Ethics Cases

ETHICS CASES Kantianism Bystander at the Switch. A bystander can pull a switch, turning a runaway trolley off of a track on which it will kill five innocent people, and onto a track on which it will kill one innocent person.

Transplant: Imagine that there are five patients, each of whom will soon die unless they receive an appropriate transplanted organ: one needs a heart, two need kidneys, one needs a liver, and the fifth needs new lungs. Unfortunately, due to tissue incompatibilities, none of the five can act as donor for the others. But here is Alf, who is in the hospital for some fairly routine tests. The hospital computer reveals that his tissue is completely compatible with the five patients. You are a surgeon, and it now occurs to you that you could chop up Alf and use his organs to save the five others. Return. You have borrowed a machete from your next-door neighbor, promising to bring it back by noon tomorrow. The next day, at 11:55am, you go to return the weapon. However, when your neighbor answers the door you see a small child tied up behind him. Calm and collected he reaches for the machete, whispering: “Thanks, I’ve been waiting for this.” Deadly Knowledge. You ask me whether Becky committed some murder. I know that, unless I tell you a lie, you would come to believe truly that Becky is the murderer. Since you could not conceal that belief from Becky, she would, to protect herself, murder you as well. One-For-Two: The mafia will murder two strangers unless you murder a third. Huck. Huckleberry Finn believes that he should not help Jim escape slavery, but rather turn him in at the first available opportunity. A golden opportunity comes to turn Jim in, yet Huckleberry discovers that he just cannot do it. He thus fails to do what he takes to be his duty, deciding as a result that, what with morality being so hard, he will just remain a bad boy. (Note: He does not reform his views. He still believes that the moral thing to do would have been to turn Jim in). Drop. Walking late at night, you and a friend come across a burning building. As you look up at the flames, you see two terrified children stuck on the 13th floor – one on the east side of the building and one on the west. You call the fire department, but they tell you they cannot make it in time. Fortunately, there are fire escapes providing safe paths to each of the children. You take the east side child and your friend takes the west. You scale the building, and carry the child to safety. Your friend scales the building, but, on the 12th floor, the child slips from his arms, falling to her death. Utilitarianism Oxfam. The charity Oxfam is soliciting donations for a program that will vaccinate impoverished children against disease. Craftily, the administrators of the program have arranged their finances in such a way that the marginal benefits of further donations are clear: for every $100 you give, around ten more children will be vaccinated. For every ten children vaccinated, around one of them will live through an epidemic of disease that would otherwise have killed him or her. Human Fuel. While piloting a steel, steam-engined boat across the bleak South Seas, you receive a distress call from Amy, who has been left to die of thirst on a nearby, bare island by cruel pirates. Knowing that you are the only boat in the area, you pick her up, and then receive another distress call from Brian and Celia, left to die of thirst on a not-so-nearby, bare island by more cruel pirates. You do not have enough coal to get to them, and no part of your steel boat will serve as fuel. Amy, however, is both large and dehydrated.

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Knock her on the head, shove her in the furnace and you will make it over there. And nobody but you will ever know. Hangnails. We have a machine that will zoom around painlessly preventing everyone’s hangnails, forever. That’s a lot of hangnails. Added together, the machine prevents a lot of pain. But here’s the catch: For fuel, the machine requires the life of one teenage human. All it takes is one. Yet it will be very, very bad for that one human – she will be slowly crushed to death inside the machine. Remember, however, that once fueled up, this machine will prevent every hangnail for all of human history. Indeed, the pain from the hangnails would outweigh the pain caused by the crushing. The machine has already selected its victim, and unless we hit the Stop Button it will “fuel up”. Sensible Doctor. A doctor can perform an operation that may save a child’s life. Without the operation, the child will live ten more years. If it’s performed and fails, the child will die. If it succeeds, the child will live seventy more years. The chance of success is one in a million. Given these odds, the doctor abstains from operating. Yet, as a matter of fact, had she performed the procedure it would have been successful. Accomplishment. Andy is a monomaniac – he cares only about climbing. His sole aim in life is to climb the world’s 100 tallest mountains. Reaching each peak fills him with tremendous pleasure, outdone only by the pleasure he feels summiting the next. Today he is to attempt Chhogori (K2), the last on his list. With great skill, he ascends to the peak. Standing there triumphant, his heart is filled with joy. This joy is too much for his exhausted body. In ecstasy, his heart gives out. But consider two variants: Unity. Andy’s mental states represent what transpires in reality. When Andy experiences pulling himself to the top of K2, he is pulling his actual body to the top of K2, an actual mountain. Experience Machine. Andy’s mental states do not represent what transpires in reality. His experience of pulling himself to the top of K2 is produced by electrodes attached to his brain, which is floating in a tank.

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