the one to benefit all of humanity or even the entire survival of the world itself.

This is a trope we really could analyze to death. I have my thoughts on it, but I will put them in spoilers for you to read or not. Meanwhile, I will toss it to you guys for you to share your thoughts as well.

Spoiler: early days of this trope

This trope harkens back to older days in which there is some form of ritual human sacrifice the hero has to rescue the sacrificial victim from. Our modern versions of it have turned it from an angry or avaricious cruel god or demented cult who's claiming the life, a clear evil that has to be fought back, to a far more morally difficult scenario of a medical disease that needs to be stopped or a non-sentient magical force that needs to be stabilized. This makes it a far more difficult question to answer, and also has the interesting side-consequence of pushing the trope into territory that is more relevant to the human experience.

Spoiler: the logical flaw of sacrificing the few

On a macro-scale, do you sacrifice the one to the benefit of the many? It is a difficult question. Mr. Spock's logic would say "yes" every time, but often Captain Kirk would directly oppose this logic of Spock in order to do the right thing.

There's also a flaw in Mr. Spock's logic of the time that our society hadn't managed to grapple with and unveil until fairly recently. It is true that, in an isolated scenario, it makes logical sense to sacrifice the one to benefit the many. However, if you keep sacrificing the one over and over again throughout a large iteration of scenarios, suddenly you have created something akin to a death cult that will continuously oppress all of the individual "ones" in the group to supposedly benefit the "many." But, once all of those "many" have been sacrificed through repeated iterations of this scenario, you are not actually benefiting the "many" any more. So, you have to take a stand against this reasoning at some point, and it might as well be right at the beginning when the first "one" or "few" are about to be sacrificed on the alter of "benefiting the many."

Spoiler: the heroism of voluntary self-sacrifice

There is, however, one scenario where this entire trope is turned on it's head. The heroic self-sacrifice is also an iteration of the one being sacrificed to save the many. However, we often see this version of it in an entirely different light. When it is an innocent who is chosen by others to be sacrificed, that's bad. However, when someone steps up to be the sacrifice on their own terms, it becomes heroic.

This is especially the case when the hero is fighting off a clear threat than means to destroy the people standing behind them. A hero might fight to single-handedly push back a hoard of enemies, knowing they are going to die. They might throw themselves on a grenade to save their comrades. They might volunteer to donate a kidney to save someone's life. Whatever the case, the difference of voluntarily stepping up to aid others is seen as heroic, where as forced sacrifice is... considerably less so. That way of viewing things brings into perspective the major moral issue that is being called into question whenever this trope comes up.

Spoiler: juxtaposition of voluntary Vs. imposed sacrifice

With these things in mind, it might even be an interesting thing in some writing to bring up these two types of sacrificing the few to the benefit of the many. The heroic self-sacrifice Vs. the brutal imposed sacrifice. This difference of choice really frames these ideas in two separate and very different lights that we just instinctively know are different at a primal level. In terms of writing a piece that calls these concepts into question, one could bring up both scenarios and even compare them to one another.

As for what statement you make with these two scenarios, that is entirely up to the individual author. And, I am certain the audience will have their own thoughts with such a deep topic, to which an author may want to be cautioned away from making too strong a statement on this issue. But, it is a tool to allow an author to better analyze the idea and force the audience to take a better look at it as well.

 

[RepresentingWrath]

I can't see any flaw in Mr. Spock's logic.

 

[NotaNuffian]

We see this theme coming up a lot in stories. One famous example of late would be The Last of Us, in which the game's final challenge in the scenario is whether to let the girl you've been escorting the entire game be killed and dissected to find out why she's immune to the zombie virus and potentially save all of humanity, or fight to save her and keep her alive.

In Star Trek, meanwhile, Spock would famously say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" as though it were his mantra, pushing it as a standard of logic that it is preferable to sacrifice the few to benefit the many, and to do anything else is a decision couched in emotion.

Fictional scenarios like the above repeat themselves again and again in fiction, often with it taken to the extreme of sacrificing the one to benefit all of humanity or even the entire survival of the world itself.

This is a trope we really could analyze to death. I have my thoughts on it, but I will put them in spoilers for you to read or not. Meanwhile, I will toss it to you guys for you to share your thoughts as well.

Spoiler: early days of this trope

This trope harkens back to older days in which there is some form of ritual human sacrifice the hero has to rescue the sacrificial victim from. Our modern versions of it have turned it from an angry or avaricious cruel god or demented cult who's claiming the life, a clear evil that has to be fought back, to a far more morally difficult scenario of a medical disease that needs to be stopped or a non-sentient magical force that needs to be stabilized. This makes it a far more difficult question to answer, and also has the interesting side-consequence of pushing the trope into territory that is more relevant to the human experience.

Spoiler: the logical flaw of sacrificing the few

On a macro-scale, do you sacrifice the one to the benefit of the many? It is a difficult question. Mr. Spock's logic would say "yes" every time, but often Captain Kirk would directly oppose this logic of Spock in order to do the right thing.

There's also a flaw in Mr. Spock's logic of the time that our society hadn't managed to grapple with and unveil until fairly recently. It is true that, in an isolated scenario, it makes logical sense to sacrifice the one to benefit the many. However, if you keep sacrificing the one over and over again throughout a large iteration of scenarios, suddenly you have created something akin to a death cult that will continuously oppress all of the individual "ones" in the group to supposedly benefit the "many." But, once all of those "many" have been sacrificed through repeated iterations of this scenario, you are not actually benefiting the "many" any more. So, you have to take a stand against this reasoning at some point, and it might as well be right at the beginning when the first "one" or "few" are about to be sacrificed on the alter of "benefiting the many."

Spoiler: the heroism of voluntary self-sacrifice

There is, however, one scenario where this entire trope is turned on it's head. The heroic self-sacrifice is also an iteration of the one being sacrificed to save the many. However, we often see this version of it in an entirely different light. When it is an innocent who is chosen by others to be sacrificed, that's bad. However, when someone steps up to be the sacrifice on their own terms, it becomes heroic.

This is especially the case when the hero is fighting off a clear threat than means to destroy the people standing behind them. A hero might fight to single-handedly push back a hoard of enemies, knowing they are going to die. They might throw themselves on a grenade to save their comrades. They might volunteer to donate a kidney to save someone's life. Whatever the case, the difference of voluntarily stepping up to aid others is seen as heroic, where as forced sacrifice is... considerably less so. That way of viewing things brings into perspective the major moral issue that is being called into question whenever this trope comes up.

Spoiler: juxtaposition of voluntary Vs. imposed sacrifice

With these things in mind, it might even be an interesting thing in some writing to bring up these two types of sacrificing the few to the benefit of the many. The heroic self-sacrifice Vs. the brutal imposed sacrifice. This difference of choice really frames these ideas in two separate and very different lights that we just instinctively know are different at a primal level. In terms of writing a piece that calls these concepts into question, one could bring up both scenarios and even compare them to one another.

As for what statement you make with these two scenarios, that is entirely up to the individual author. And, I am certain the audience will have their own thoughts with such a deep topic, to which an author may want to be cautioned away from making too strong a statement on this issue. But, it is a tool to allow an author to better analyze the idea and force the audience to take a better look at it as well.

Not to mention when you throw in your personal relations into the mix and all of a sudden, this trolley question is completely screwed way beyond than it should.

For example, sacrifice your loved ones to save a bunch of strangers such as the world. When I seen such stories in fictions, all that came up in my head was "is the guy mental?"

I mean, if I get to choose a life of stranger that I never know and will know versus my family, I can live with that life being taken. Maybe I get sleepless, maybe I start more charities or maybe I can find ways to cope and forget. If in inverse however, no matter how many lives will be saved if my mother dies, I would rather watch the world die instead.

For me, I don't really see the problem as many vs few, but more of us vs them.

PS. please no "who to save, mother or wife" question. I hate those questions since I was young because I get grilled by no matter my choice.

PPS. What is few and what is many is also a good question to ask. Would you sacrifice one Samaritan for X amount of bad people? Would you sacrifice the handicap in order to let the pack live in an apocalypse?

 

[Ilikewaterkusa]

We see this theme coming up a lot in stories. One famous example of late would be The Last of Us, in which the game's final challenge in the scenario is whether to let the girl you've been escorting the entire game be killed and dissected to find out why she's immune to the zombie virus and potentially save all of humanity, or fight to save her and keep her alive.

In Star Trek, meanwhile, Spock would famously say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" as though it were his mantra, pushing it as a standard of logic that it is preferable to sacrifice the few to benefit the many, and to do anything else is a decision couched in emotion.

Fictional scenarios like the above repeat themselves again and again in fiction, often with it taken to the extreme of sacrificing the one to benefit all of humanity or even the entire survival of the world itself.

This is a trope we really could analyze to death. I have my thoughts on it, but I will put them in spoilers for you to read or not. Meanwhile, I will toss it to you guys for you to share your thoughts as well.

Spoiler: early days of this trope

This trope harkens back to older days in which there is some form of ritual human sacrifice the hero has to rescue the sacrificial victim from. Our modern versions of it have turned it from an angry or avaricious cruel god or demented cult who's claiming the life, a clear evil that has to be fought back, to a far more morally difficult scenario of a medical disease that needs to be stopped or a non-sentient magical force that needs to be stabilized. This makes it a far more difficult question to answer, and also has the interesting side-consequence of pushing the trope into territory that is more relevant to the human experience.

Spoiler: the logical flaw of sacrificing the few

On a macro-scale, do you sacrifice the one to the benefit of the many? It is a difficult question. Mr. Spock's logic would say "yes" every time, but often Captain Kirk would directly oppose this logic of Spock in order to do the right thing.

There's also a flaw in Mr. Spock's logic of the time that our society hadn't managed to grapple with and unveil until fairly recently. It is true that, in an isolated scenario, it makes logical sense to sacrifice the one to benefit the many. However, if you keep sacrificing the one over and over again throughout a large iteration of scenarios, suddenly you have created something akin to a death cult that will continuously oppress all of the individual "ones" in the group to supposedly benefit the "many." But, once all of those "many" have been sacrificed through repeated iterations of this scenario, you are not actually benefiting the "many" any more. So, you have to take a stand against this reasoning at some point, and it might as well be right at the beginning when the first "one" or "few" are about to be sacrificed on the alter of "benefiting the many."

Spoiler: the heroism of voluntary self-sacrifice

There is, however, one scenario where this entire trope is turned on it's head. The heroic self-sacrifice is also an iteration of the one being sacrificed to save the many. However, we often see this version of it in an entirely different light. When it is an innocent who is chosen by others to be sacrificed, that's bad. However, when someone steps up to be the sacrifice on their own terms, it becomes heroic.

This is especially the case when the hero is fighting off a clear threat than means to destroy the people standing behind them. A hero might fight to single-handedly push back a hoard of enemies, knowing they are going to die. They might throw themselves on a grenade to save their comrades. They might volunteer to donate a kidney to save someone's life. Whatever the case, the difference of voluntarily stepping up to aid others is seen as heroic, where as forced sacrifice is... considerably less so. That way of viewing things brings into perspective the major moral issue that is being called into question whenever this trope comes up.

Spoiler: juxtaposition of voluntary Vs. imposed sacrifice

With these things in mind, it might even be an interesting thing in some writing to bring up these two types of sacrificing the few to the benefit of the many. The heroic self-sacrifice Vs. the brutal imposed sacrifice. This difference of choice really frames these ideas in two separate and very different lights that we just instinctively know are different at a primal level. In terms of writing a piece that calls these concepts into question, one could bring up both scenarios and even compare them to one another.

As for what statement you make with these two scenarios, that is entirely up to the individual author. And, I am certain the audience will have their own thoughts with such a deep topic, to which an author may want to be cautioned away from making too strong a statement on this issue. But, it is a tool to allow an author to better analyze the idea and force the audience to take a better look at it as well.

You don’t actually when to choose between the two if you think about it hard enough. Just create a third position

 

[IdleYoungMaster]

I have seen this moral dilemma in a certain anime (Fate/Zero). That anime shows the utilitarian side of consequentialism more, though it helped me understand both sides better. The way I see it, the few vs many dilemma can be simply expressed as "objective (many)" vs "subjective (few)". If you are a properly functional human, it's most likely that you'll choose your relatives instead of the world.
Also, Fate/Zero showed the flaw of utilitarianism which is, interestingly, similar to the flaw in Mr. Spock's logic. From the moment you choose to sacrifice the few to save the many, you would fall into an endless loop (dilemma), continuously choosing to kill the few until the "many" does not matter anymore.

You can see the moral dilemma (the boat problem) for yourself here:

"There are 501 people left in the world on 2 boats. One boat has 300 passengers and the other has 200 passengers and you. Both boats are at capacity. At the same time both boats begin to sink due to mechanical problems. Only you can fix them, but you only have the equipment to fix one boat. So which do you fix? The boat you are on or the boat with more passengers?

If you pick the boat with 300 passengers the 200 passengers of your current boat will try to stop you, and you won't be able to leave until killing all of them. So now what do you do?

In the show, Kiritsugu didn't answer but the grail turned his own logic on him and knew he would kill the 200 personally to save the 300.

Then, at a later time the 300 passengers have relocated to 2 new boats. One boat has 200 passengers and the other has been 101 passengers including you. Both are at capacity. The same mechanical problem occurs and you are forced to pick knowing that if you choose the 200, the 100 will try to stop you and you'll have to kill them.

In the show, the grail once again selects the answer that Kiritsugu knows he would have picked and shows him having killed the 100 to save the 200.

Kiritsugu, finally understanding the flaw in his ideals and the evil nature of the grail, uses his command spells to force his summoned spirit to destroy it. Losing everything in his life chasing a flawed dream. This was pretty awesome to me. The problem is designed to impress the fact that you can't save someone without not saving someone else."

Source:

Spoiler: Source

https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/7hherx

PS: I borrowed this quote since I'm lazy to type everything. Also, you might find the boat problem similar to the trolley problem in moral dilemma.

 

[NotaNuffian]

You don’t actually when to choose between the two if you think about it hard enough. Just create a third position

Yeah well, like Kimbee said to Alphonse.

 

[georgelee5786]

I can't see any flaw in Mr. Spock's logic.

I'm with Sailus. Sacrificing one man to save two is the objectively correct decision. Though, the death of the one man is still tragic

 

[gaylolis]

My characters are kinda selfish. Between the needs of many vs the few, their personal needs is their god. They never felt like they owe humanity anything. Instead, they focus to better themselves so they wouldn't be chained by such things.

I'm personally not a fan of such situations either. So I never made them a Hero or tasked with a grand design. They're mostly just someone trying to get by, in order to live the way they wanted.

 

[Daitengu]

There is only a moral issue when it involves choosing FOR others. Spock has usually sacrificed himself to uphold his belief. Which is different than choosing to kill others regardless of their thoughts and desires.

At least that was old Spock. Dunno about the new angsty version.

Also the Last of Us decision was dumb as bricks to me. There was no reason to dissect the girl, when just blood work would do. You could tell that was written by people who don't know jack about medicine or biology.

The God Emperor Leto of the Dune series very much sacrificed himself and trillions over thousands of years to save the human race. I found it to be more thought provoking in execution over Fate/zero as destroying the grail was the answer to saving the most lives anyway.

 

[IdleYoungMaster]

The God Emperor Leto of the Dune series very much sacrificed himself and trillions over thousands of years to save the human race. I found it to be more thought provoking in execution over Fate/zero as destroying the grail was the answer to saving the most lives anyway

You're right, destroying the grail is the best way out. Still, I appreciate the thoughts and processes behind it as it was my first true (in-depth) exposure to moral dilemmas.
PS: I don't know who is that God Emperor (as I only know the one from 40k), so I can't tell which one is better.

 

[NotaNuffian]

You're right, destroying the grail is the best way out. Still, I appreciate the thoughts and processes behind it as it was my first true (in-depth) exposure to moral dilemmas.
PS: I don't know who is that God Emperor (as I only know the one from 40k), so I can't tell which one is better.

The 40K one is a child abusing corpse that created the most racist empire mankind has ever got to offer and is on forced life support where he is fed souls while serving as a lighthouse/ all-you-can-eat buffet sign to the xenos.

No contest for Dune God Emperor.

There is only a moral issue when it involves choosing FOR others. Spock has usually sacrificed himself to uphold his belief. Which is different than choosing to kill others regardless of their thoughts and desires.

At least that was old Spock. Dunno about the new angsty version.

Also the Last of Us decision was dumb as bricks to me. There was no reason to dissect the girl, when just blood work would do. You could tell that was written by people who don't know jack about medicine or biology.

The God Emperor Leto of the Dune series very much sacrificed himself and trillions over thousands of years to save the human race. I found it to be more thought provoking in execution over Fate/zero as destroying the grail was the answer to saving the most lives anyway.

So by that logic, killing oneself for the sake of others is badass?

Yeah, it kinda is. Kudos to the firefighters and "essential workers"* for their sacrifice, risking their lives for most people, including me, that are not worth it.

*I hate the phrase "essential workers" because it is a stupid title that puts people up pedestal with empty praises, forces them with moral blackmailing and shoves them aside once they are no longer "essential".

 

[CupcakeNinja]

We see this theme coming up a lot in stories. One famous example of late would be The Last of Us, in which the game's final challenge in the scenario is whether to let the girl you've been escorting the entire game be killed and dissected to find out why she's immune to the zombie virus and potentially save all of humanity, or fight to save her and keep her alive.

In Star Trek, meanwhile, Spock would famously say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" as though it were his mantra, pushing it as a standard of logic that it is preferable to sacrifice the few to benefit the many, and to do anything else is a decision couched in emotion.

Fictional scenarios like the above repeat themselves again and again in fiction, often with it taken to the extreme of sacrificing the one to benefit all of humanity or even the entire survival of the world itself.

This is a trope we really could analyze to death. I have my thoughts on it, but I will put them in spoilers for you to read or not. Meanwhile, I will toss it to you guys for you to share your thoughts as well.

Spoiler: early days of this trope

This trope harkens back to older days in which there is some form of ritual human sacrifice the hero has to rescue the sacrificial victim from. Our modern versions of it have turned it from an angry or avaricious cruel god or demented cult who's claiming the life, a clear evil that has to be fought back, to a far more morally difficult scenario of a medical disease that needs to be stopped or a non-sentient magical force that needs to be stabilized. This makes it a far more difficult question to answer, and also has the interesting side-consequence of pushing the trope into territory that is more relevant to the human experience.

Spoiler: the logical flaw of sacrificing the few

On a macro-scale, do you sacrifice the one to the benefit of the many? It is a difficult question. Mr. Spock's logic would say "yes" every time, but often Captain Kirk would directly oppose this logic of Spock in order to do the right thing.

There's also a flaw in Mr. Spock's logic of the time that our society hadn't managed to grapple with and unveil until fairly recently. It is true that, in an isolated scenario, it makes logical sense to sacrifice the one to benefit the many. However, if you keep sacrificing the one over and over again throughout a large iteration of scenarios, suddenly you have created something akin to a death cult that will continuously oppress all of the individual "ones" in the group to supposedly benefit the "many." But, once all of those "many" have been sacrificed through repeated iterations of this scenario, you are not actually benefiting the "many" any more. So, you have to take a stand against this reasoning at some point, and it might as well be right at the beginning when the first "one" or "few" are about to be sacrificed on the alter of "benefiting the many."

Spoiler: the heroism of voluntary self-sacrifice

There is, however, one scenario where this entire trope is turned on it's head. The heroic self-sacrifice is also an iteration of the one being sacrificed to save the many. However, we often see this version of it in an entirely different light. When it is an innocent who is chosen by others to be sacrificed, that's bad. However, when someone steps up to be the sacrifice on their own terms, it becomes heroic.

This is especially the case when the hero is fighting off a clear threat than means to destroy the people standing behind them. A hero might fight to single-handedly push back a hoard of enemies, knowing they are going to die. They might throw themselves on a grenade to save their comrades. They might volunteer to donate a kidney to save someone's life. Whatever the case, the difference of voluntarily stepping up to aid others is seen as heroic, where as forced sacrifice is... considerably less so. That way of viewing things brings into perspective the major moral issue that is being called into question whenever this trope comes up.

Spoiler: juxtaposition of voluntary Vs. imposed sacrifice

With these things in mind, it might even be an interesting thing in some writing to bring up these two types of sacrificing the few to the benefit of the many. The heroic self-sacrifice Vs. the brutal imposed sacrifice. This difference of choice really frames these ideas in two separate and very different lights that we just instinctively know are different at a primal level. In terms of writing a piece that calls these concepts into question, one could bring up both scenarios and even compare them to one another.

As for what statement you make with these two scenarios, that is entirely up to the individual author. And, I am certain the audience will have their own thoughts with such a deep topic, to which an author may want to be cautioned away from making too strong a statement on this issue. But, it is a tool to allow an author to better analyze the idea and force the audience to take a better look at it as well.

ah, that old nutshell, eh? I've heard people use all kinds of arguments over that one. What's "moral" or even just whats most "logical" but i've never cared about those. Morals are so damn inconsistent and they change with the times. While logic seems like the right choice and probably is for the whole.

But i aint a very moral or logical person. I really wouldnt mind the entire world going to shit as long as me and those I care about can be safe and happy. Like, why the fuck would i care about random strangers? I might help out in an emergency but i dont find their lives more important than my own close friends or family so if it ever became a choice between one or the other i'd always choose the latter no matter the circumstance.

Ya could tell me to choose between the lives of a hundred infants or my own sister and i'd just start digging a hundred tiny lil graves. I'm not sure whether that means i lack empathy or just have a very clear value system but since i dont like to believe i'm a borderline sociopath so i'll go with the second.

To be honest i feel most people would agree with my thinking on this tho. Humans are very selfish, i dont believe a majority would ACTUALLY choose to save the many over their precious few if put into such a situation. If someone told me they would, i'd consider it lip service until they proved it. Since you know, people like being perceived as good and selfless.

I'm with Sailus. Sacrificing one man to save two is the objectively correct decision. Though, the death of the one man is still tragic

whether its killing off one or a thousand, doesnt make a difference in my opinion. At least i dont feel it actually has any moral or karmic value in terms of which is "worse". Either way you're choosing one over the other and killing off a person. It really just depends on who you care for more and whether you can live with the consequences of your choice. I still feel like you're probably gonna go to hell or be punished in some way in the after life, if you're the religious type at least and believe in such things. I aint, so i can afford to be more selfish

 

[LilRora]

One death is a tradegy, a million is a statistic.

This quote would probably be my simplified answer to the moral dilemma Jemini is on about. Given choice of saving someone I care about vs saving a lot of people I don't even know, most people would choose the first, even if their conscience didn't give them a second of peace afterwards.

The fact is that saving the other people would be objectively correct doesn't really matter in this case. It's the people's emotions that truly affect their choices.

If the choice is between less people you don't know vs more people you don't know, you have one statistic vs another statistic, hence no emotions involved. You will obviously choose to save more people, unless some other factors are introduced.

In my personal opinion arguing which option is correct or is better is simply ridiculous, because the answer will differ for each person who is given the choice. Even if the person who saved his sister over a hundred newborns is seen as crazy, psycho, heartless, and whatever offensive words people would come up with, from his point of view it was the correct decision, because for him his sister holds larger value than the newborns.

The same can be applied not only to saving people, but also to their needs and everything else. You give to those that hold greater value to you, you don't give to those you deem worthless. And it's not even about material value. It can be because of emotions, hard logic, profit, morals, or faith, however you define them. All those reasons are perfectly alright for the person making the choice.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

PS. please no "who to save, mother or wife" question. I hate those questions since I was young because I get grilled by no matter my choice.

PPS. What is few and what is many is also a good question to ask. Would you sacrifice one Samaritan for X amount of bad people? Would you sacrifice the handicap in order to let the pack live in an apocalypse?

my mother is a real bitch. I love her, but she's very toxic and mean and lived her life already so i'd choose her to get killed over my wife

these kind of questions are easy, i dunno why people find them so hard. I can rank who i love most to least in my family and friend circle right now pretty quickly and for those kind of questions, all i'd gotta do is use that list.

the other ones are also pretty easy. Looking at it on paper, you can inherently know whats the most logical choice. Only when interpersonal relations come into play does it change.

When that happens it doesnt matter whats the most logical and beneficial for the whole. The question is, "who do you value more?" Maybe you dont like that Samaritan. Maybe those "bad" people are longtime friends who might've done others wrong but never you.

 

[LilRora]

Also the Last of Us decision was dumb as bricks to me. There was no reason to dissect the girl, when just blood work would do. You could tell that was written by people who don't know jack about medicine or biology.

That thing is so ridiculously common it's baffling. I've seen a manga where a scientist in futuristic world wanted to dissect a guy's brain to learn about it, despite the fact that neuroimaging was invented a whole damn century ago and has deveoped enough for us to study brain activity in good detail, not to mention what would be possible in fifty years or more.

 

[StrongArm]

This is a good topic.

I think this question is best answered in a case by case basis. Do you sacrifice the girl in 'last of us' to save the human race. Definitely, its easy math. Do you sacrifice your own life so a bunch of randos can live like in 'Saw' ? Hell naw, i dont know those randos! Do you jump on the grenade so your comrades can live? Or do you throw the nearest fat guy on it?

One thing i can say that i'm tired of in fiction is a leader character (usually the protagonist) not making a proper decision to protect the few or the many, and somehow it all magically works out. Their bad decisions are never punished by murphys law. I like to see consequences

 

[ThrillingHuman]

I like a spin on this, but not it. What if the many are not worth the sacrifice of the few?

I saw a video on YT with a hypothetical scenario of humans being ruled by a dragon that demanded sacrifices from them - yada yada, a metaphor for death - where at the end humans killed the dragon through the use of TeChNOlogY.

What I felt was, if taken literally not metaphorically, was it worth it? We had an immortal dragon and instead we got a bunch of stupid meatbags that will rot in less than 100 years.

Yeah, it could be argued that it acted to support the human civilization (not worth it anyway) but even with the dragon, it was ok and it's not like such a major change to the environment will be good in the short or long terms.

Or scenarios where the sacrifice is completely unrelated to the beneficiaries. I am pretty sure that nobody will like being sacrificed for the sake of some unrelated nobodies even if they do not mind veing sacrificed for their own people.

 

[Jemini]

I'm with Sailus. Sacrificing one man to save two is the objectively correct decision. Though, the death of the one man is still tragic

As mentioned. The problem is not in the single scenario instance, where you sacrifice the few to save the many one time. The problem arises when you repeat the scenario several times. If you sacrifice the few to save the many twice, it's still not as much of a problem. But, if you sacrifice the few to save the many thousands of times, you wind up sacrificing your entire population as a consequence.

The flaw is that, when this utilitarian philosophy is repeated an indefinite number of times, you wind up sacrificing the many to save the few instead, those few usually being the decision makers who were choosing who was sacrificed.

 

[TASTYLEADPAINT]

In a fictional sense it a really good trope. And its a great way of developing conflict for the characters involved. In a realistic sense its stupid because I feel like for most if us we would put the few over the many. I mean if we use the last of us example. If one our close family members where in the same scenario. We would all probably refuse to let them be killed or infected to find out why.

Tldr: great in fiction not really great in a realistic sense

 

[Jemini]

I like a spin on this, but not it. What if the many are not worth the sacrifice of the few?

I saw a video on YT with a hypothetical scenario of humans being ruled by a dragon that demanded sacrifices from them - yada yada, a metaphor for death - where at the end humans killed the dragon through the use of TeChNOlogY.

What I felt was, if taken literally not metaphorically, was it worth it? We had an immortal dragon and instead we got a bunch of stupid meatbags that will rot in less than 100 years.

Yeah, it could be argued that it acted to support the human civilization (not worth it anyway) but even with the dragon, it was ok and it's not like such a major change to the environment will be good in the short or long terms.

Or scenarios where the sacrifice is completely unrelated to the beneficiaries. I am pretty sure that nobody will like being sacrificed for the sake of some unrelated nobodies even if they do not mind veing sacrificed for their own people.

This makes me think of a short story called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas." It was basically a short story that was vague and unspecific about all but 3 things. 1. Omelas is an absolute paradise of a city to live in. 2. The only reason they can live in this paradise is because a child is locked in a dungeon and abused on a daily basis, and every single person in the city is very much aware of this fact. 3. Some of the people can't stand knowing this and decide to leave Omelas.

It never says why or how these first two points are related. It never specifies how this child being abused supports the city in this paradise state. It also never even entertains the option of someone trying to save the child. Overall, the piece is incredibly unsatisfying. However, if you read it, it has a strange way of sticking in your mind and realizing what it's really trying to get across in metaphor. All these things are left vague so it can be a stand-in and commentary on how stuff like this goes on in the real world. In the real world, we really do have people who are abused for the supposed benefit of others, but the link between why this person has to be abused and how this benefits others is never really spelled out. In fact, upon scrutiny, it always turns out that this supposition that the person needs to be abused is false in the real world.

It's not specific about any of it because it doesn't need to be. This scenario plays out so often and in so many ways in the real world that the truth of the story really does resonate. It just seems like a lame and uninteresting story when you first read it, and then you see it happening in the real world for the first time and it rattles you to your core as your mind drifts back to that one time you read that one uninteresting short-story.

(link to the story for any who are interested.)

https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf