Ethics What to Do with the Fat Man

Kill the Fat Man?

A fat man leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless he is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the fat man, whose head is out of the cave. But, fortunately, or unfortunately, someone has with him a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the fat man loose without using that dynamite which will inevitably kill him; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?

I can't count the times that there would be a situation like this in everyday life. So what should the people do? Is it right for them to kill the fat man to save themselves or should they just accept their fates and drown? If I was in that situation it would not be a difficult decisionÐ'...the fat man would be blown to bits and the rest of us would be alive and well. What does that make me? Would I be an egoist that does everything for my own self-gain, or would I be a naturalist just doing what is natural to survive? I could not possibly be a relativist who just accepts her own opinion as her own while considering the fat man's opinion.

If I were an egoist in this situation the fat man would die so that I could get out of that cave alive. The most important thing to me would be self-preservation. The problem with this is that I would have to kill an innocent man to keep myself alive. Would that be right to do or would I have to go to jail for murder. Then again, weighing being dead or in jail I think an egoist would choose being alive even if it is in jail. So killing is wrong unless it is to save my life in which case it is necessary. So if I save the others by killing the fat man would that make me a hero or a fugitive? I would think that saving many lives for the loss of one would be a positive thing and that I would be doing a very good thing. So if the spelunkers were egoists then the fat man would be blown to bits with dynamite and the others would escape to continue their lives as normally as possible.

If I were a naturalist the fat man may or may not die. I would have to ponder whether killing other human beings was natural. Animals will kill in self-defense but the fat man could be considered innocent because he was not attacking me. So would that be self-defense? If a dog was placed in a similar situation, would he kill another dog to save his own life. There would be no way for me to answer that unless I had a lab and test subjects. Also, if I were to use a manmade weapon such as dynamite to do it, would that be unnatural? If using such a thing as a fork is unnatural than dynamite is way out of the question. So, in order to survive I would need to get the fat man out of the whole naturallyÐ'...I guess I would have to wait for him to lose some weight. Killing to save my own life would be justified but I would have no natural way of getting the fat man out of the whole so that I could survive. This sets me into quite a quandary. I think I would end up blowing