We've talked about these before
Pushing granny under the bus.
Three dilemmas this time, although I've already discussed a couple of them here or somewhere else.
Dr Dedicated has five patients who are in urgent need of organ donors. He has a sixth patient who's recently been cured and who he could use as a source of organs for the other five. If he were to use the sixth patient in this way, that person would die, although five lives would be saved. Would it be right to kill one person to save many?
This is the old Star Trek (aka Spock) Dilemma. You know the line, "The needs of the star outweigh the needs of realism". Well, he probably said something like that.
Actually, there was something like this in the paper yesterday. The news was that the former head of China's food and drug agency has been sentenced to death. Some of the drugs which he authorised caused the deaths of ten people. It was felt that 10 out of 1.3 billion wasn't really sufficient to be of any particular concern.
I'd say that the action the doctor might take, though it save so many other lives, is still unethical. Nonetheless, the manga/anime series Monster throws this into a spin. Dr Tenma has the choice of operating on some important local official (on the orders of the hospital) or saving the life of a child. He disobeys orders and saves the child who, it turns out, grows up to be a serial killer. So by saving one person, Dr Tenma has inadvertently caused the deaths of many.
The other two dilemmas are about the runaway trolley that's going to mow down a bunch of people unless you can push some fat bastard in front of it. And I thought Tom the Cabin Boy had been eaten by sharks in a previous dilemma. As I said, I've already mentioned the trolley-on-the-tracks dilemma. The problem is whether you're prepared to let one person die to save several others.
The discussion notes that most people are happy enough to switch the points so that the old lady gets run over, but won't got pushing Tom onto the tracks. I expect they're assessing the problem in terms of how immediate their role is in the drama. If I signal someone to switch the points, then my involvement is indirect because someone else then becomes immediately responsible for the death of another person. But the moment I have to do the dirty work myself, I blanch at the thought.
It's like the experiment in which one person believes they're giving someone else an electric shock when they do or get something wrong. (It's all a pretence. The other person's just acting.) So long as someone else is actually taking responsibility for the torture being inflicted, people don't have an overt problem about being the inflicters. It's the old "I was obeying orders" routine.
Three dilemmas this time, although I've already discussed a couple of them here or somewhere else.
Dr Dedicated has five patients who are in urgent need of organ donors. He has a sixth patient who's recently been cured and who he could use as a source of organs for the other five. If he were to use the sixth patient in this way, that person would die, although five lives would be saved. Would it be right to kill one person to save many?
This is the old Star Trek (aka Spock) Dilemma. You know the line, "The needs of the star outweigh the needs of realism". Well, he probably said something like that.
Actually, there was something like this in the paper yesterday. The news was that the former head of China's food and drug agency has been sentenced to death. Some of the drugs which he authorised caused the deaths of ten people. It was felt that 10 out of 1.3 billion wasn't really sufficient to be of any particular concern.
I'd say that the action the doctor might take, though it save so many other lives, is still unethical. Nonetheless, the manga/anime series Monster throws this into a spin. Dr Tenma has the choice of operating on some important local official (on the orders of the hospital) or saving the life of a child. He disobeys orders and saves the child who, it turns out, grows up to be a serial killer. So by saving one person, Dr Tenma has inadvertently caused the deaths of many.
The other two dilemmas are about the runaway trolley that's going to mow down a bunch of people unless you can push some fat bastard in front of it. And I thought Tom the Cabin Boy had been eaten by sharks in a previous dilemma. As I said, I've already mentioned the trolley-on-the-tracks dilemma. The problem is whether you're prepared to let one person die to save several others.
The discussion notes that most people are happy enough to switch the points so that the old lady gets run over, but won't got pushing Tom onto the tracks. I expect they're assessing the problem in terms of how immediate their role is in the drama. If I signal someone to switch the points, then my involvement is indirect because someone else then becomes immediately responsible for the death of another person. But the moment I have to do the dirty work myself, I blanch at the thought.
It's like the experiment in which one person believes they're giving someone else an electric shock when they do or get something wrong. (It's all a pretence. The other person's just acting.) So long as someone else is actually taking responsibility for the torture being inflicted, people don't have an overt problem about being the inflicters. It's the old "I was obeying orders" routine.
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