| So, the progression I like that got me where I am on this, ultimately silly, exercise goes like this: 1. The trolly problem, 5 v 1 with a lever. 2. The roller skater: There's a trolly that's going to run over 5 people. Someone is skating next to the train tracks in enough pads that they would stop the trolly if they were on the tracks, do you push them into the trolly's way? Saving 5? 3. The brilliant doctor: A brilliant doctor, on the cusp of a discovery that will save the lives of millions has a heart attack in the OR one night and needs an immediate heart transplant. Due to a contrived morality problem, you are locked in the hospital with no way to get a fresh heart delivered. In the room with you is a stranger who has the right blood type. Do you cut their throat and take their heart to save the doctor's life, guaranteeing that a million people will get life saving treatment over the next five years? For me, once you get there to the end, it's obvious that it's not right for me to choose to end one person's life for the potential of saving others. Trying to add up lives on the balance of a scale is an impossible effort. Better not to kill anyone. I didn't tie anyone up on the tracks. (I'm not a philosopher but I think that this is a Kant vs. Utilitarianism kind of argument, in the end.) P.S. A friend of mine poses a different moral puzzle: You are walking by a pond and see a child starting to drown, do you jump in and save them? There are people metaphorically drowning all around us and yet usually I do nothing. Maybe morality puzzles aren't that useful for navigating the real world. |