"Dilemmas" with surprisingly simple solutions

This morning I'm thinking of the famous Linda Pastan poem that begins, "In ethics class so many years ago / our teacher asked this question every fall: / if there were a fire in a museum / which would you save, a Rembrandt painting / or an old woman who hadn’t many / years left anyhow?" This is a common question in the study of ethics, in one form or another, although I never for a moment doubted my own conclusion. For me the answer is as simple as it is selfish. Save the old woman. Save the old woman every time. If I failed to save a classic painting that would give pleasure and artistic insight to generations of humanity, I could still live with myself, I could still sleep at night, I could still say to the old woman next to me outside of the museum, "Isn't that a beautiful bonfire?"