Legality vs Morality: Utilitarianism
Which is better; harming one person to save many others, or harming many to save one? This concept is referred to in many scenarios. For example, there is a train travelling down a train track. In one direction, someone you know is tied down to the track. In the other, there are five strangers. The train can't stop, and you are in charge of the lever which determines which way the train goes. What do you do? If you let the train go left, you lose that person. But if you switch the lever and the train goes right, five people, of whom you know nothing about, will die.
Or another example; imagine you're a doctor. You have five patients in desperate need of transplants. One needs a heart, one a lung, another needs a kidney, one needs a pancreas, and the other a liver. In the other room, there is a perfectly healthy man who came in for a checkup. Do you take this innocent mans life in order to save the others, or let the other five die?
Although it seems more logical to harm one to save many rather than harm many to save one, neither option, in my opinion, is ethical. The exception to this of course would be if the one person who would need to be harmed to save the others is willing to sacrifice themselves
Which is better; harming one person to save many others, or harming many to save one? This concept is referred to in many scenarios. For example, there is a train travelling down a train track. In one direction, someone you know is tied down to the track. In the other, there are five strangers. The train can't stop, and you are in charge of the lever which determines which way the train goes. What do you do? If you let the train go left, you lose that person. But if you switch the lever and the train goes right, five people, of whom you know nothing about, will die.
Or another example; imagine you're a doctor. You have five patients in desperate need of transplants. One needs a heart, one a lung, another needs a kidney, one needs a pancreas, and the other a liver. In the other room, there is a perfectly healthy man who came in for a checkup. Do you take this innocent mans life in order to save the others, or let the other five die?
Although it seems more logical to harm one to save many rather than harm many to save one, neither option, in my opinion, is ethical. The exception to this of course would be if the one person who would need to be harmed to save the others is willing to sacrifice themselves
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