A Philosophical Question

First go to the basic problem. See whether you can rectify the hole in the ship. If not possible, Tie the cat to a wooden plank, take the old lady and ask her to hold the cat's plank and save both.

Hi joshuakill, I would explain the situation to the old lady and let her decide herself. After all, if she makes it to the island, I would not be able to guarantee her survival there, depending on what kind of island it is. If we would be on our own, she probably would die soon anyway. Yes, I would leave it up to her to make the decision, as I have no right to do so. BUT! When ASSUMING I can take the lady safe to shore, I also would be also "naive" enough to assume to be able to handle that extra one more kilo of the cat. If this assumption is not permitted, the question is not philosophic, but unreasonable. After all, "Philosophy" means literally "Love (of) wisdom" and it would be NOT WISE (rational ..."ratio" is Latin for "mind") to assume, I cannot safe both, if I KNOW, I CAN save the lady. The other situation is, as long as I am on the boat, that I DONT KNOW, if I can rescue the lady. Therefore I only can assume, which brings me back to where I started. So after all I then would still try to safe them both, as no one on the boat can tell me what to do! I would be the rebel, trying my own way and my will is strong! If I notice on my way to the island, that I am slowly drowning, at least I would be significantly closer to the island to let go of the cat, which has increased chances of survival. But like I said, unless the cat is a grown lion, tiger or similar large cat, it would not make much difference, in this case I would take only the old lady, to increase my own chances of survival on the island in case the "cat" can't find anything else to eat there. So, you are right, that there is no right or wrong answer to this question, but a reasonable or unreasonable one there is. And as philosophy tends to prefer the reasonable answer, - the premises of the question should be doubted. Have you ever seen the "Matrix" movies? If so, you might find the following book interesting: "Like a splinter in your mind - The philosophy behind the Matrix trilogy" by Matt Lawrence. But I won't go into much more details here, get the book, it's interesting. By the way, Buchi_bulla didn't simplify the question. The answer was actually very clever, because the premises of the question were not bent or distorted in anyway. It is rather the answer which is simply simple... and reasonable. Still a good question, - got me thinking after all. But don't take my answer for gold; I might be completely wrong... Convince me! ;)