From the very start of the novel, the question of moral duty is raised. When Bill Masen learns he is one of the “lucky few” who can still see after a catastrophe causes mass blindness, he is immediately thrown into an ethical dilemma of choosing between altruism and self-preservation (i.e., helping himself or others). When considering whether to aid the blind hospital residents, he ultimately decides it would be useless: “There was a feeling that I ought to do something about it. […] if I were to, if I did get them outside—what then?” (17). 

With no governmental help, and no real understanding if what occurred, neither Bill nor those he might help stand a good chance of living long. Bill determines early on that the sighted, who can fend for themselves, will survive longer than the blind. While fleeing to London, he sees people struggling to find food and help, and he constantly wonders if he should do something. Quite often, he chooses to keep going on his own. Though he does try to save a blind girl from being forced into sexual slavery by a group of drunken men, he ultimately decides she is better off with them: “[i]f there was to be any survival, anyone adopted by this gang would stand a far better chance than she would on her own” (42).