RE: Trolley Problem/Consistency in Ethics
January 24, 2018 at 11:46 am
(This post was last modified: January 24, 2018 at 11:49 am by paulpablo.)
The two don't seem to be on completely even footing.
In the trolley one it seems like an evil act has been done to 6 people, your job is to minimize the causalities, in a practical situation like that you'd be calling the police or at least thinking of how to save that one persons life on the track after the lever has been pulled, you'd pull the lever to save the 5 people, then your goal, no matter how futile, would be to save the 1 person on their own.
In the surgery scenario you're actively killing someone and harvesting their organs, that seems to eliminate any chance of their possibly being intentions to save everyone's life.
There's practical differences in the scenario, the degree of involvement in the killing, the timing of the deaths, the probability of the single person surviving. I know this is a hypothetical situation in which you're supposed to know the man on the track will die if you pull the lever, but if that situation were real there'd still be things you can do to at least try and save that person that you would try to do. Unlike removing someone's organs, in which case you are the person who is killing that single person with your own hands directly and with full knowledge that they're going to die.
Also the statistical difference in how likely it is the 5 will survive. If the train is not running them over they will not die. On the other hand in the surgical scenario you're relying on the fact that this person has organs that are in good condition, that the procedure will go perfectly, that no one will die during these 5 procedures and so on.
If I was put in these practical situations it seems instinctive/logical to say I would pull the lever in the trolley situation but not perform the surgery in the surgical scenario.
In the pretend world of hypothetical questions, where I know who will survive, who will die and exactly what will happen, it wouldn't really make a difference I suppose, I might have to think it through more but both situations seem fairly equal in a pretend hypothetical world.
In the trolley one it seems like an evil act has been done to 6 people, your job is to minimize the causalities, in a practical situation like that you'd be calling the police or at least thinking of how to save that one persons life on the track after the lever has been pulled, you'd pull the lever to save the 5 people, then your goal, no matter how futile, would be to save the 1 person on their own.
In the surgery scenario you're actively killing someone and harvesting their organs, that seems to eliminate any chance of their possibly being intentions to save everyone's life.
There's practical differences in the scenario, the degree of involvement in the killing, the timing of the deaths, the probability of the single person surviving. I know this is a hypothetical situation in which you're supposed to know the man on the track will die if you pull the lever, but if that situation were real there'd still be things you can do to at least try and save that person that you would try to do. Unlike removing someone's organs, in which case you are the person who is killing that single person with your own hands directly and with full knowledge that they're going to die.
Also the statistical difference in how likely it is the 5 will survive. If the train is not running them over they will not die. On the other hand in the surgical scenario you're relying on the fact that this person has organs that are in good condition, that the procedure will go perfectly, that no one will die during these 5 procedures and so on.
If I was put in these practical situations it seems instinctive/logical to say I would pull the lever in the trolley situation but not perform the surgery in the surgical scenario.
In the pretend world of hypothetical questions, where I know who will survive, who will die and exactly what will happen, it wouldn't really make a difference I suppose, I might have to think it through more but both situations seem fairly equal in a pretend hypothetical world.
Are you ready for the fire? We are firemen. WE ARE FIREMEN! The heat doesn’t bother us. We live in the heat. We train in the heat. It tells us that we’re ready, we’re at home, we’re where we’re supposed to be. Flames don’t intimidate us. What do we do? We control the flame. We control them. We move the flames where we want to. And then we extinguish them.
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