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Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives? This question is constantly trotted out and it's a great example o

Should you murder the healthy patient so you can distribute his organs, thus saving 5 lives? This question is constantly trotted out and it's a great example of the deeply unreal world ethicists insist on operating in. In the real world, you don't, because making people people live in a world where that happens costs more than doing it would benefit you. Doing the murder is therefore not, I repeat, not the utilitarian answer. They always refuse to pose the question in a way that might actually make students consider whether the murder is worth it. For example, suppose the seven people are the crew of a spacecraft sent to divert an asteroid from wiping out human civilization. Is murdering one to save billions justified?

danbruc 5y ago
Is murdering one to save billions justified? No.
- a_t48 5y ago
  Without the support of human civilization they are probably a bit boned anyhow. :)
  - danbruc 5y ago
    Sure, but that doesn't really help to justify killing them. Can I walk around and kill random people? I mean sooner or later they will all die for one reason or another, I am not really changing the outcome for anyone...
    - dale_glass 5y ago
      No, but the people in this case are not random, their death somehow saves billions, which means it very different from killing random people on the street. In fact, we make far worse moral calculations than that frequently. Eg, if you've ever supported a war, you've agreed with killing completely innocent children, often in horrible ways, for the sake of whatever benefit the war might have had for the side you support. And there have been plenty wars fought for reasons other than self-defense. Take Iraq and Afghanistan for instance.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  Why not?
- staticman2 5y ago
  That's an interesting response. I wonder if you getting caught up on the word "murder"? A nucleur missle is about to fire off and kill everybody in your country. You can only shoot it before it launches, missle defense can't catch it after launch. You can preemtively destroy the missle, but an innocent child playing near the missle silo is going to be killed. Do you stop the missle? The child's death will be called collateral damage. Nobody was "murdered".
  - danbruc 5y ago
    The nuclear missile is a worse example because there is already this element of hostility and self-defense in the scenario. You might be able to justify killing five million people in another country in order to prevent them from launching a missile onto your country that would kill a million of your people. [1] I have no idea what utilitarians have to say here, will they be okay with getting a million of their people killed because that is a smaller lose of utility than the prevention of the attack which costs five million lifes in the hostile country? [1] For simplicity ignoring all the complications of who wants to attack, probably the government or the military, and who would be victim of the prevention, probably military and civilians, and that you therefore might have to kill people that do not support or even oppose the attack.
Proven 5y ago

danbruc 5y ago

Is murdering one to save billions justified? No.

a_t48 5y ago
Without the support of human civilization they are probably a bit boned anyhow. :)
- danbruc 5y ago
  Sure, but that doesn't really help to justify killing them. Can I walk around and kill random people? I mean sooner or later they will all die for one reason or another, I am not really changing the outcome for anyone...
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    No, but the people in this case are not random, their death somehow saves billions, which means it very different from killing random people on the street. In fact, we make far worse moral calculations than that frequently. Eg, if you've ever supported a war, you've agreed with killing completely innocent children, often in horrible ways, for the sake of whatever benefit the war might have had for the side you support. And there have been plenty wars fought for reasons other than self-defense. Take Iraq and Afghanistan for instance.
marginalia_nu 5y ago
Why not?
staticman2 5y ago
That's an interesting response. I wonder if you getting caught up on the word "murder"? A nucleur missle is about to fire off and kill everybody in your country. You can only shoot it before it launches, missle defense can't catch it after launch. You can preemtively destroy the missle, but an innocent child playing near the missle silo is going to be killed. Do you stop the missle? The child's death will be called collateral damage. Nobody was "murdered".
- danbruc 5y ago
  The nuclear missile is a worse example because there is already this element of hostility and self-defense in the scenario. You might be able to justify killing five million people in another country in order to prevent them from launching a missile onto your country that would kill a million of your people. [1] I have no idea what utilitarians have to say here, will they be okay with getting a million of their people killed because that is a smaller lose of utility than the prevention of the attack which costs five million lifes in the hostile country? [1] For simplicity ignoring all the complications of who wants to attack, probably the government or the military, and who would be victim of the prevention, probably military and civilians, and that you therefore might have to kill people that do not support or even oppose the attack.

Proven 5y ago