Would you save your pet or a stranger's child?

[NotADailyMailJournalist]

Hello all

Slightly inspired by another thread where posters were surprised that people were more interested in someone's dog than their baby...

If you have a cat/dog and you could only save it or a stranger's child/baby, what would you choose?

For the purposes of this thread, no-one would ever find out you'd been given the choice, so you wouldn't face any consequences.

Thanks

My dog. She has been in my life for well over a decade. She is family, and my best friend.
My natural instinct would be to save her.

I find this charity argument hyperbolic. People who are buying dog ice cream aren't choosing dogs over kids, they're doing something nice for someone they love. If you go down that road, it's endless and meaningless. Why don't we all donate everything we ever own to charities and live like monks then. No one of us thinks about systemic implications of every single choice we make. Most of us are doing the best we can most of the time with good intentions. Even when you go to drive in your car you're using materials mined by children therefore killing or damaging kids, or wearing clothes made by slave children therefore damaging kids.

Stranger’s child. No hesitation.
I would be heartbroken and sick to my stomach at losing my dog but I’d learn to live with it. I couldn’t learn to live with knowing I could have saved a child but didn’t. A family couldn’t learn to live without their child. I wouldn’t be responsible for that.
My dog is family and everything to me. However, I wouldn’t sacrifice a child for him.

It's not either or. Cruelty to children is also a sign of a psychopath. But this thread is about neither.

It’s about a strangers child, not a friends child or your niece or nephew.

Anyway, in this unlikely scenario of OPs, Superman or Spiderman would obviously save the child and the animal, so there’s no need to argue. Superman or Spiderman are about as likely to turn up as this hypothetical question is of happening. 😅

@apunnetofgrapes totally agree. Humans are not more important than any other animal.
I value my dogs life more than pretty much anyone else. I would always save him over others and him being a dog doesn’t change that.

@Comedycook

'If you were driving and there was a child in front of your car and a fox in front of your car and you have to swerve so you don't hit one of them...what would you do? Swerve so you hit the fox instead of the child or swerve so you hit the child instead of the fox?'

I'd veer off the road thus saving the fox and the child and the car would roll over and land upside down in a field. Thankfully I would be unharmed but a bunch of very handsome firemen who were driving past, insisted on loosening my clothing and giving me the kiss of life.

And we all lived happily every after.

😂

Really, and where did you earn your psychiatric degree, and when and where did you evaluate me to arrive at that conclusion? Or are you just another arm chair ‘expert’ eager to insult someone you don’t agree with? 🙄

Passive-aggressive insult flinging much? And from someone for whom ‘humanity is sacred’? I suppose that only applies to the humanity whose opinions you approve of? 🙄 I am even more delighted I did not save the stranger’s child as they could have turned out like you. 😎

Under that scenario, the interesting question (to me) would be if one should always let public pressure and potential condemnation dictate one’s actions. If you see a child drown and you are not a confident swimmer, and the mother is screaming, and you are being recorded, should you be obligated to jump in and risk your life because the situation and its outcome will go viral, and people will call you a coward and condemn you if you don’t?

@LuckyPeonies - oooh, it's also a constitutional and legal question. In civil code countries eg France, there is a duty to assist. You could be sued in the scenario you describe re being filmed

I find reference to a 'stranger's child' to be a poor phrase here. The child is not the property of their parent, they are a human in their own right. Does it really matter what type of child it is? The question is would you choose your pet over a human life.

@FakeMiddleton really, even if you are a bad swimmer, and likely to drown? What about the mother, would she not be obligated to jump in first?

I've asked my dogs if they would save me or a sirloin steak.

Three have said they'd save the steak. Two refuse to answer and won't look at me and the sixth one said he'd save me but would expect me to buy him a steak as a thank you.

😬

Hopefully the parent who wasn’t watching their child to the point that they ended up wondering off and in a river or whatever would be held more accountable than a stranger for not being willing to risk their life for someone else’s child.

It also doesn’t take into account that in an emergency situation, you don’t always think logically.

I'm not a French lawyer/knowledgeable enough, but it is A Thing.

Just had a Google. So, you're off the hook if taking such action would pose a danger to you. However, if no danger and you didn't do anything (or it's dangerous but you didn't even phone the emergency services), then it's a criminal and civil offence 😱

@Comedycook but the fox isn’t my pet? I have 0 attachment to the fox and also 0 attachment to the child so this is a stupid comparison.

I believe all sentient life is of equal value and no one is more deserving of being saved purely based on their species.

Lmao yes this made me laugh. I get this all the time as a vegan. “If you were on a desert island and there was only meat, would you eat it to survive?” In this very specific hypothetical situation I’d do what Lisa does on the Simpsons and eat the algae and moss that grows on the rocks 😂

I'd save my cat, though I'm struggling to see how I'd ever be in a situation to have to choose.

It matters who the human is.
Ask most people if they'd choose their dog over a child, sibling or parent and they'd have different answers to choosing their dog over an unknown prisoner in texas.

Every day in Britain people choose their pets. Every time I spend money at the vets I am choosing my pet over a random child whose life could be saved by that money.

Well, as @WreninaDarkNook says, it's a case of whether you value all human life the same, isn't it?

Dog or child?
Dog or person in their nineties?
Dog or prisoner on death row?
Dog or racist politician? etc.

It's too simplistic to say "pet or human life". I would bet that most people here would save their pets over the life of serial killer, for example.

It's not really the same thing though. Most people spend money on non essentials and little luxuries they could live without. If I buy a mascara, I'm not deliberately killing a child by not donating that money to charity.

It’s ‘not the same’ because it suits you to tell yourself that. You’ve set up your own levels of what’s ok and what isn’t to suit your wants. That’s ok, as long as you don’t tell others they’re wrong for doing similar. Most people doing something doesn’t make it right. It’s all a matter of opinion.