Quote Originally Posted by Stephen R. Donaldson
A real man—real in all the ways that we recognize as real– finds himself suddenly abstracted from the world and deposited in a physical situation which could not possibly exist…. There he is informed… that he must fight to the death in single combat against a champion from another world. If he is defeated, he will die, and his world– the real world– will be destroyed because it lacks the inner strength to survive.
The man refuses to believe that what he is told is true. He asserts that he is either dreaming or hallucinating, and declines to be put in the false position of fighting to death where no 'real' danger eists…
Question: is the man's behaviour courageous or cowardly? This is the fundamental question of ethics.
I'd consider the man's behaviour not only cowardly, but stupid. He's deposited in a physical situation--i.e. his senses of touch, taste, sound, and sight all function; it's more than just a dream, it's a physical environment which defies the things the man knows to be true. Since he won't fight, he will be 'killed' by the champion from another world, and if the data he's received were to be factual, he would cease to exist and so would his entire world; perhaps, if the man is right, no real danger exists--but if he's wrong, he dies, and so does everyone and everything he knows.

If the man is right it doesn't matter if he wins or loses, he and his world go on and the 'delusion' ends.
If the man is wrong, and he wins, he and his world goes on and the delusion ends. If he's wrong and he loses, it's armageddon.

The only way the man can lose is if he's wrong and loses. If he's right and wins, he loses nothing for making the attempt.

Bear in mind, that there was a time in this land that everyone 'knew' that the Earth was flat. If you'd taken a man from that time and sent him to another planet, and given him the same challenge, and he reacted the same way--our world would never have come into existence. The man would have refused to fight, dooming all of us born later into nonexistence because of an underlying flawed 'knowledge' of How Things Are.