[foal]

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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?