Moral Dilemma


This is an imaginary situation, but thinking about it will provide insights into your internal ethic proclivities.

The situation: You are in the Middle East, and there is a huge flood in progress. Many homes have been lost, water supplies compromised and structures destroyed.

Let's say that you're a photographer, like myself, getting still photos for a news service, traveling alone, looking for particularly poignant scenes.

You come across Osama Bin Laden who has been swept away by the floodwaters. He is barely hanging on to tree limb and is about to go under.

You can either put down your camera and save him, hoping to redeem and convert him, or take a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of him as he loses his grip on the limb.

So, here's the question, and think carefully before you answer it:

Which lens would you use?
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Showing 1 response by gregm

Lens: A telephoto. Because if I were to save him, he would get a grip on the longer, tele, lens. If again, I don't or cannot, I can get a better ("Pulitzer-prize") close-up.

My spontaneous reaction would be to save him: a) I probably couldn't watch a live being die, without doing smthing
b) saved, he can stand a bog-standard trial. I'd hate for him to benefit from the old paradox: "kill one man and you're a murderer. Kill 1000, and you become a hero".

As with Sean, you had me reading to end, though! :)