Whooo hooo! Home in 2 days. 36 hours and I'll be on the plane!
The real reason for this post is an article I read today in Discovery magazine. It made me think quite a bit about the moral judgments I make. These questions are NOT trick questions, and don't spend time on either one, because in real life you wouldn't have time to carefully decide.
Question one: A train is chugging down a traintrack ( big surprise ). If it continues, 5 people on a track farther down will die. If you throw the track switch right now, 1 person will die on the other route? What do you do?
Question two: 4 critically injured patients just came into the hospital and won't live much longer. They all need different and unavailable transplants to survive, but they would survive if they had transplants. A person that matches all five donors is about to walk out the doors. (Talk about long odds!) Do you take the healthy person and kill him to save all the others?
Now for the humdinger. Why did you choose what you chose?
6 comments:
Without thinking, I chose: switch the train tracks to save as many as possible. For the medical one: don't kill the one person to save the others.
ok, first off talking to you right now and you didn't tell me you were going to come home in 2 days. i'm offended. anyway
Question one: i would switch the track. because if someone has to die, it's better to be 1 then 5. i would feel horribly guilty either way but it's a choice you'd have to make. 1 person is more expandable than 5, in a logical sense. still an awful choice.
Question two: i would not kill the healthy person. because there is no certainty in the fact that any of the 4 critically injured patients will survive. you could potentially kill 5 people. there are so many things that could go wrong with transplants and i could not justify the death of one without certainty that the 4 would survive and you will never get certainty so there is no justification for the action.
those are some hard questions, i hope i passed the test. hopefully i don't sound cruel
Stacy, good response. That's the one I had when I read the questions -> therefore it is good. ;-)
I was still dis-satisfied with my answer. It comes down to 1 vs 5. 2 vs. 3. Pure numbers. No heart, no feelings, no morals. My brother and I had a good talk about it. Hopefully he'll also post his ideas. But what happens if the life of the 4 people in the hospital were guaranteed to live? Does that mean the doctor should kill the man?
My original response and Stacey's written answer would seem to say, yes. But I (and Stacy) would say no. There is still some basic moral that says one situation is different than the other. What is that foundation?
I can't clearly explain the difference, and must not really understand what the difference is. This is an important moral issue. Can anyone explain the difference so even lowly David can understand?
Well, let's see if I can consolidate the phone comments and hopefully make them more precise.
In the hospital situation, the doctors are taking away the life of the person against his will - obviously wrong, assuming that one doesn't measure the morals by numbers alone.
In the train situation, you are being forced to take away life, and your only options are to take away multiple lives or one life. Or to mirror image the statement, their right/control over their own lives has already been taken away and you have the option of restoring one life or multiple lives.
No getting out of the moral dilemma by deciding to do nothing, because whether through action or inaction you are making a decision and it is the decision which has the moral dimension. Flipping or not flipping a switch has no moral content in itself; it is the decision behind the action or inaction which has moral dimension.
Without thinking, I chose: Don't switch the tracks. God is in charge and already put those four people in a situation where they would die in a train wreck. My knee-jerk response would have such an aversion to (perhaps even a mandate against) killing someone that is not already in harms way that I could not trade it for four. If I had time to think and reason, I THINK I would still not flip the switch. I can't be sure because, the strongest question for me is what if my husband or children were one of the four or the one? Would that change my decision? I am not sure it should. I am trusting God will help me do the right thing (what ever is the right answer)in all of the many decisions I make throughout the day. I have a rather broad definition of what is a moral decision.
A different application to both of these questions is more real life and concerns abortion when the health of the mother is truly threatened. Now, what if that mother was your mother, wife, daughter, or sister. Would you give up your daughter's life, your mother's life for a new sibling, your wife for a child?
As I understand my belief system - and I am not always sure I do understand my belief system :^) - the option is not given to others to take the life of one in exchange for the life of one or many. Therefore, my first and last response would be to not kill the one in the medical situation, but to instantly go to the person at the door and give them the choice. I THINK God gives us the choice to lay down our lives for another. I say THINK because it is suicide, after all - murdering yourself.
The person at the door is then given a nearly instant choice. I might give up my life for one or four other people. But...what if all four were octogenarians, all four children with hurting moms and dads, all four expectant mothers. We might decide no for the aged but say yes for the young. But, what if the eighty something research scientist discovers the cure for cancer or the child grows up to be the Virginia Tech shooter? What if all four are killed in car accidents the day they are released from the hospital. Talk about what are the odds!!
But all we have are knee-jerk reactions in short time spans. Frighteningly, I sometimes only have knee jerk reactions in long time spans for decisions. We like to think that our reactions are based on principles, but the older I get, the more I see them based on vague, indistinct past experiences. It is scary to think my decisions are out of THAT muddy quagmire. By God's grace, I have a Lord that makes all things work together for good to those called according to his purpose. Even my muddy quagmire. It is so important to daily ask him to lead us. Trusting God to be in charge of my decisions for the good of all, is what gets me through.
Actually age wouldn't matter at all if it were my husband, children or other family members. So question two raises something I struggle with daily - having an equal standard. Loving and treating all the same.
The don't see any distinction between the two questions - train and medical - except we MIGHT (I have doubts) have a choice (to switch or not) in the former and no choice - except for the door person - in the medical situation. I am sure you would all make better decisions than I and you would certainly have made this posting more clear. :^)
Question One: I would switch the track. I probably can accept the fact that I killed 1 life in order to save 5 lives better than the fact that I killed 5 lives in order to save 1 life.
Question Two: I will not kill the healthy person. In my mind, if God wants to save the sick group, he will save them somehow. If not, then it is the group's destiny to die that way.
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