> Volunteers for experimental medical treatments risk death
>anyway to improve the chances of others; Galileo risked execution to
>express his understandings of the universe, and many others died; there
>are numerous examples. If you have children, would you not risk death to
>preserve them from harm?
>
I think the first two above examples are different from the third. A large
percentage of those in experimental medical programs volunteer because they
feel they have nothing to lose - someone with AIDS might rationalize the
'risk' by saying that they're going to die anyway, so what's the point in
being cautions about the treatment? As for Galileo, people like that have
an internal drive to understand the world, to discover and push the
envelope of knowledge - the motive isn't precisely to help others. That
this may be the end result of both of the examples is excellent for the
rest of us, but we should not confuse it with the original intent of the
person acting. As for the third example, the answer is usually a 'yes,' but
I think that's largely hard-wired into us, and I would be hard-pressed to
attribute it to a conscious decision.
Mark