When we begin to look more closely at the situation, however, we find that some people do not act to preserve their own lives under certain conditions or circumstances.

Having a choice between preserving his or her own life, or peserving something else which he or she holds subjectively in higher value at that moment, one might choose to lose his or her life, in favor of this higher value.

There is no pattern as to what this higher value might be. In some cases, considerable conditioning (or instilled mental habit) might preceed this choice. In other cases, there might be no prior conditioning involved.

A particular person might value the life of another person (a spouse, a child, a prominent figure, a stranger) above his own at a given moment.

Or, a person might value an item of property, or a situation, or a relationship, without which he or she might view his or her own life on a lower plane of value.

Although it might seem to others of us, when we are not under the pressures occasioned by an ultimate choice of this sort, that the only reasonable option is to value our own life above everything else, this is not necessarily true, or always the case.