Moral Dilemma #10 - Concentration Camp
 

10. Concentration Camp

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?



Going to put these all in their own threads now

Source: Top 10 Moral Dilemmas

Oh, they are interesting, especially the pregnant woman one.

I'm only half way through, the only two I can answer so far are the one about the man who raped your daughter, I would let him rot in jail. And the one about the emergency worker, if it were my husband and another woman, I would save my husband, as even if he's been cheating, he's my sons dad

An extremely interesting read.

I might have read one wrongly though, the concentration camp one... so my son would still die even if I let a innocent victim die as well?

You should pick one and made a thread for it and get us all to give our decision, that would be more fun.

The first is not exactly the same but similar to 'Sophie's Choice'

I agree. Ok, let's discuss the first one:

10. Concentration Camp

You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?

I would not assist him in killing my son. People like him get off on power, and will inevitably do what they want anyway. You may end up assisting him to kill your son, then having to watch and/or assist him in killing someone else anyway. It seems like the kind of sadistic thing he would do. At the end of the day, he has all the power, and you have none, so any deaths would be on him.

I think I'd probably do it then kill myself afterwards

I see what you mean about Sophie's choice. Of course, both were her children in it, whereas this dilemma implies that one is your son, and one is a random other person.

PS. Can a mod move this to the debates section please? :)

oo eck i dont like this i feel awful now haha ming the merciless me, i would let the mistress in the car die, not having an affair then are they?.. hehehe

This is a really interesting thread, and as LostAlex says, maybe they could be done as individual threads, get some debates going?

For the first one I personally would refuse to kick the chair away, no matter what, I could never bring myself to do it.

I've just realised I've misread this...I thought it was several others, not just one...I don't think I could do it

I would kill my son. Harsh, but if he is going to die either way it would spare another life.

I think I would pull the chair away, if you have no doubt he'll kill your son and another person anyway then you might as well do it with the chance that you could at least save someone else's life

I'd have to unfortunately kill my son, yes he'd have a lot to live for, but if he was to die anyway, I'd at least spare another life.

I wouldn't kill my son, i'd attack the guard and hope they killed me before i had to see my son die, and then i'd welcome my son to heaven when he got there.

i wouldnt do it then ask someone to kill me

I don't know, I really don't think I could do it though

I enjoyed reading that, they're all very tough to decide upon!

Bearing in mind this type of thing happened at various camps during wwii I dont think it should be a topic for casual chat

This one is hard to decide upon. As you said, the guard seems like someone who kills people for the fun of it, I don't think I'd believe him if he said that me killing my son would save him killing someone else.. I mean, he's a guard at a concentration camp, he kills people for no reason all the time. And I certainly couldn't live with the guilt of being the one to kill my son. In this case, although I like to try and save as many lives as possible in these scenarios, the cause of death is unpredictable and untrustworthy so I think I'd choose to not take the chair away.

Nope, couldn't do it. I'd try and attack the guard with anything I could get my hands on. Except the chair. I would go down fighting.

I wouldn't give the man the satisfaction, given that I'd be in a concentration camp the situation would be grim for everyone so I wouldn't play the nazi's games since we'd all probably die regardless of whether we co-operated or not.