Kill 1 to Save 5? Consequentialism vs. Deontology

***Correction***
The video inaccurately says that "according to deontology, there are some moral rules that should never be broken." But that only accurately describes "absolutist" versions of deontology (such as Immanuel Kant's). Other versions of deontology can allow for any rule to be broken. What makes a view deontological is primarily that regards morality as fundamentally involving duties and principles, and that those duties are not determined solely by the good or bad consequences of your actions.

Video Description:
Is it ever ok to kill an innocent person? According to Consequentialism, morality is ultimately about doing whatever has the best consequences. But according to [absolutist] Deontology, there are some moral rules that should never be broken. Philosophers Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson offer some interesting thought experiments (i.e. hypothetical scenarios) to help us think about these issues. In the famous Trolley Problem example, there's a runaway trolley about to kill five people on the track ahead, but you can divert the trolley so that it hits only one person instead. And in the Transplant Case, there's a surgeon who can murder an innocent person so that he can harvest the organs and save five people from organ failure. Both cases involve killing 1 person to save 5 others.

Media Sources:

[ThinkingAboutStuff]

If it's ok to pull the lever, is it ok for the surgeon to kill and harvest the organs? If not, what's the relevant difference between these cases? Some philosophers say one involves "killing" while the other involves "letting die."

[indefdef]

As a consequentialist, I view the very phrasing "kill one to save five" as unjustifiably ceding ground to deontology. Deontologists truck in a multiplicity of verbal disintctions. The phrasing that's fair to consequentialism is: "choose one death plus one lever pull over five deaths plus zero lever pulls".

[scottchristensen]

I think that the trolly case kind of depends on whether you believe human life has a limited value or you believe that it is infinitely valuable. I say this because if you value a humans life as X, then the 5 people would be worth 5X and it would be rational to pull the lever. However, if you value human life at infinity, then the one person is no less valuable than 5 people because infinity times 5 is still infinity.

[frozentesla]

pretty much like human's life, whatever choice you made either way society will critized you

[WesternOhioInterurbanHistory]

1:19
That locomotive is not going to go around that curve, it has too many trucks. It will derail and possibly kill the five people anyway.

[thechadandthevirgin]

The dillema is clear. How do you kill all 6. Say you're on a train, and one track has 5 people tied to it and another with 1 person. Simple. This requires an incredibly good throw but you throw something with enough force at the right time to strike the single person. And then take the train on to the other path. Killing all 6.

[willguggn]

The patient example would ultimately result in a society that normalizes sacrificing random non-consenting people to harvest their organs. That's not a desirable outcome.

[slimshadys]

Now change that one person on the track to a family member or companion animal. Would you let that one family member die to save more people?
It's not a simple equation. There are many variables to consider.

[LeonLuckyV]

Aside the video, how did you animate this? Did you make everything including the background picture at the beginning, trolley animation etc… rest of the video seems like powerpoint esque

[keifer]

2:25 Bout to be the biggest check-up of his life Doctor's probably doing the Birdman hand rub 😂

[mikec]

One important difference between the trolley and the surgeon scenario that I can think of is that if we allow the surgeon to kill the healthy patient to save the five that required organ transplants, we would cause people to be fearful of going to the doctor. This would negatively impact people's health, which would make harvesting the healthy patient's organs more negative than switching the trolley tracks. Another difference is that the single victim on the alternate track would know of their impending doom once you switch the trolley tracks, whereas the patient might not be aware if he was quickly and covertly sedated. But this almost seems to support switching the trolley tracks as more harmful because of the added dread.

It's possible to imagine a scenario to nullify some of the after mentioned differences. For instance, perhaps there is a way to harvest the patient organs without anyone ever finding out, and this scenario only ever happened once, so you don't have to worry about making people fearful of going to the doctor. In that case, there would still be the difference that you are deceiving the patient into thinking they are getting a normal check up when in reality you are harvesting their organs. In the original trolley problem, there is no deception. And it's a highly consequential kind of deception.

Admittedly, my own gut reaction is that it is right to switch the trolley tracks but wrong to harvest the organs, so my analysis might be biased in favor of that. Please let me know of any refutations of the ideas I have shared.

[andypersaud]

I personally think that if I change the train's path it would be murder. But if I just didnt interfere with teh trains path and let the 5 people die it wouldnt be murder it would be what was soupposed to happen.

[MaddyKTed]

I will pull the lever and immediately rush to the person to untie him/her because train lever are close to train tracks and its faster to untie one person than to untie 5of them. Even though we both might get killed if i fail to untie him/her its worth trying, and if he/dies alone it will be guaranteed that he will be remembered as hero in the fives heart for his/her sacrifices.

[alanc]

My solution to the problem is pretty simple: utilitarianism works for cases which doesn't involve consent; maximizing well being doesn't always comes down to saving more lives in the short term.

Breaking consent is bad because even if you do it while being justified, you're the only one to justify your actions, and by doing so you justify a world where murder is acceptable if the person who commits the crime think is justified which is just total madness, even if you somehow get a council to approve this kind of behavior it still is tyranny, democracy doesn't decide what's right, no matter how many nazis think it's right to genocide ideological murder is absolutely terrible. Also, no one would go to hospitals if doctors could kill you without warning. Basically not killing the person to give his organs is the utilitarian correct choice.
It is also what you have to consider when pushing someone off a bridge to stop the train.



With the typical trolley problem you don't equate pulling the lever as killing and breaking consent because it is depicted as an unsusual situation, therefore the killer is not you but rather luck or incompetency or whatever lead the trolley to act the way it does, and you become merely an intermediary trying to mitigate the consequences of an already happening tragedy. the unreproducibilty makes pulling the lever virtually similar to letting die since the trolley is the one acting. Maybe there are variation which makes it harder to answer but i can't think of any.

[ishanakayy]

I think that in this case it comes to the intention of the person, the current laws when the action took place, wether a similar issue has been brought up before and that there is a system to prevent the issue to happen again. So basically lets say a man ran over 5 people with the train instead of 1, if he did so because he was scared the current law will prosecute him for killing an individual instead of 5 he is innocent. now if only such an issue has happened for the first time at the very least in the system of law in which the man that pulled the lever resides in, it is the duty of the law makers to make sure that the incident at the very least can be avoided next time it happens with a new system or if the system is currently not available they should warn there citizens of the danger until a new system comes up to solve the issue. Otherwise in my opinion it is okay to save 4 people instead of 1. Coming to the next example with the doctor, the doctor is not allowed to kill one patient to save 5 because it is basically unlawful to kill someone, only unless the law perhaps permits to kill someone to save 5 others. but if the doctor is concerned that an issue might happen in the future he can give information to the law to find a resolution for the problem, a solution where no one is killed unlawfully, perhaps finding a new solution to the problem like for example making artificial organs or having organ donors super accessible etc.what i take form this is would you want a world with people that are scared to do the right thing and kill more rather then less and or to be in a world where a doctor can take your life unlawfully. not me i would rather be in a world where the doctor at the very most asks if i am willing to give my life for 5 others, and if i don't allow it, the doctor and the system we have in place finds a way to avoid the problem in the beginning so i don't need to make a hard decision like giving my life away, and also to live in a world were if someone killed me to save 5 other people, to at the very least know that if that does happen, people who didn't want me to die would work to make it so that such an issue does not happen in the future again. n

[ferb]

I'd definitely be a consequentialist here, it troubles me that I don't see much deep analysis in this comment section going over the many other factors in the example of a surgeon taking 5 organs from 1 person to save 5.

The societal impact is a great example of this and I think one of the most important things to consider. If this were done frequently or even once and the information got out in such a way that much more utility (defined as good feelings minus bad ones) was lost through stress and a lack of a sense of security among many people, it would not be ethical to do this even by a consequentialist framework.

[krissteal]

Solution 1 be an engineering
Solution 2 kill the 5 make a U turn kill the 1
Solution 3 jump in front of the trolley and make sure you do so in a way where it stops the trolley
Big Brain moves

[nathanm]

I've recently self-published a novel that may be of interest to people who are intrigued by the consequentialism v deontology debate in the context of a "life and death" ethical dilemma. It's called "The Decision" by Nathan McGregor, and it's available in both Kindle and paperback format through Amazon.

[kylegoggio]

My answer is pull the leaver right as the train will cross and see if it derails the train, possibly killing or saving both sets. Either way its a fair outcome

[paintedshoebox]

Here's why I would choose differently for one and two:

For the trolley problem, I come across 6 total people just tied to the tracks. Someone had to do that. Someone else went out of their way to attempt to murder people like that, helpless and unable to do nothing but watch their death come. The danger is already in the situation, I have not decided that this situation should exist. I would hit the switch and save 5.

For the second, you are creating the dangerous situation for the one, you are "tying him to the tracks" if you kill him. Instead of no one being able to escape the situation, you would be going out of your way to "build tracks" to "bind" this guy to.
You ask him. That's all you do. If he consents, go through with the procedure. If he doesn't, don't.