Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

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Whether they are in front of you or not is irrelevant, which I believe is part of Lebowski's point

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Whether they are in front of you or not is not irrelevant, which is my point. There is no rational metric for measuring altruism.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

If it were relevant it would only be in the sense that it triggers a completely illogical response to this situation.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

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If it were relevant it would only be in the sense that it triggers a completely illogical response to this situation.

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Do you think that you would act rationaly?

Bravo.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

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If it were relevant it would only be in the sense that it triggers a completely illogical response to this situation.

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How is it illogical? We function much better socially by concentrating our compassion and concern more on those who are closer to us geographically and/or relationship-wise.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

You would be right that if I based my desire to save the child SOLELY on some reasoning chain such as "children dying is bad, therefore stopping them from dying is good, therefore I should risk my life to save this child right now" then you would be engaging in faulty logic.
However if you just think "I don't want this child to die, I'm going to save him" then it's no more illogical than thinking "I want some ice cream, so I'm gonna buy some".

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

this question is much improved if you make your odds of saving the kid from the fire 100%.

I think there is a difference between saving someone right in front of you and saving someone who is distant to you but its so easy to get this argument all mucky its not worth trying to defend.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

Deciding to save the baby isn't going to be an altruistic act. I'm gonna get alot of chicks when i go out the next night after my pictures in the paper with the headline "Hero risks own life to save infant".

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

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If it were relevant it would only be in the sense that it triggers a completely illogical response to this situation.

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How is it illogical? We function much better socially by concentrating our compassion and concern more on those who are closer to us geographically and/or relationship-wise.

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The OP used a bad example to make his point. Take the extreme risk away and it is easy to see that the fellow who would make some personal effort to save one nearby child is less laudable (though still laudable) than the person who makes an approximately equal effort (perhaps financially) to save dozens of faraway children who he may never meet.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

donating money isn't really a "hands-on" act. In reality, you give the money to some charity which then dispenses to whomewver and however they see fit. It's not possible to tangibly see that you are saving lives.

If you knew you could reach the child, I think most people would try.

Re: Going into a burning building to save a child
 

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Take the extreme risk away and it is easy to see that the fellow who would make some personal effort to save one nearby child is less laudable (though still laudable) than the person who makes an approximately equal effort (perhaps financially) to save dozens of faraway children who he may never meet.

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An interesting comparison would be if the person who spends money saving dozens of children far away walked past a child he could have saved from dying (in a burning house or any scenario you can think of, but where the risk is not high unlike the OP) and opted not to save him. Now which of the two people would you think better of?