What are values?

Hi all,

        This is a real story taken from a blog. The original writer was very shocked at his own decision for the test. I want to share the story and then provide my own comments, cause  it's really shocking. It's really unexpected too. A note though: The original post was in Chinese (I don't regularly read Chinese blogs, or any blogs as a matter of fact, it was my father who introduced this post to me), so I translated it. It's taken from http://blog.omy.sg/hoeytheory/archives/27.

My friend held a newspaper in his hand, and asked if I wanted to take a simple psychological test. Curious, I agreed.

        Question 1: There is a pregnant woman.  She has had eight babies. Three of her babies are deaf, two of them are blind and one of them is mentally slow. Furthermore, she is a drug addict. Would you encourage her to abort this baby?

        Before I could answer, I was stopped by my friend, who asked me yet another question.

        Question 2: You have to choose a leader for the world. Which of these candidates will you choose?

         Candidate A: He is constantly in contact with distrustful politicians, and consults astrologers. He has a wedding affair, and smokes regularly. He also drinks 8-10 cups of martinis daily. 

        Candidate B: He has a record of being fired twice, and sleeps till noon everyday. He tried opium in his university days, and drinks a large amount of whiskey every evening.

        Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero and a vegetarian. He never smokes, and seldom drinks beer, and when he does, it is only a little. He has also never had an affair.

        After my friend let me write my answer down on a piece of paper, he told me the real profiles of these candidates:

        Candidate A: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States. 

        Candidate B: Winston Churchill, once Prime Minister of Britain. 

        Candidate C: Adolf Hitler, German Chancellor from 1933. 

         My friend stared at me sombrely. "Did you just choose Hitler for the world? So would you still advice the woman to abort her child?"

         I said of course, we have been aiming to search for safe births, safe education, safe lives, we don't want any babies to suffer because of their family and any highly likely diseases. Of course I would encourage her to abort.  

        My friend declared, "Then, you just killed Beethoven, that lady was Beethoven's mother."

        My friend asked, "Are you shocked? What you thought was the most humane, most obvious answer, was actually to create a Hitler and to kill Beethoven?"

        His conclusion: Don't act according to values.

        Ultimately, what are values? In my opinion, values are not something that everyone can have. They aren't materialistic, neither are they tangible. I think the friend's conclusion wasn't that correct, for ultimately, what he thought was that values are characteristics and physical conditions. However, I beg to differ, as I have mentioned above. Ultimately, the Beethoven question would have been difficult to avoid getting wrong, for the most normal and rational decision would have been to abort, to reduce the child's pain and the mother's burden. But really, what is normal? Do we really have the moral authority to decide? Ultimately, do we not witness the famous disabled with respect, for they are crippled birds who soar higher than those who aren't?

         For the leader question, in hindsight, it might have been better to have asked for an analysis of these candidates' psyches, to really understand their values. 

         What was your decision? Did you create a Hitler and kill Beethoven?

Cheers,

Darrel