I dont understand the purpose of asking this question

[YoureBeingASillyBilly]

I apologise if this is the wrong section to ask but the question seemed to be posed as a moral question so here seems right.

Ok, when i was in secondary school our religion teacher asked us a question one day, it was to do with something we were learning but i cant remember the topic.

The question was

You are a jewish woman living in Germany with your family during the second world war and the nazis are raiding your street so you hide all the family under the stairs. Your baby has whooping cough and you know will be heard by the nazis leading you all to be discovered. Do you a) put your hand over your baby's mouth or b) risk the whole family being found and killed?

I cant remember how exactly but the way out teacher asked the question implied that putting the hand over the baby's mouth would suffocate it so this is what we as a class believed we were debating. We talked and talked and some of the class got upset. Eventually the teacher wrapped things up as the bell was going to go and she asked us "do you want to know what i would do?" (She was a former nun and we all believed her to have a high moral standard) we said yes if course and she said that she would have put her hand over the baby's because the baby can also breathe through its nose.

At the time we thought "ahh, very clever miss, you're so smart"

But recently the question came back to me and i've wondered what the point if it was. It's hardly a moral one if one option means death for all and the other means safety for all. That's an easy question. And it's not a brain teaser as it really wasnt posed like that at all, it was part of a wider discussion that i cant recall but i know was serious.

I've since seen the same question asked on some tv quiz show (i think QI) and again, dont understand the point of it except for the 'asker' to give themselves a little pat on the back for knowing something the 'debaters' dont

Can anyone shed any light on this? What am i missing?

I remember this scenario coming upon RE and I think it was to explain utilitarianism, something is more moral if it benefits more people.

It's a very well known scenario used to illustrate utilitarianism as Tossed says. Do you all die or do you kill the baby so only the baby dies? If you're doing accounting (utilitarianism) you kill the baby. But most people find the active action of killing a human too much so most in that situation would not kill and risk the lives of everyone.

I hate these sorts of scenarios in general - who knows what you would do? The 'don't act now' approach seems better as there is always a possibility the Nazis will be distracted somehow - you can only make the 'right' decision based on perfect knowledge of the future.

janey mackers.

I get the reason for asking it, but I would just refuse to torture myself attempting to answer it.

I assume that the 'baby can breath through it's nose' response was purely to calm those who might have gone away from the class upset. The dilemma is all about risking immediate death for one for the safety of others vs risking discovery for all. It's not supposed to be a trick question.

I once did a who will you save first type exercise as part of a course where one person persuaded the group that the only moral option was not to choose. The facilitator was very surprised.

Teacher was calming the class before you all went off to the next lesson accusing each other of being murderers/upset.

The 'point' was for you to have a debate about utilitarian ethics as said upthread.

I would agree with the 'teacher' was calming us theory if it hadnt also been used on whichever programme i saw it on (i'm convinced it was stephen fry on QI)

I understand the moral dilemma aspect if the 'baby can breathe through nose' hadnt been thrown in at the end both times. If it isnt generally when this question is asked then i completely get it. But if the nose bit is always added then i fail to see the purpose as it i then a trick question.

Didn't they use this scenario in a tv show or film in the 80s (I think)? I remember seeing a clip on some "biggest tv moments" kind of show and my mum was telling me how awful it was to watch.

A soldier was helping people escape and they were hiding in the truck. A woman was holding a chicken and it kept making noise and the soldier shouted at her to make it stop so she killed it. Then the soldier realised he had been halucinating/suffering shock or something and the chicken was really a baby and the last shot was the woman sobbing holding the dead baby.

Anyone remember that? The show aired before I was born so I only have the memory of that clip, however it was really upsetting (hence the memory of it has stayed with me).

Horrible horrible situation to think about, no one can know what they would do.

I think the purpose of the "baby can breathe through it's nose" is to make it less horrific for you to have to think about maybe? As there is a "get out clause" in the situation to make you feel better.

yourebeingasillybilly maybe this info will help.

MarianneEnjolras it was in a TV programme called MAS*H, an American film and a television sitcom. The television series ran from 1972 to 1983, including spin-offs. It was owned by 20th Century Fox, and based on the semi-autobiographic fiction of Richard Hooker.

I remember watching the clip spoken about. So I am obviously older than you. The soldier was in a mental hospital and is retelling the story and we see it as a woman holding a chicken which is making a noise on the bus. The bus of people are in danger of being captured. Later we realise it was not a chicken but a baby. I think it made quite an impression when I watched it, probably in my teens. I think when I watched it I did not so much see it as her purposely killing the baby but as she held it very tight to quieten it she smoothered the baby.

A little googling and I found this. You can see the clip if you like, it is very short. It seems clear she did kill the baby to save the bus load of people. It was the horror of this that put the soldier in the mental hospital as he had told her to keep the baby quiet.

If you read the first bit it will explain it. You can then watch the clip if you like. It is labelled 'Saddest TV moment'.

I am sorry if this is upsetting but it may help you to think about this question. I would not dream of making any comment about what is right or wrong. It is clear that the soldier did not mean the woman to do this.

I looked this up.....
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090801090047AAr7pVA

What is so terrible is that this may well be a scenario for real people and when we talk about it in the second world war or Korean war we forget that all kinds of people are still in desperate war zones.

The bigger picture would to work for peace. Maybe that is what they should have been teaching us in our RE lessons!

I am a Christian now and I would say the same for our churches, schools and communities, we should be teaching each other to work for peace.

Sorry you have to click on the words Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

I'll put it here but if it doesn't work you can click on it in the article above.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen