The AP story and ensuing controversy about Norwegian climber Kristin Harila and her decision, along with many other mountaineers, to leave a climbing companion dying in the snow on K2 immediately rang a metaphorical bell: Haven’t we discussed this issue before on Ethics Alarms? Indeed we have.
Back in 2011, I reposted a 2006 essay from the old (but still useful) EA predecessor The Ethics Scoreboard about the death of 34-year-old David Sharp on Mount Everest, after over 40 other climbers walked past him on their trek to the famous peak. It concluded,
The significance of the David Sharp tragedy is not that the mountaineers did the wrong thing. Of course they did the wrong thing. Nor is it that they are callous or unethical people, for they are probably no more so than you or I. The importance of the story is that it vividly shows how difficult it can be to make even obvious ethical choices when powerful non-ethical considerations are in our sights. Every one of us has a goal or a dream or a desire that could make us walk by a dying man. It is our responsibility to recognize what those goals, dreams and desires are, and to force ourselves not to forget about right and wrong as we approach them.
Harila was on K2 to set a record, and she did: along with her Sherpa guide, Tenjin, they became the world’s fastest climbers by getting to the top of the world’s second highest peak, scaling the world’s 14 highest mountains in 92 days. But of course that mission had nothing to do with her decision to leave Mohammad Hassan, a Pakistani porter and father of three, to die after he slipped and fell off the narrow path to the summit. The Norwegian climber told The Associated Press on Sunday that “in the snowy condition we had up there that day, it wouldn’t be possible to carry him down.”
It was impossible! All righty then, case closed!
Drone footage showed dozens of climbers pushing past Hassan to reach the mountain peak, the path to which was unusually crowded that day (July 27), because it was the last day of the season for a possible ascent. The nerve of that guy losing it all up by falling!
Austrian climber Wilhelm Steindl, who shot the drone footage after he had abandoned the climb because of bad weather, told the AP that more could have been done to save Hassan. “Everyone would have had to turn back to bring the injured person back down to the valley. I don’t want to kind of directly blame anybody, I’m just saying there was no rescue operation initiated and that’s really very, very tragic because that’s actually the most normal thing one would do in a situation like that.”
Well, to be fair, it isn’t. What might have changed the way the climbers reacted would have been a strong leader with the personal magnetism and persuasive skills to reorient the climbers from pursuing powerful non-ethical considerations to embracing an ethical one. No doubt about it, trying to get the injured man down the mountain involved sacrifice and risk, and might not even succeed. There is, however, an ethical duty to try. A life was at stake.
I’m sure Harila now believes that the rescue would have been impossible, and she had a very strong bias forcing her to that conclusion at the time: she was trying to set a record! “It was impossible!” is another form of Rationalization #25. The Coercion Myth: “I have no choice!”:
When people say they had to behave unethically because they had no choice, it is almost always a lie. What they mean is that they didn’t like the choices they had, and taking the unethical option involved less sacrifice, less controversy, less criticism, less effort…in short, less courage, than doing the right thing. Ethics often requires pain; if making the ethical choice was easy, there would be no need to practice being ethical. You may decide that doing the right thing is too costly or requires more personal misery than you can bear—a lost job, a ruined reputation, financial capacity, punishment for breaking with tradition or rules—sometimes that is a reasonable choice. But you still had a choice, and you are still accountable for the choice you made
Once Harila made her choice to let Hassan die, it made it easier for the other climbers to do the same.
On the question of what is impossible, I direct you to the inspiring tale of Desmond Doss in The Ethics Alarms Heroes’ Hall Of Honor.
Post Script: The AP article is a veritable cornucopia of rationalizations, excuses and dubious assertions from all sides:
- Steindl, who had left the climb, is the worst possible individual to claim that the other climbers who remained could have organized a rescue. In fact, he’s ethically estopped from doing so. He quit: if he’s saying that he would have organized a rescue had he remained, that’s a cheap shot.
- He also opined that a rescue might have occurred if “a Westerner” had been hurt on the mountain.I would refer him to the fate of Westerner David Sharp on Everest in 2006.
- “I don’t want to kind of directly blame anybody,” Steindl told the AP. Then he blamed everybody but himself.
-
AP: “Harila said Hassan didn’t seem to have proper gear or training as a high-altitude porter and that it appeared to have been his first ascent.” Nice. Blame the victim. This was all his fault. I’m sure that thought didn’t help make anyone on the climb more inclined to give up their quest for mountaineering glory to save his life.
-
AP: “It was a very tragic accident that happened on K2 that day,” Harila said. “And we feel so sorry for Hassan himself and for his family, his wife and his kids and his mother.” But not sorry enough at the time to try to get him down the mountain, evidently. This is a version of another rationalization, Bluto’s Mistake or “I said I was sorry!”
- AP: “A childhood friend, Basharat Hussain, said Hassan had been determined to provide opportunities for his children that he never had, including an education.” Any time anyone dies, we have to be told what a wonderful person he or she was. Apparently nobody ever dies under preventable circumstances who was a crummy human being. The proper point is that human failings, cruelty, cowardice and selfishness costing a life is equally wrong no matter who perishes.
_______________
Pointer: JutGory
Ethics Alarms 
I’m no mountain climber and never will be. So maybe I have a level of ignorance that I’m not aware of. If so, I’ll own that.
That said, in the realm of “stories to tell your grandchildren” later in life, “Let me tell you about the time I climbed K2….” is probably a pretty good one.
But wouldn’t “Let me tell you about the time I helped save someone’s life on K2….” be an even BETTER story? Or, to put a more modern spin on it, wouldn’t THAT posting get more likes and subscribes and retweets?
I know which one I’D rather be “famous” for.
–Dwayne
The main thing I dislike about these sorts of stories like these is that it is all done in pursuit of some “record.”
Some ultimately meaningless record.
But, it is not just some record. It is a record in some inherently dangerous activity. it’s a deadly mix of vanity and recklessness.
It creates a conundrum. Jack said, “The importance of the story is that it vividly shows how difficult it can be to make even obvious ethical choices when powerful non-ethical considerations are in our sights. ” That may be true to us normal people, but is it true for mountain-climbers.
Granted, mountain climbers do not have an explicit code of ethics. Hell, they seem to have little self-restraint at all. They litter, they poop where they please, and they leave dead bodies behind for others to clean up. But, imagine they did have a code of ethics. What would a code of ethics for an inherently dangerous activity look like?
“Never leave a man behind”? Sure, but that’s for the military. Government positions are notorious for wasting resources.
In other words, can you have an ethical systems that embraces what lawyers describe as Assumption of Risk?
Think of the scene in Private Ryan where Vin Diesel is shot and dying in the street. As I recall, some of the crew wanted to go out and save him, but were held back because helping him was exactly what the sniper wanted.
Contrast that with the scene in Unforgiven where the guy was shot and dying. Clint promised they would not shoot anyone who went to give the dying man some water.
From this, I conclude that there must exist some ethical framework that dictates that a life can be sacrificed if saving the life cannot be done without jeopardizing the mission.
If mountain-climbing had a code of ethics, maybe they could put that in.
Then, it would be an officially stupid activity.
-Jut
What fault, if any, does Hassan have for scaling a mountain (apparently without proper gear) and placing himself in harm’s way? His death is tragic, and I am sad for his family, but he had a wife and young children. I get the desire to challenge yourself but it seems scaling the second highest peak on the planet when you have a family is unethical – it is selfish and cruel to your family. Your obligations to your family should be paramount in your ethical considerations.
jvb
Who are we to say he wasn’t? I’m not familiar with the job market in Pakistan, but I’d imagine being a porter for a week would provide pay equivalent to months of other types of manual labor. He surely made a calculation of benefit a successful climb would bring his family, and his injury is moral luck. His death is an ethical fail.
I would hope the climbers compensate the family the agreed successful payment, plus a hefty goodwill stipend that continues until average life expectancy. Except, they’ve already proved themselves selfish.
Along that vein, I once sat in on a presentation by a guy who worked as a guide to help people climb Mt. Everest. He gave a very interesting breakdown of the path he uses (with pictures) and what all you have to do along the way. He was very emphatic about how the altitude itself is a huge physical challenge, and how just walking up the path (Everest requires very little actual climbing) when you’re in good shape is difficult enough considering the lack of oxygen, low air pressure, and all the gear you have to carry yourself. Rescuing someone is a whole other level of difficulty and athleticism required.
Some of the more grim reality was that there were certain well-known dead bodies–frozen solid and impossible to move–which now serve as both landmarks and cautionary tales.
But one thing he said that stuck with me was this: (I paraphrase) “You may be the one paying me, but you’re not the one I work for. I work for the people back home who want to see you come back alive. My job is to make sure you come back alive, and if that means you don’t make it all the way to the summit then that’s what it means. I’m there to make sure you don’t do anything stupid or beyond your abilities so that you can make it back down the mountain, which is arguably harder than going up.”
Not gonna lie, I thought that sentiment was pretty inspirational.
–Dwayne
I find it hard to armchair quarterback this case. If, as Harila claims, it would have been difficult/impossible to save Hasan, does it help anybody if she gave up on her record just to avoid bad optics?
Moreover, I don’t think there is much of a duty to rescue when rescue would come at extreme personal risk to the prospective rescuer. Surely we can all agree that ascent/descent is perilous enough as is.