"One misty, moisty morning, when cloudy was the weather....", to quote an old nursery rhyme and the inimitable Maddy Prior and Steeleye Span, I found myself cogitating a centuries-old ethical and moral dilemma; what I choose to amuse myself with on cold winter mornings should not concern you except insofar as you read this blog. A conundrum probably as old as thought itself, as old as the days when human beings begun to have the time to think of such things, such imaginings; a time when they were no longer solely preoccupied with finding shelter for the night or for putting food onto the table (or at least what passed for a table in our neolithic past); the very first stirrings of philosophy and the birth of 'logos', logic and rational, well argued dialogue, whether internally, within your own mind, or with others, in fierce debate. The dilemma, couched in apposite, modern terms, is this:
You are asked to make a choice. Your partner, or a dear and well loved son or daughter, is held hostage. Either the loved one dies a quick and mercifully painless death or your entire nation will explode in the immense fireball of a nuclear holocaust, killing every living thing; however your loved one and you will be saved.
How do you choose? Can you make a rational choice? Or are you simply a slave to your emotions, a pawn in the game between your altruism and your selfish, all too human, mode of thinking. I think that no-one would be able to honestly assert which route, which 'Forking Path', they might choose, without actually being presented with the dilemma in the real world. It is a dilemma in which there is, in a very real sense, no 'right' answer; no solution which can be immune to refutation; a veritable 'Kobayashi Maru'*.
Do 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, the one' ?** This is similar to that age old question asked of lovers and spouses throughout the centuries: "Would you die to protect me?" However that question is a much easier one to answer because there are only two lives involved and one of them is your own. (Anyone who thinks that a lasting, loving relationship will be founded upon the answer 'No' to the foregoing question definitely has a lot left to learn about people and the nature, and the vagaries, of love.)
The crux of the original question to which you must provide an answer is, that given your own personal safety is not in jeopardy whichever option you choose, what rationale, emotion, mode of thinking, can you possibly use to divine an answer, however inadequate.
This is not so esoteric, nor so intractable, a question as it might seem; a question which only need be considered by learnèd treatises concerning the whichnesses of the why and the wherefore, written by moral philosophers with too much time, and money, on their hands and who are way too detached from the real world to have any significance.*** This fundamental problem is one that we deal with every day of our waking lives; all that is changed in our problem today is that the 'stakes have been raised'. Every decision we make, whether mundane or life changing, is weighed in the balance of a crude and mental 'cost benefit analysis'; do I shop at Tesco or Sainsbury; am I committed to this person enough to want to embark on the quest to raise our child with them; should I save for my old age or should I just make hay while the sun shines and 'que sera sera'; do I take that poorly paid job which I would love or do I stick at my well paid employment which I detest?
Each person will, ultimately, answer these, and a host of other questions, with a slightly different answer depending upon their psychological or emotional make-up; their life experiences; the weight they give to logic versus emotion or vice versa; the problem today is no different.
My father, an experienced and able player, whose catchphrase was, 'don't play poker unless you can afford to lose' was perpetually at a loss in determining how he 'knew', in a statistically significant fashion, whether someone was bluffing or not, whether to continue to wager or whether to fold; a gift which I have not, regrettably, inherited. In the same way, none of us can ''know', 'gnōthi seauton'**** and the Delphic Temple of Apollo notwithstanding, how we make the choices that we do, merely that we do and, should chance befall, you are presented with our little dilemma today, I am sure that you will make the right choice, the only one YOU can live with, whatever the rest of the planet may say, or think.
How would I choose? I'd like to think that my love would be stronger than the hold 60,000,000 faceless and nameless people have over me but I have a sneaking suspicion that I would save the nation and suffer the pain and loss of my belovèd; not for the accolades of a grateful nation but merely because I have a propensity to martyrdom.
* A reference to 'The wrath of Khan', the second and the undoubtedly the best of the movies made under the 'Star Trek' banner.
** Another reference to the same film; Spock's selfless, and ultimately deadly, sacrifice to save the Enterprise and her crew.
*** Think Herbert Marcuse!
**** 'Know thyself', often attributed to Socrates, but I believe (Pausanius' quote from) the Delphi inscription is earlier.
The propensity to martyrdom line was brilliant....
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