A Moral Dilemma

[Myasishchev]

I am currently reading "Shadow" by Karin Alvtegen. At one point in the book one female characters, Halina, brings up a scenario and asks a man his opinion of it.

It goes like this (you might have heard it or something similar before)

There is a river full of crocodiles. One needs a boat to cross it. Per lives on one side of the river. He loves Eva who lives on the other side of the river. One day Per comes down with a serious illness and he rings Eva and asks her to come and help him. He explains how sick he is and asks her to hurry. But Eva does not have a boat so she goes to Erik who lives on the same side of the river as she and who has a boat. She explains the situation to him and asks him to lend him the boat so she can row across and help Per.

Erik refuses to help Eva for free. He says she has to have sex with him first and then he will row her across the river.

Eva is upset, so she goes to Olof and tells him what Erik said. She wants Olof to come with her and talk some sense into Erik. However Olof doesn't want to get involved and asks her to leave. So Eva see no alternative but to do as Erik wants, and even though he is a dusgusting old man she has sex with him and then he rows her across the river.

Eva arrives at Per's house and tells him him what has happened. Per is furious that Eva had sex with Erik and throws her out. Eva then goes to Sven and tells him that she was forced to sex with Erik so she could help Per, who then throws her out. Sven flies into a rage and goes to Per and beats him up.

Halina then says

"What I want to know is which of them is most in the wrong. Grade them from 1 to 5, with the one who was most in the wrong a five"

So I ask people here to grade them as well.

Are we supposed to rank 1-5, or score 1-5? Because I have four ties.

Eva: 0.
Per: 0.
Olof: 0.
Erik: 0.
Sven: 2.

Everyone in the story but Eva and Sven is a dick, but the only one who actually violated a categorical duty is Sven. (But he isn't a dick? No, but he still has a duty not to batter people without a moral justification, and "being mad at somebody" isn't a highly persuasive moral justification.)

This assumes you do not have a categorical duty to help people if you don't want to, or to not be a dick to someone who is helping you, which as a society seems to be the premise we have accepted.

I basically agree with everything Jadzia said, too.

The way I read this, she basically cheated on Per.

Nothing in the passage as I read it indicates they're together, only that she has enough affection for him to have sex in exchange for a boat, and that he loves her.

In any event, Per doesn't own Eva's body any more than she owns Erik's boat.

 

[ThankQ]

I am currently reading "Shadow" by Karin Alvtegen. At one point in the book one female characters, Halina, brings up a scenario and asks a man his opinion of it.

It goes like this (you might have heard it or something similar before)

There is a river full of crocodiles. One needs a boat to cross it. Per lives on one side of the river. He loves Eva who lives on the other side of the river. One day Per comes down with a serious illness and he rings Eva and asks her to come and help him. He explains how sick he is and asks her to hurry. But Eva does not have a boat so she goes to Erik who lives on the same side of the river as she and who has a boat. She explains the situation to him and asks him to lend him the boat so she can row across and help Per.

Erik refuses to help Eva for free. He says she has to have sex with him first and then he will row her across the river.

Eva is upset, so she goes to Olof and tells him what Erik said. She wants Olof to come with her and talk some sense into Erik. However Olof doesn't want to get involved and asks her to leave. So Eva see no alternative but to do as Erik wants, and even though he is a dusgusting old man she has sex with him and then he rows her across the river.

Eva arrives at Per's house and tells him him what has happened. Per is furious that Eva had sex with Erik and throws her out. Eva then goes to Sven and tells him that she was forced to sex with Erik so she could help Per, who then throws her out. Sven flies into a rage and goes to Per and beats him up.

Halina then says

"What I want to know is which of them is most in the wrong. Grade them from 1 to 5, with the one who was most in the wrong a five"

So I ask people here to grade them as well.

I can't grade them. There is no "most" wrong as I see it. They're all wrong. The men for the obvious reasons, and Eva for not getting head down/ass up at the first moment when that was what was required to save a loved one.

I realize (most/many) men and women view sex differently, but I'd fuck an ugly old man to save my DOG!

 

[TheBrew]

Well, yes. But some are bigger dicks than others. So you could grade them on their dickiness.

I've never met a woman who had issue with yet big dick".

I'm sure you haven't.

 

[farmkid]

She chose to have sex with Erik. To me that is too high a price to pay, even for a dying lover.

You can't be serious. You would allow your partner to die because you can't differentiate between delusional states of mind and reality?

No, as I said in my post, I would send someone else to help him since there are apparently telephones in this little world. Possibly Sven since he lives on that side of the river. I just don't accept that there aren't better alternatives.

Well, since

'Right' and 'wrong' don't exist anywhere except inside my mind.

letting him die can't be wrong. Sure, she will be sad for a while, but letting him die isn't "wrong".

 

[SmoothieX]

I realize (most/many) men and women view sex differently, but I'd fuck an ugly old man to save my DOG!

Right on!

 

[iguana_tonante]

I'll say all of the people in the story are fucking morons, and be done with it.

 

[Thestral]

Erik - 5
Per - 4
Sven - 3
Olof - 2
Eva - 1

Although there's an easy way out of this for Eva which she probably would have thought about. As noted - if Erik's enough of a dick to hold the boat hostage for sex and phones exist in this world, why not have Sven go help Per and tell him why Eva can't come herself?

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Or have Sven beat up Erik so she could steal his boat.

I realize (most/many) men and women view sex differently, but I'd fuck an ugly old man to save my DOG!

You realize that posting this on a public forum puts your dog in deadly peril?

 

[Miss Chicken]

Sven would need a boat to reach Erik to beat him up. If Sven had a boat he could have just rowed over and picked up Eva and taken her over the river.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Ah, I lost track of who's on what side. Well, she could just beat him up herself, or pepper spray him or something.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think someone needs to build a bridge over the river. I am also wondering why there are so many Swedes living along this crocodile infested river.

 

[Captain_Nick]

letting him die can't be wrong. Sure, she will be sad for a while, but letting him die isn't "wrong".

Excellent! How can an event be something that doesn't exist?

Talking of death - I don't get why it's such a big deal. Nor do I see how it can be 'wrong' (if such a thing can be assumed to exist) to 'let' someone die. Death is the great inevitability. Our cards were marked from the moment we were born. A time will come when your family and your friends start dying off. And then you will go. Where? Who knows. And that fact is as certain as your very existance right now.

Given all this then, what is gods name is the big deal? Why would you waste emotional energy resisting inevitabilities? Surely it makes more sense to 'control the things you can control', as sports stars so often say

 

[-Brett-]

The story is decidedly skimpy on details and as a result everyone is filling the blanks with wild assed assumptions.

For example, is Per dying? Can Eva and only Eva save his life? No doctors on the other side? Is Eva the House of this odd little fictional world?

Nah. Sounds like this Halina character has watched too many Lifetime movies.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I don't think Per is dying. There is nothing in the story to suggest the illness is terminal. We only know he has a serious illness and needs someone to look after him.

These sort of scenarios aren't meant to be realistic, they are only meant to facilitate discussion about our own views on morality.

In the novel Halina is a Polish Jew who survived Treblinka as a child. Her view is that Olof is most in wrong because he knew something was wrong but did nothing. She compares him to the Swedes who saved their own skins by allowing German trains to pass through to Norway and to the Swedish banks and companies who did business with the Nazis. She tells how her grandmother's sister - the only other family member to survive - had to sneak into Sweden because the Swedes were refusing refuge to Jews even though they knew that terrible things were happening to the Jews.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Here's the solution right here:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABBuCnaGW2U[/yt]

 

[Miss Chicken]

^^^ Sometimes you have to worry about the sanity of some stuntmen.

 

[RJDiogenes]

When it comes to stuntmen, sanity is not even an issue.