what would you do?

[pipinfort]

Surely one guard won`t be able to catch 10 other people............

[shillelagh]

stuff a sock in the baby's mouth ..

[Boeing Guy]

This interesting question was asked to uni students, but i wanna see wot ur answer is...
ur a german concentration camp guard. u understand that wot ur doin is wrong and feel bad about it. Therefore u help 10 prisoners escape, these include men, women and children. u managed to pass all but one other guard. once u've pass the final guard u and the prisoners are free. however, before u pass the final guard a baby prisoner starts crying. so ur choices are either let the baby cry and u all get caught and shot or kill the baby, succesfully pass the final guard and u plus 9 prisoners are free.

As for the uni, course or my english thats irrelevant

Maybe the reason you do not get any answers, is down to the simple fact you have a problem with the English (see the capital letter there!!!) language.

If you wish to be taken seriously, I suggest you learn English. I never went to University, just as well really.

If you want a answer watch Sophie's Choice, or Star Trek II the Wrath of Kahn. Both are going to give you a answer.
So logic dictates that you should smother the baby. Is that what you wanted to hear?
It may be hypothetical, but, I and many other Professionals live with the prospect of this choice every day, maybe it would have been better for the question to be modernised this way:

You are a First Officer of a Large passenger jet aircraft. You have 189 Passengers and 4 Cabin Crew on board. A terrorist is holding a gun to the head of a member of your cabin crew, demanding you let him into the flight deck. If you refuse he will kill them, then start on the passengers. Now you have a CCTV in the cabin, you can switch it off, so you won't see the resulting carnage. The question is this, do you open the door and allow the aircraft to be used as a ballistic weapon? or do you get it on the ground?

I would get it on the ground, probably never fly again and see a shrink for the rest of my life while trying not to become a alcoholic.

[kash]

Sorry for my typing errors, I was typing fast and didn't proof read it. Didn't know it was going to get "marked" like another piece of coursework! This was a question on ethics and morals. Just wanted to know what you would do rather than tell me what the question is about.

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by kash

u dont have a gun, i didnt say shoot the baby i sed kill the baby. As for the uni, course or my english thats irrelevant
no proper answers!

All this is pure crap, u dont have a gun, Stupid, all concentration camp guards were armed, an armed guard usually has a bayonet attached to his rifle.
No one can predict what they would do in such a situation until the event occurs, not every one reacts the same way, just because the person who posed the question has the answer doesn't make them right, he or she is just acting the clever bu**er.
Which university are you at ?, how the hell did you qualify ?, Calderstones would be a better place, there you would be amongst equals.

Retlaw

[Less]

Originally Posted by Boeing Guy

Star Trek II the Wrath of Kahn.

Awww! I was going to use that as an accusation against Gayle, it would have been something like this:-

Originally Posted by Gayle

Ok, sensible answer - this is a 'needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one' question. Is it better to let one person (baby) die for the good of the tribe?

Logically, the answer is 'yes' nine people plus the guard escaping and surviving is better than 10 people plus the guard being shot or imprisoned.

However, morally the answer is 'no' because to do that needs an intervention - i.e. killing the baby.

So your question is logic vs morals.

For me, personally, morals would win.

Gayle I didn't know you were a Trekkie.

Star Trek: The Wrath Of Khan=
Spock: That is wise. Were I to invoke logic, however, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Kirk: Or the one.

However I wouldn't put too much trust in such wisdom it is only make believe.

[Less]

Originally Posted by kash

Sorry for my typing errors, I was typing fast and didn't proof read it. Didn't know it was going to get "marked" like another piece of coursework! This was a question on ethics and morals. Just wanted to know what you would do rather than tell me what the question is about.

Not the sort of answer that would get you through your Sats exams never mind get a degree.

3/10 for effort, must try harder, wait outside my office with your trousers neatly folded over one arm for a damned good thrashing!

[Boeing Guy]

Kash, I have given you my answer to the question posed twice.....
My personal view in this is in black and white, BUT in case you did not see it here it is again...

So logic dictates that you should smother the baby

and also here, different question same choice:

I would get it on the ground, probably never fly again and see a shrink for the rest of my life while trying not to become a alcoholic

Glad I never went to uni

[Gayle]

Originally Posted by Less

Awww! I was going to use that as an accusation against Gayle, it would have been something like this:-



Gayle I didn't know you were a Trekkie.


However I wouldn't put too much trust in such wisdom it is only make believe.

Er, you can hardly use something 'against' me when it was a pretty obvious use of Star Trek mythology in the first place. And yes, would say that I am very familiar with Star Trek - real fans prefer to be known as Trekkers btw.

[Barrie Yates]

A number of options, just like the questions asked at Officer & Aircrew Selection Course. Make your choice and justify that choice by providing a sensible argument as to why you made that particular choice - each choice can usually be validated.

[entwisi]

No such thing as a right or wrong answer, only one you can justify and that meets your particular views.


I was asked a similar Q on a leadership course only it involved a cave full of people filling with water and I had to choose what order they came out knowing 2 would die. I 'shocked' people deliberately by my answer to prove the fuitility of the Q. My answer was to run a 'reality TV show where teh public got to vote on who got out and all proceeeds from the call revenue/advertising were given as compensation to the family of those who didn;ty make it. I argued in the review that my answer was equally if not more valid thgan one person making a decision as it pushed it into a democratic decision spreading the choice thinly over many many people and doing some good for those that 'lost'

[mattylad]

Had I been to Uni I might have learnt that its not wise to take a baby when trying to escape German Concentration camps as they tend to cry so it would have been better to make the baby sleepy.

I might also have learnt that it is now wrong to use examples that remind people of what the Germans did to the Jews, I might even be a Jew and take extreme offence at that question in the first place!

[Eric]

Originally Posted by kash

Sorry for my typing errors, I was typing fast and didn't proof read it. Didn't know it was going to get "marked" like another piece of coursework! This was a question on ethics and morals. Just wanted to know what you would do rather than tell me what the question is about.

It's a bullshlt question, pure empty rhetoric ... completely divorced from any real consequences that would follow the decision. It's the kind of cutsie little psychological, sociological game played by third rate academics on impressionable students. Ethics and morals are related to behaviour, not to idle speculation on a contrived dillema.

[Boeing Guy]

out of pure interest, Kash asks for our answers. He offers none of his own, I would be very interested to hear what he would have done in his hypothetical situation;.
So come on Kash, tell us?????

[Eric]

Originally Posted by kash

Sorry for my typing errors, I was typing fast and didn't proof read it. Didn't know it was going to get "marked" like another piece of coursework! This was a question on ethics and morals. Just wanted to know what you would do rather than tell me what the question is about.

Don't worry about being "marked"; it happens to everyone on here. All you need to do is develop a thick skin Having said that, I would suggest that it is very important to analyse the question. Not all questions are what they appear to be. And I do believe that one can get into "trouble", academically speaking, by assuming that questions are neutral. First, there is the question of the sympathetic guard ... reading Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" could lead you to question whether this mythical guard could exist ... and, if in the unlikely event that he did, whether he would act in the way the question states. The structural integrity of the question is already compromised, and we have yet to move beyond the idea of a sympathetic concentration camp guard.

If you want an answer: I would kill the kid; not out of any utilitarian principle, but to save my sorry ass