That depends... would dieing cause more than 10 lives to be lost? If I'm a fireman how many more poeple could I save if I live? So the question ins't about if you could give your life for 10... now if I was a bum and I had the chance sure... it's not like I'd be in the position again

I would never sacrifice myself to save anyone, not even to save Earth from the Empire and it's Death Star.
But if I could kill someone I disliked or never met before to save ten people I know and like, then hell the fuck yes.

The situation I always envisage for this is would you shoot an innocent person in the head if it would save nine other innocent people?

My answer is always no, I will not kill innocent people 'for the greater good' because doing things that way always leads to bad things. Humanity is sometimes better off if we allow our actions to be controlled by our emotions, ethics and morals rather than by cold logic.

I won't do it because I won't wish to feel partly responsible for anyone's death. If one of the 10 was someone I deeply cared about, I'd do it myself

pfft. I'd sacrifice 1 life to save 1 better life. Or 2 lives, whichever comes first.

Theoretically, I'd say yes. 10 innocents > 1 innocent. (coolestguyever's response was a funny way to put it)

I probably couldn't personally give the order for a guy to go out and sacrifice himself, though.

@trashleg: 
Not sure if you're still on the thread, just wanted to add that when people like Johann accuses you of being selfish, I don't think it's an insult - so for example, there isn't a need to ask for him to "have faith in humanity." I agree with his stance, so I'd say that everything I do is selfish, but I don't really see that as a problem. I'm simply happy if other people are happy (generally speaking), which leads me to participating in acts you would consider to be selfless.

Actually, Johann's earlier comment made me look up Psychological egoism / hedonism (never paid much attention to philosophy until recently), and they turned out to be things I generally believe in. Cool. Now I finally have names for this stuff...

to be fair if I could I'd kill off all human life... so maybe I don't belong in this discussion :p

Thanks for that. Hedonism doesn't have to be a bad thing.

I just backed off cuz I thought I was coming a little too strong.

c0rd, thank you, i understand ^_^ but its all good now ^_^ people do things for different reasons, i just thought Johann's claim that NOBODY does selfless acts was wrong. how can one judge all of humanity on the acts of the few he's met?

Maybe it's just me, but I find the lack of courage by some forumgoers discouraging if they were ever involved in such a scenario...

I'd find it to be an honor to expend my life by saving 10 other people.

However, would I force someone else to sacrifice their life to save 10 people? That's a little bit more difficult to answer...There are many scenarios to where that happens (as such in war).

Example: You are piloting the bomber that will drop the nuclear warheads on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In doing such, you will kill 200,000 innocent people (along with strategic targets). However, in doing such, you end the war that would otherwise rage on for another 1-2 years within the mainland, killing 2,000,000 innocent people and soldiers. Would you drop the bomb?