Like the rest of the world, I rejoiced when that boys’ soccer team and their coach were rescued from the cave in Thailand after being entombed for 16 days.
I have a phobia about caves in general. I can feel panic rising even thinking about having to strap on an unfamiliar scuba mask, wade into murky water, dive way down into a hole in the rock in total darkness and then turn and feel my way towards a narrow cranny I have to wriggle through, rock walls scraping my skin…
I would have panicked. And drowned. And probably caused the death of at least one of the divers assisting me. My body might even have blocked that narrow exit, and sentenced the people left behind to death.
So I am in absolute awe of the courage and compassion of the divers who risked their own lives to get those boys and their coach out of the cave alive.
Difficult choices
But remember that not everyone got out alive. A skilled diver, 38-year-old Saman Gunan, ran out of oxygen, ironically, while delivering oxygen tanks for rescue operations.
Wikipedia definesethics as“a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.”
When I took Philosophy 101 at university, the professor scornfully dismissed ethics as a way of rationalizing our prejudices. We do what we want to do, he argued, and then we invent reasons to convince ourselves we were right.
I don’t agree. Ethics is about making choices. Difficult choices. Sometimes, life and death choices.
I suspect the Thai cave rescue will become a text-book case study for students of ethics in the not-too-distant future.
Consider, for example, the diver who died. On what basis does one decide that it’s worth risking the life of a healthy, productive, law-abiding person to save the lives of others who ignored signs warning about the dangers of flooding?
Search and rescue teams face that question every winter here. Skiers and snowboarders choose to go out of bounds. Ski-doo enthusiasts challenge avalanche-prone slopes.
More recently, eight rescue teams had to work together in hazardous conditions to recover the bodies of three thrill-seekers at Shannon Falls.
Who gets saved first?
Back to the cave in Thailand -- on what basis were the first four boys chosen to go out?
News reports suggest they were the strongest, the fittest. Therefore, the most capable of testing a still unproven rescue process.
But that choice might have imperilled the less fit, the least able to survive much longer in a hostile environment. Wouldn’t compassion call for taking the most vulnerable, the ones most likely to die if not rescued immediately? Even if, from a practical point of view, they’re the worst people to test the feasibility of the rescue process.
And what if one of them didn’t make it? What if – like my fears – one of them got stuck? Inextricably?
The remaining boys and their coach – and the divers and medic huddled in the dark with them -- would have been trapped until the monsoon ended and the waters flooding the cave drained away. Perhaps until October. Three more months. In the cold and dark. With the oxygen available in the tiny chamber steadily declining.
Some would certainly succumb.
Ruthless pragmatism?
If it were your decision, would you require the weakest to suffer to the bitter end? Or would you offer them some form of euthanasia, to let them die less miserably?
Might you even deliberately sacrifice the weakest, so that a remnant could survive long enough to crawl out on their hands and knees when the waters receded?
I would not want to make those decisions. For myself, or for anyone else. But someone would have had to make those decisions.
And – one last agonizing question – how would those who had to make those decisions live with themselves afterwards? If they lived that long.
Don’t kid yourself that those are just hypothetical questions. They will certainly have occurred to the rescue teams. And perhaps to the coach. Even if they didn’t know yet how they would respond.
This is ethics. It goes far beyond simply finding rational justification for one’s own innate preferences. Every one of these decisions would be based on moral principles that most people don’t even know they have – until they find themselves in a situation where they have to make difficult decisions.
Where not making a decision is itself an ethical decision.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
Tom Watson got the point of last week’s column: “You suggest that the dominant religion of America is individualism. It strikes me that the current ‘religious’ wave that is taking place, not only in America but in several other parts of the world, is nationalism which is, at its core, individualism writ large. Political leaders are finding the way to stoke individualism into a nationalistic fervor that states all that matters is what is good for the ‘collective me.’ In reality, what else is ‘Make America Great Again’ about?”
Similarly, Hanny Kooyman realized that individualism is at the root of NIMBY reactions: “I used to say that in Canada we live within certain circles and that these circles do not necessarily touch other circles, each working for and often only within their own circle. Take the struggle to build affordable housing for instance. I thought it would serve ‘the common good’, or rather all of society. After reading your writing this morning I understand that ‘not in my backyard’ belongs to individuality. Doesn’t always serve us well, does it. Everybody for himself ....”
“Synchronicity strikes again,” Isabel Gibson: wrote. “I just read a book review in Gilbert!, a magazine devoted to G.K. Chesterton matters. The book? Why Liberalism Failedby Patrick Dineen.
“The connection to your blog? I quote . . .
“It is Dineen's controversial contention that the American founding was flawed from the outset, because of the founders’ emphasis on the individual. By his reckoning, American liberals and American conservatives are all .individualists of one stripe or another.
“Liberals stress personal freedom, while conservatives emphasize economic freedom. Of course, there are important differences between them, but there are also crucial similarities. The most crucial among them is that the family and the local community have been relegated a distant back seat by both.”
[JT note: I cleaned up some apparent errors in the above quote.]
Randy Hall wondered how people form community: “Thank you for this article on community. It is one of the best pro-community treatises that I've read. I'm an extrovert and community comes more naturally to me. Do introverts have a more difficult time seeking community? Perhaps not, but maybe their way of finding it is different.”
On the other hand, Cliff Boldt told me I had “tried to walk both sides of the street on government vs corporations.
“The left prefers co-operation, the right wants the individual to succeed in spite of co-operation.
“Government is one form of co-operation. I can’t build a school and hire a teacher, but the community can. I can’t build streets and roads and bridges, but a community can.
“And Canada is a work in progress.”
Allan Baker wrote that he “would like to endorse a metaphor -- a fitting one -- in your sentence, ‘And the principle of polarization has slithered into our political processes.’ If Canadians are to move forward to become a democracy, at all levels, we will need to build bridges for conversation.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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PROMOTION STUFF…
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. (This is to circumvent filters that think too many links constitute spam.)
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet