Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by privong 4313 days ago
> If he was a doctor in AIDS ward, and got infected with HIV while caring for other sick patients, wouldn't he be considered a hero?

Why is contraction of the virus implied as a necessary condition for being a hero? Clearly the heroic act is the treatement of others; that the hypothetical AIDS doctor or these ebola doctors contracted the disease they were treating in others should not be a necessary condition for considering them heroes.

2 comments

It isn't; it's the risk of doing so that one willingly runs which makes one a hero. Since we don't see these peole at work the fact of contracting it is an indirect proof of hands-on activity.
Nothing the GP said implied it was necessary, merely sufficient.