It seemed fairly inevitable and obvious that everyone would blog about the
Trolley Problem after we discussed it in class today. Although Wikipedia is not
an entirely credible source, it gives many different variations of the Trolley
Problem. Here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem.
One alternative situation that did not use a trolley stated the following: “A
brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different
organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no
organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy
young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for
a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers
that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose
further that if the young man were to disappear, no one would suspect the
doctor.” How different do you think that this situation is from the ones that
we discussed in class? Essentially you would be doing the same thing – taking away
one person’s life so you can save the lives of many. Personally, somehow, this
situation seems to be more morally conflicting than the trolley situation. It
seems worse to sacrifice an innocent man who was just going to the doctor for a
simple check-up, than someone who was (unintelligently) loitering on the
trolley tracks.
Furthermore, in the
trolley situation you are sure that you would save the ten people that are
stuck standing on the one side of the tracks. In the surgeon situation, you are
not entirely sure that the five patients will survive even if they receive the
right organs. Numerous possibilities are present that could cause the death of
any number of the five – infection, miscalculations, unexpected response to the organ, a surgical
error, the list can go on and on. So when the surgeon chooses to sacrifice the
innocent man to donate his organs to the needy five patients, he cannot truly guarantee
that his choice will save all or any of his patients. The doctor could
accidently manage to kill all six of them.
What do some of you
guys think? Do you think that both situations are equal? Would killing the one
man on the tracks be the same as killing the one man for his organs? Or does
one seem to be a worse offense than the other?
I do agree that this situation is different from the other ones, though I am not exactly sure why. Maybe it is because in the trolley situation is a much quicker scenario in that you wouldn’t have much time to decide what to do or the thought that no one would suspect the doctor if the man were to disappear (I don’t know why but that sounds bad to me). I also agree that using an innocent man who came in for a checkup doesn’t seem fair.
ReplyDeleteI think that one thing that separates the two situations is that in the trolley situation, no matter what people say, you can’t truly predict what you would do until you are in that situation, and in the trolley situation there wouldn’t be much time, so you would make your decision based on instinct. In the doctor situation, there would be more time to think about this. Though this is probably cheating, if the doctor could maybe take a kidney and some of the man’s liver (since you can live with one kidney and don’t need a whole liver for a transplant) and he could possibly save some of the people and still save the man. Again that is probably cheating and there could still be complications so no one could be ensured to live.
Though the two situations are very similar, killing the man for his organs sounds worse to me and I am still not sure why, which I think brings up another question, why does the organ situation seem worse?
I think that the situation is totally different then when they are on the tracks. However, I dont think it is that much different then pushing the fat man off the bridge considering both instances are killing someone that was not previously endangered. I think that is the big difference because the patient walks in he should not be held accountable for the other people's lives. As professor J said in class, we generally make decisions in regards to utilitarianism, but this just doesn't seem right to take the life of an innocent man. I think also it is different here because it didn't say that things would definitely go well if you did sacrifice the man, there could be complications. This immediately makes me hesitant because if you wasted the life of a perfectly healthy man for several dying people it would be unbearable to live with. I think it is totally different situations, and just from the beginning without reviewing the situations you just have a natural instinct to not want to hurt the innocent man. When I here of situations like these it makes me very happy not to be a pre-med student. However, if I was then I would just see which one of the 5 sick people dies first and then use their organs to save the other 4 and give the healthy man a pat on the back and send him on his way.
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