WHO DO I SAVE?

I wanted to talk about an ethical scenario that often comes up in any ethics based lectures I have. The thought experiment goes as follows:

Imagine you are in a situation in which two people are drowning. You are a strong swimmer but the people drowning are at different places in the lake, you realise that therefore you can only save one. When getting closer you realise that one man is your dad, and the other is a scientist you have seen on the news, who thinks he might have found a cure for cancer.

WHICH ONE DO YOU SAVE?

Although it might initially be hard to put yourself in the situation I have just described, if you really let your self imagine the situation it becomes overwhelmingly hard to decide on what would be the right thing?/

If you acted on a principle of utility for example, you might say that it would be right to save the scientist with the cure for cancer, for imagine how many people could be saved if the cure was released. Then again , he only thinks he might have found the cure, whats to say that after all he hasn't found it? Then would your efforts of saving the scientist be wasted?

On the other hand, wouldn't it just be obvious that you would want to save your father. It seems that we have not only a natural desire to help our loved ones, but seems that we also have an obligation to them. After all, your father did bring you into this world, doesn't he deserve over a stranger to be saved?

Imagine that in the moment you did decide to save your father. What if you had known that at the time he was drowning he also had terminal cancer? Saving him in that moment might be killing him in the future, for he could have survived if it weren't for the death of the scientist with the cancer cure. Perhaps regardless of that, the strong family obligation to save your father in that moment would have counted for more, you still would have had some extra time with him if you saved him.

But then perhaps if he had cancer it would make you change your outlook. Perhaps make you feel compassion for other people with terminal cancer, or other people with relatives with cancer. If this is so then perhaps the urge to help cure cancer would overcome you, more so than the urge to save your father.

I don't think that there is a right answer to the question, but it is interesting to think up possibilities and put yourself in that ethical dilemma. Let me know if you have an opinion that you think answers the question.

Thanks for reading