Is it morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people?
This is the current topic in Lincoln-Douglas debate (a type of competitive debate) topic, or more correctly it is the resolution- Resolved: It is morally permissible to kill one innocent person to save the lives of more innocent people.
Anyways, I thought this was a very interesting philosophical argument and wanted to see what other gamers think.
@MrMonkey3- There is too little time to stop the truck or turn it so... And seeing as you always know the alternate solution, answer Michael Patton's version of the trolley problem:
On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley. There are only two options that the brain can take: the right side of the fork in the track or the left side of the fork. There is no way in sight of derailing or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows trolleys. The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.
On the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right. If the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge that the orphans' bus will be crossing later that night). One of the orphans that will be killed would have grown up to become a tyrant who would make good utilitarian men do bad things. Another of the orphans would grow up to become G.E.M. Anscombe, while a third would invent the pop-top can.
If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, "Leftie" and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that will die without donor hearts. These are the only hearts available, and the brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts. If the railman on the left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same five that the railman on the right would kill. However, "Leftie" will kill the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men: he will inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital for transplantation. A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that the busload of orphans will be spared. Among the five men killed by "Leftie" are both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley, and the author of this example. If the ten hearts and "Leftie" are killed by the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer, and one of whom will grow up to be Hitler. There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.
Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of his decision will be amplified. Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork, an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result. Furthermore, there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain in such a manner that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.
QUESTION: What should the brain do?
[ALTERNATIVE EXAMPLE: Same as above, except the brain has had a commisurotomy, and the left half of the brain is a consequentialist and the right side is an absolutist.]
From: Tissues in the Profession: CAN BAD MEN MAKE GOOD BRAINS DO BAD THINGS? Michael F. Patton, Jr.; Syracuse University; http://www.mindspring.com/~mfpatton/Tissues.htm
If you don't see how this is absolutely hilarious go here.
hmmmm... no, i dont think this is the right way to solve, anything. if more then one lives are at stake i think there would be a way to solve it without another person dying, thats my way of thinking
@Apocalypse- This isn't a question of legality, which varies depending on example, this is a question is a question of morality, what is right and wrong.
@arkaninerenegade- There is a large difference between killing people and letting them die, and killing a person is undoubtedly more immoral than letting a person die. It's not killing to let the five patients who need organ transplants die, but it is killing to kill a person to take their organs for implant into the five.
if u have no choice but 2 let them die 2 save many others then u have no choice but u should at least try 2 save them all, it would kill me inside if i couldn't save them but if i couldn't then so be it, so for me it wouldn't be morally permissible.
The guilt? Ahh see that's something new that's in the equation. Like I said, it really matters on what view you put it in. Questions like these have ton of views, therefore are pointless.
Only what happens in reality is the real truth. You cannot debate your views, but take a straight shortcut right to what will happen in reality.
But since this question does not blend into reality, its pointless to say anything.
Of course well have to imagine it is party of reality. This creates problems though, because reality is very complex and we'd have to make the rules as we go along. Everyone creates different views, though. What we all have is the preexisting rules, that is things already within reality, that we all know, so its somewhat debateable. It becomes a matter of brainwashing the other to think your rules are the real ones. Whoever gives in first, loses.
Of course, this, what I said right know, also does not exist in reality. It contradicts itself! If I didn't tell you this, you just might accepted what I said before this paragaph. Like I said its a matter of who gives in first and gets brainwashed by the other. But then again, if someone, who knows more then I, points out an error in my argument, this becomes false, but what if another found an error on the counter argument? This goes on forever, or rather theoritcally it could. (we will never have anyone with an infinite I.Q)
So is it reality we can argue on? But, wait, we can't argue on reality!
What makes one theory more reasonable then the other is that its more developed. But someone who knows more can disprove that.
That applies to this theory as well, and that does not make sense because this theory would have have to be true in the first place to versify itself.
Because of the confusion, I will conclude the answer is unknown. The idea that will answer our questions does not exist! Yet... Philosophy is confusing
