Morality poll

[vhawk01]

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1) is a fairly easy flip the switch. 2) is a stunningly easy not ok.

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How so? What's the difference between the two?

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I'd start from the other way round. I can't see any similarity between the two. What similarities do you see?

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In both cases you are choosing to sacrifice one to save five. Is it really that difficult to figure out?

In both cases you are killing someone who, without your intervention, would otherwise remain alive. Get it now?

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The meta-type consquences of the two are very different. If people knew that, when they entered a hospital, there was a chance Doctors would just kill you for your organs, people would be less likely to enter hospitals, which would more than compesate for the gain in lives in these rarer circumstances.

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Where were you in the "Is lying ok, kill vhawk" thread with your meta-consequences?

[vhawk01]

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Wow, I'm surprised at how some people think these are similar.

1. People(s) WILL die.

2. People(s) MIGHT die.

It's the difference between knowing and guessing at. The 5 in 2. will die if not helped but helping them via the 1 does not guarantee their survival or their ongoing usefullness to society. On the other hand, by killing the 1, you have definately destroyed a useful individual.

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Uhhh....what? I think its safe to assume that harvesting the organs will save the 5 lives, at least temporarily. No reason the train-track people can't get hit by a car tomorrow. Not sure I get your objection. The probabilities of life and death in each scenario are identical.

[vhawk01]

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your tone in this thread is obnoxious.

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Nice contribution. Would you like the discuss the OP, or is a comment on my tone the only thing you can come up with....

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obviously i wouldn't like to discuss the OP else i would have.

thank you for recognizing my contribution toward helping you not suck.

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[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[vhawk01]

By the way, do any of you guys see a fundamental difference from scenario 2 and the doctors who fudge insurance forms or hospital orders to get their patients the treatments they need? I imagine most doctors would find them significantly different, but to me is just seems a matter of magnitude, no fundamental difference.

[vhawk01]

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It's not absolutely necessary that someone else get killed in the hospital situation - i.e. if there are organs already preserved from a previously dead person at hand, or if there is already another patient at the hospital who faces imminent death (assume a hopeless case) and has already agreed to donate his organs.

Sure, that would be changing the hypothetical, but I certainly can do that if you can also postulate that situation 1 does not require a person standing (or tied up, whatever) on the other track.

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Sigh, one more time, then I think I'm done. Yes, you're correct, that is changing the hypothetical, which is one of the main things I'm arguing against. If you contantly change the hypothetical and introduce new elements to it (preserved organs that were never mentioned before) you're basically destroying any rigor the discussion may have and making it next to impossible to make any definitive statements about the morality involved (this task is hard enough already).

Furthermore, I'm not changing the train hypothetical in any way by merely pointing out that the causal links are different than in the case of the doctor. I am not "postulating" anything. It's a fact that the death of person 1 is not necessary for saving 5 in the train case in the same way that the death of person 1 is necessary in the organ case. Surely you can see that by merely observing this state of affairs I'm not changing diddly.

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Surely the death of *someone* is necessary for the organ transplant in #2. But the question - and the distinction I'm making - is whether the killing of someone is necessary in either #1 or #2. It is not, for the reasons I've stated previously (and quoted here). So once again, I say that I'm not changing hypothetical #2 any more than you are changing hypothetical #1 in this respect.

What seals the case for me doesn't even have to do with the necessity of killing (or lack thereof). It's about the duties and responsibilities that are either assigned to the person in question or which said person assumes.

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Killing someone is necessary in case two because that is what the hypothetical stipulates. You have to take his organs, and this will kill him. This is an assumption the hypothetical is making, if you say otherwise you are talking about a different hypothetical. By introducing new organs that the doctor finds in the hospitals closet you are obviously changing the hypothetical.

Obviously in the train case person 1 dies, but it's not directly in the causal chain in the same way as the doctor case. It looks like this if you take the saving 5 option:

Case 1: Flip switch -> (a) save 5 people, (b) one guy dies
Case 2: KILL patient -> (a) save 5 people

It doesn't mean you have to think that this is morally relevant, and certainly under many moral systems it's not (utilitarian for example) but it IS a difference, and I am not changing a thing by pointing that out. Not sure why that's so hard to get across.

**Again, I haven't said what my opinion is either way, just trying to point out the relevant discussion points**

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Why can't you look at the removal of the man's organs in the same light as the flipping of the switch? Its not like you cut his throat and then remove his organs. If you want to be a dick about it, you can just remove his organs and watch him inevitably die. Of course he is going to die, and of course the one person is going to die in the train example, but the causal chain is:

Flip the switch -> Save 5 lives, 1 dies

Remove organs -> Save 5 lives, 1 dies.

[vhawk01]

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suppose in the trolly example its a 50% chance of killing each of 5 people or a 50% chance of killing 1.

What about 90% or 99.9999%

What changes when the probability becomes 1?

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You're changing the scenerio, but this is just too easy. If there is any chance at all that no one will die, no matter how remote, then of course you throw the switch. No-brainer. But as soon as the probability becomes 1, and you have the choice, you must be passive. You have no right to decide who lives and who dies.

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There is always a chance that no one will die. It might changing the hypothetical, but any answer that depends essentially on a probability of 1 of a certain outcome is a uselss hypothetical in every conceivable sense.

[vhawk01]

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I assumed you were from the USA. My apologies if that's not the case.

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I am from the US. Can someone who speaks fluent British/American please translate the last few posts?

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Sure, no problem. You are a caustic jackass, chez is tired of your jawing, but is too polite (really just too British?) to stoop to your level.

At least, thats my read.

[Matt R.]

Wow, this is an interesting question. I chose the common responses (flip the switch to save the 5, do not harvest the organs to save the 5), but I can't for the life of me think of a good reason why this should be correct.

BTW, I haven't read the responses, but I did come up with a little theory.

It is a psychological response due to evolutionary reasons. In example 1, we have no information about the 6 people. Each individual in the trolly of 5 could be of equal health to the one individual. Therefore it is a numbers game, and 5 > 1.

In example 2, we are actively harming a perfectly healthy individual to save 5 who are sick and going to die. Thus we are actively helping the "inferior" individuals (from a health, ability to reproduce, evolutionary perspective... roughly [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) by killing off a perfectly healthy individual.

This seems like a logical reason, and I think its also why my subconscious made me answer the way I did without analyzing it.

Another possibility: it seems "wrong" that we are kidnapping the individual in question #2 without asking him permission first. Since we have a time interval to decide whether to kill 1 to save 5, it seems reasonable that it should be the one guy's choice. In question #1, it doesn't appear we have the luxury of time to make such an inquiry.

Interesting hypothetical, nonetheless.

[Matt R.]

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I'm going to be a nit for a minute here. Sure there are a lot of external problems associated with the doctor case (trust in doctors, future profit loss, etc) that serve to differentiate it, if it were happening in the real world, for what it's worth this is not the way these types of ethics hypotheticals are meant to be done.

Most philosophers of ethics would say the relevant moral difference between the two cases is something called "double effect" (I think the name is right). In the train case you are diverting the train away from five people, the person on the other track just happens to be there. It was an unintended result and you could have made the decision regardless of whether or not he was there. In the doctor case the 1 person being killed to save 5 is intimately involved with the act, necessary for it's execution. If that patient weren't there, the other 5 would just be out of luck. So in that case you are using that person's life to save the other 5, in the train case the 1 person dies incidentally.

You can further discuss whether or not you think this difference is relevant... but it is this difference that should be under discussion, not external factors grafted onto the problem such as probabilities and profit margins (at least that is typically the intent of philosophers who pose these types of dillemas).

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I also like this answer. Seems like a more general/logical way to frame my evolution answer (i.e. the 5 sickies "need" to kill the healthy individual to survive, not the case in the train example where the one guy unfortunately happens to be standing in the wrong place)

[nepenthe]

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The reasoning behind our ethical influences on these questions is pretty clear. In #1, either 5 people die or 1 person dies. The train is going to hit somebody, so it may as well be one instead of five, barring other factors. #2 is "are you kidding me, no!" because the person is is not inherently involved and is a bystander. While we do have a 5:1 person saving ratio, it is unethical to kill the one to save the five because the one is not otherwise involved. If we started killing people against their will in order to save other people, we would have no rights for the minority and everybody would be paranoid about what aspect of them is going to be robbed next for the "greater good". It is tantamount to anarchy and society could not function on that ethical system.

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"not otherwise involved"? I see what you're trying to say, but what would your answer be in the following scenario:

Instead of 1 switch in hypo #1, make it 10 switches and 10 (or is it 11?) different tracks, each containing one person. Rest is the same: if you do nothing, 5 people on the first track will inevitably die. If you decide to pull one of the 10 switches, one person will inevitably die. Zero deaths is impossible. So is everyone inherently "involved" in this situation, and do you still pull a switch? If so, do you decide randomly which one to pull? Do you find this decision more troubling than the original hypo #1?