Would you sacrifice a life to save ten?

[Reasonable]

Khuutra said:

Reasonable said:
If you mean would I issue and order in a situation like that, then yes I would. I'm assuming, given the context, that you're asking whether I as the chief would order one of my firemen to enter a building to save 10 but probably give his life in the process.

A similar analogy would be a combat situation - where an officer orders men to perform an action with a favourable outcome - taking out 10 enemy soldiers, at the loss of their life.

So yes, if I was in the senior position, and I felt I was within acceptable bounds of asking my men to do their job, I would - even if it meant the loss of their life.

To the best of my knowledge, you never give orders to that effect if the person in question will certainly die, because dying tends to mean failure, particularly for fire men.

Actually, while I'm on that, even if we just look at the exchange of lives as another form of economic expression, then sending a fireman to die in order to save ten does not make sense, becaus he can save dozens more throughout the years if he continues his career. The greatest good a public servant can do is to continue living and to continue saving lives, but their own lives do have to be preserved.

More, can we try to weigh the value of human life, trying to say that some lives musut be worth more than others, if only through numbers? How about through potential good done? How about actions up to that point in time? By assigning value to life, are we not cheapening it, making it smaller than it is, trying to rid ourselves of tragedy by quantifying what should or should not be done in any given situation? I reject this. I have neither the moral fortitude nor the clarity of vision to claim that I would be able to balance the scales.

I was actually owning up to the fact that I'd be comfortable making that choice, not judging whether it was right or wrong.  Guess you better hope you never end up working for me!