What do you think about the thought experiment below? Do you think the author successfully violates the moral principle from the first paragraph with the situation in the third? If so, explain why.
“You are a doctor in a hospital’s emergency room when six accident victims are brought in. All six are in danger of dying but one is much worse off than the others. You can just barely save the person if you devote all of your resources to him and let the others die. Alternatively, you can save the other five if you are willing to ignore the most seriously injured person.”
“It would seem that in this case you, the doctor, would be right to save the five and let the person with the terminal injuries die…. Next, consider the following case:”
“You have five patients in the hospital who are dying, each in need of a separate organ. One needs a kidney, another a lung, a third a heart, and so forth. You can save all five if you take a single healthy person and remove his heart, lungs, kidneys, and so forth, to distribute to these five patients. Just such a healthy person is in room 306. He is in the hospital for routine tests. Having seen his test results, you know that he is perfectly healthy and of the right tissue compatibility. If you do nothing, he will survive without incident; the other patients will die, however. The other five patients can be saved only if the person in room 306 is cut up and his organs distributed. In that case, there would be one dead but five saved.”
Pojman, Lois P., Ethical Theory, pp465-466 (Excerpted from The Nature of Morality, Harman, Gilbert, Oxford University Press,Inc;1977)
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
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Well I cannot answer that question, because I do not know what such doctor's moral principle is. Both scenarios involve the sacrifice of one for the other five. But in the first one all are ill but in the second one only five are. Is the life of a healthy individual more valuable than a sick one? Well your question does not warrant my opinion on the previous question.
ReplyDeleteWell, in this case, it would definitely matter who the people are. In a logical, unprejudiced thought, you would save the five people in the first room, and save the five in the other. But, another logical answer would be to save the five in the first case, and the one in the other, since he has much more to live for, and is very much unlikely to become very ill in the future because of his perfect health. In addition, if the one person who is in a much more critical condition in the first question is of much more importance than a school janitor (no offense), but the person in room 306 could be much more or much less important the the five others. For the first question, it is truly a matter of personal choice, but the second question would be up to the person that would be cut up and (unfortunately) killed.
ReplyDeleteI heard of something similar. If there is a train about to somehow crash (I forgot the details) but if you throw someone underneath, then the train will stop and all the passengers of the train will be saved. Which way is the more moral way to go?
ReplyDeleteFor the first one, I would ignore the most seriously injured person because then more people will be saved. In the second one, I wouldn't take a healthy human to heal five injured ones because those people got injured naturally, but this would be killing someone deliberately, which changes the situation completely. Therefore, I would let the healthy person live but the injured people will have to die, because fate got them to get injured and the healthy person has the right to survive, and murdering that innocent person won't make saving the injured people worth it.
I disagree with Melanie (on some costs). I think that it depends wholly on the healthy patient. And the circumstances have to be right for either option to work. Say that the healthy patient is 90. Then you would definetely choose to use their organs instead of a healthy 20 or 30 year old pateint. Also, I think that if the doctor would use the healthy patient's organs, he/she would have to get their consent. Only with the healthy patient's consent, would the operation go on. I also think that the doctor was really stupid, and he should have been better prepared then he wouldn't be in this situation.
ReplyDeleteIt is not easy to make a decision that will take a person's life. Looking without regard to the people's feelings, but instead with pure reason, cutting up the one person to save five would seem like the most reasonable choice. However, the one guy who is healthy has the right to protect himself and should not be cut into pieces without his permission.
ReplyDeleteI would have to go with saving the group in the first case. However I would have to consider the age, and quality of life of the victims, as well as if possible their opinions on the situation. In the second situation I would only take the organs from the second person if they were willing, because no matter what my views on the situation it is not my choice to make
ReplyDeletePersonally I would save the five each time. The cost of life would be greater if the five died. It would seem selfish to kill 5 people just to save 1.
ReplyDeletesquabs16:
ReplyDeleteYou are the doctor, it is your choice to make. Would you, as the doctor, save the five in the second situation?
Alpha123:
ReplyDeleteWhat about the Hippocratic oath that doctors take? The part about, "first do no harm" seems relevant to the second case where you would murder a perfectly healthy person to give organs to the other five. What do you think?
In the second case, five people will die of natural causes, unless one, perfectly healthy person with a life ahead of them is cut to pieces. I believe that reasons is right about the Hippocratic oath. Killing the person without his permission would be murder.
ReplyDelete