You and your family and friends go for a walk. You walk into an old building with 1 entrance/exit. Your friends/family are behind you.
You notice the door has a irrevocable self-locking mechanism if it is closed.
You have a knife in your pocket.
As you walk in you see three people dressed in ‘lunatic’s asylum’ clothes.
Two of them are in the corner; one is a guy who is beating up a woman. He appears unarmed but may have a concealed weapon.
The guy shouts to you that ‘god is making him do it’ and suggests that you should join in and attack your family who are still outside the door.
The 3rd person in the room has a machine gun pointed at you. He tells you that he is going to give you and your family 1000000 pounds each if you just step inside, and he says he is also going to stop the other inmate from being violent.
You can choose to close the door (which will lock). What will happen next inside the room will then be unknown to you.
Or you can allow your family and friends into the room with the lunatics at least one of whom is armed with a machine gun.
Inside the room, as long as that machine gun exists, you have no control over what actually happens next in the room.
Outside the room, once the door is locked, you also have no control over what happens next in the room.
But if you invite your family inside, you are risking that they may be killed by a machine or may be given 1 million pounds. But the matter is in the hands of the machine gun toting lunatic.
Your family are otherwise presently happy and well adjusted and do not appear to NEED 1 million pounds, though some might benefit from it a great deal.
Personally in this situation I wouldn’t need to think twice; I would immediately close the door. I have no control over the unfortunate situation the woman is facing either way, but at least I don’t risk a huge negative outcome (the death of myself and my family at the hands of a machine gun armed lunatic).
It is foolish to risk what you have and need for what you do not have, do not entirely know, and do not need.
Attempting to paraphrase the known facts.
You and your family and friends go for a walk. You walk into an old building with 1 entrance/exit. Your friends/family are behind you.
You notice the door has a irrevocable self-locking mechanism if it is closed.
You have a knife in your pocket.
As you walk in you see three people dressed in ‘lunatic’s asylum’ clothes.
Two of them are in the corner; one is a guy who is beating up a woman. He appears unarmed but may have a concealed weapon.
The guy shouts to you that ‘god is making him do it’ and suggests that you should join in and attack your family who are still outside the door.
The 3rd person in the room has a machine gun pointed at you. He tells you that he is going to give you and your family 1000000 pounds each if you just step inside, and he says he is also going to stop the other inmate from being violent.
You can choose to close the door (which will lock). What will happen next inside the room will then be unknown to you.
Or you can allow your family and friends into the room with the lunatics at least one of whom is armed with a machine gun.
Inside the room, as long as that machine gun exists, you have no control over what actually happens next in the room.
Outside the room, once the door is locked, you also have no control over what happens next in the room.
But if you invite your family inside, you are risking that they may be killed by a machine or may be given 1 million pounds. But the matter is in the hands of the machine gun toting lunatic.
Your family are otherwise presently happy and well adjusted and do not appear to NEED 1 million pounds, though some might benefit from it a great deal.
Personally in this situation I wouldn’t need to think twice; I would immediately close the door. I have no control over the unfortunate situation the woman is facing either way, but at least I don’t risk a huge negative outcome (the death of myself and my family at the hands of a machine gun armed lunatic).
It is foolish to risk what you have and need for what you do not have, do not entirely know, and do not need.