without bigging myself up here, i have a story for you.. i gave up my chance to go to university so that i could lend my mum £700 a few months ago so she could pay the rent.. because she kept dipping into the rent money to buy herself cigarettes and clothes. then i decided to work really hard so i COULD go to uni, i had to get a summer job and i had to go extend my overdraft and take out a credit card to ensure that i was able to go, and now im in shitloads of debt and i don't feel good about myself, because i worry about my financial situation and my mum still smokes and hasn't paid back anything yet and still spends money like its free. so there have been absolutely no rewards for me out of this whole thing.

so believe it or not, there ARE people out there who do selfless acts.

No there are NOT. At least not in that story.

Why did you do it? It's obvious that you care deeply for your mother. You couldn't bear the thought of going to university knowing that you had the chance to help but didn't. You wouldn't be able to live with yourself. At least partially, you did what you did so you could avoid feeling guilty.

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!

i've never been that close to or particularly fond of my mother. she doesn't work, she moans a lot and she's caused me a lot of hassle since i was about 12.

i didnt do it to avoid feeling guilty. if im being perfectly honest she should have sorted out her own problems. i helped her because she needed help, its that simple.

have some faith in humanity, Johann. please

....Clearly!

Oh, please.

If you're not that fond of your mother, it makes it even worse.

"She needed help so I helped?" If you had no emotions at all about the situation you simply wouldn't do it. Do you need proof? Okay, here it goes: You telling this story to a total stranger on the internet makes me think that you're either proud to have done this and feel good about yourself, or you're disappointed that she ended up not sorting out her problems. Maybe part of the reward you were expecting was to see her get back on her feet, and now that she hasn't you feel a little cheated, I seriously don't know. Either way, you're not completely emotionally indiferent to the situation. You wouldn't do this if you were.