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- The Trolley Problem contains four scenarios in which you are presented with a choice of killing one person in order to save five others.
- In scenario one, there is a person on trolley tracks unable to escape in time to avoid being hit by a trolley. A bystander notices that they can flip a switch that will save that person but sending the trolley in the direction of five others, killing them. What should you do?
- In the second scenario you are a surgeon that could save five people by harvesting the organs of one person, but the donor will end up dying. What should you do?
- The third scenario involves choosing who to save when there are six people that all need the same medication. Five of the patients only need one fifth of it to survive while the sixth needs all of it. Who should you give it to?
- In the fourth scenario a person is forced to choose between pushing a fat man off a bridge to stop a trolley from hitting five people on the tracks. If actions are not taken then the five people on the tracks will be killed by the trolley. What should they do?
Why is it considered okay to save the five people in the instance of the Bystander and Drug but not in the instance of the Transplant and Fat Man?
Good Will
- The only intrinsic good in the world is the will to do good.
- The result of a good will may not always have a good outcome, but the will itself regardless of outcome, is held in higher regard.
- We have a duty to express good will, in either of two ways. (Out of duty or from our own self interest.)
- The difficult part is knowing what motivation a person is acting under.
Imperatives
- An imperative is a formula that is utilized to determine the necessity and morality of an action in accordance with an end.
- There are two types of imperatives that Kant disusses, hypothetical and categorical.
- Hypothetical imperatives are based on subjectivity and are used when determining practical action that leads to an end.
- Categorical Imperatives rely on objectivity. The actions required by the imperative are taken without regard to the end. It is only the objective good of the action that is taken into account.
Universal Law
- "Act only on that maxim through which you can at some time will that it should become a universal law"
- This is what Kant considers to be the pillar of judgment that we consider to declare an action moral. However it is only the case when duty holds actual authority over our actions, requiring the utilization of categorical imperatives alone.
Rational Beings
- capable of possessing a will: the ability to initiate an action in conformity with the law
Subjective Ends vs. Objective Ends
- Subjective ends are not universal. They rely on human impulse.
- Objective ends are universal and base themselves on the motivation to act. This is present in all rational beings.
The Law
- Anything that lives in nature while eluding rationality is to be considered a thing. Non-Rational Being
- All rational beings are called persons and have the ability to act on categorical imperatives.
- The universal law states that no rational being can be treated as an end for they are an end in themselves.
The four scenarios are meant to go in pairs with the first and second polarizing each other just as the third and fourth do. In each pair you are forced to choose between saving one or five people. The issue lies in what actions you must take to do so. Kant would have utilized the universal law to solve these scenarios.
Scenarios One and Two
Because the law states that rational beings are an end in themselves, Kant would save the five in the first scenario because by not acting, he would not be using either group as a means to an end. Rather he is letting the actions already set in motion take there coarse in order to save the maximum amount of life.
Scenario two ends a little bit differently if the law is implemented. By taking the life of the donor, he would be treating that person as a means to an end. Even though those actions would save a greater amount of life, he would be compromising his duty to act out of objective good.
Scenarios Three and Four
The third scenario requres Kant to make the decision to save the five and let the sixth die. This is merely an instance of acting to save the most life possible. Because he will not be using that sixth patient as an end, it is permissable to let them die. In no way would this violate the law.
Wrapping up the problem with the fourth scenario, Kant is once again forced to choose to save one or five people. The problem is that by directly contributing to the fat mans death, Kant will have treated a rational being as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Therefore Kant would have to let the other five die to preserve the law.
Good Will, Imperatives and Universal Law
I chose Kant because his work on metaphysics of morals is a vastly accepted form of morality. I enjoyed solving the problems in conjunction with his sense of duty and universal law since my own beliefs differ slightly. I believe that in all of these situations the moral thing to do is to act upon saving the most life possibly in order to acheive the greater good. If by compromising my own morals through killing aother rational being I am able to save atleast one more, I find that those actions are justified. To me it seems that being a bystander and not taking action at all, makes me the villian. Even though Kant might believe that withholding medicine or neglecting to rescue that one person on the trolley track, he is still responsible for their death. In all these situations there is no escaping that responsibility, so the way I see it is that preserving a greater amount of life is the moral path.
Immanuel Kant