legalacidity's musings

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Throw the Baby To the Wolves

It was a bright and sunny morning and my first year Torts class was abuzz with...aw, screw it, we weren't abuzz with anything. But our professor presented us with an interesting hypo:

"You find yourself in a sleigh being pulled by a horse. With you is an infant child, whom you are holding. Chasing your slow-moving sleigh is a pack of wolves who will soon overtake you and eat both you and the baby. You can either throw the baby or yourself overboard, thus lightening the load on the sled; the problem with throwing yourself overboard to save the baby is that the baby can't drive the sleigh and will surely die. The third option is to let the wolves catch you and eat you both so that you die together. What do you do?"

Now, keep in mind that the professor gave us absolutes, as in no way could the baby make it to safety if you jumped out of the sleigh, the wolves would definitely kill both of you, you couldn't fight the wolves off, etc. Everyone in the class that she called on was either too perplexed to answer or said that they'd never kill a child, blah blah blah. I finally tired of this stupidity and raised my hand. The professor asked me what I would do.

Me: "I'd chuck the baby overboard."
Her: "What? Really? Why?"
Me: "Well, in the other two options, we both die. I'd rather at least one person, ME, live than both me and the baby die."
Her: "Wow. So you'd just kill the baby?"
Me: "Yep."
Rest of class: Those that weren't asleep were split evenly between amused and shocked.

It just doesn't seem that shocking to me. Wouldn't you chuck the baby so that at least someone could live? The greater good, right? Instead of everyone dying, someone lives! In today's times, I could chuck the baby, survive, and then start a foundation to raise money for the baby's family, or to hunt down and eradicate wolves, or make it to where each sleigh would have at least two horses pulling it so that people wouldn't be threatened by packs of carniverous wolves. Of course, the baby's family would blame President Bush, and Kanye West would say "Legal Acidity hates babies."

The funny part is that the girl I'm now with, who I met in law school, was in that class with me and said that my comment about throwing the baby to the wolves almost made her not want to date me. Of course, she now sees the logic in it and totally agrees with me. Or so she says.

12:06 p.m. - 2005-09-21

Talk Back: so far, 1 people have taken the plunge

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