[Anon] [Text]

[crouching_sin]

Here's a question for you all. It's something that I read a while back, and I'm interested in your answers. Anonymous is fine, if you want.

There are five patients in a hospital. All of them are dying due to complications with various organs. All of them will die within the next day or so if they don't get an organ transplant. Magic won't save any of them, incidentally, if you were hoping to use that.

A young backpacker comes into the hospital or a checkup. He has no relatives, and he is in excellent health. As it happens, you, the surgeon on duty, notice that he is a perfect match for all five of the patients.

Assuming the backpacker does not give consent, is it morally permissible to cut him up and transfer the organs to the other patients? These are not organs that the backpacker can live without, so he'll die if you do.

I'm interested to hear what you think.

Comments

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

That's correct. A student of philosophy, I see.

Don't doctors play God all the time, though? Patient lives hang in the balance every day and people live or die based on his actions or inactions.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

Doctors are also charged to "first do no harm" as they make those decisions. And it's hard to justify murder under an ethical charge to do no harm.

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

True. The ambiguity is a bit more clear in your example... but it's interesting to see people react to the doctor example since doctors are generally held to be respected individuals in communities. So the response to the question is generally much more extreme.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

It's obvious you're testing to see how people react, as opposed to advancing any particular side for yourself.

What is it you're trying to discover, exactly?

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

For one, knowing how people judge morality is amusing, if nothing else. It also helps when it comes to figuring out just what sort of thing a person will react badly to in the future. So it's just statistics, for now. I can't battle all the time.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

You aren't concerned that it goes both ways?

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

There's a reason I'm on anonymous.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

Anonymity isn't all it's cracked up to be.

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

Sometimes, but it's useful.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

At least until you give away too many tells. Then its use ends up becoming moot.

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

That's true. But identities are easy to make.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

And yet in the end, they're still only identities. Some things never change.

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

Of course. But masks are easily changed.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

Meaning, you have no identity whatsoever save for whatever is most convenient at any given moment?

That's a sorry way to live.

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

I have my own identity, but I choose to bring it to bear on decisions as I choose. I've seen too many people destroyed by trying to fit their feelings where their feelings don't need to go.

anonymous text;

[doitrockapella]

And you think that perfect objectivity will get you further ahead in life?

anonymous text;

[crouching_sin]

It's gotten me further than most, though I admit that I don't know what other worlds are like.