Ethics is especially prevalent in the scientific field of genetic engineering and stem cell research. I am a perfectionist. So naturally, when I'm asked if I would chose to perfect my genes or the genes of my offspring, I would say yes.
But those controversies aside, Rob Streiffer and Gary Varner have developed three simple case studies for student educational purposes, which I've posed below. I'd be curious to see who would agree and who would disagree with me.
| You are an emergency room physician, and you only have five doses of a certain drug left. Alas, you have six patients who need it. Bloggs has a very severe version of the condition for which the drug is a treatment, and it will take all five doses of the drug to cure him. Your other five patients have mild versions of the condition, and each of them will be cured by a single dose. Any one of the six who doesn't get the full dosage they need will die. I didn't find this one to be quite so trivial as the second and third. I would choose to give the drug to the five individuals, because this method does the most good for the most number of people and does the least harm to the least number of people. |
| Suppose that you are a famous transplant surgeon, and that your transplants always work. You have five patients, each of whom needs a transplant. One needs a heart, one a brain, two need one lung apiece, and one needs a liver. One of your patients, Bloggs, has come in today to find out the results from some lab work. You know from the results of the lab work that Bloggs would be a perfect donor for each of your five other patients, and you know that there are no other available donors. So you ask Bloggs if he would be willing to be cut up and have his organs distributed. He declines your kind offer, but you realize that you could easily overpower Bloggs and cut him up without his consent. I would let Bloggs walk, consequently resulting in the death of the five other individuals. Although this does not to the greatest good for the greatest number of people, I draw the line at overpowering and cutting him up against his will. However selfish or abominable Bloggs decision may be, I respect that he is entitled to determine the course of his own life. |
The driver of a trolley has passed out at the wheel, and his trolley is hurtling out of control down the track. Straight ahead on the track are five men who will be killed if the trolley reaches them. You are a passerby, who happens to be standing by the track next to a switch. If you throw the switch, you will turn the trolley onto a spur of track on the right, thereby saving the five. But Bloggs is on that spur of track on the right; and he will be killed if you turn the trolley.
| I would flip the switch. I believe that not making a decision, deciding to do nothing, is making a decision; in fact, I contest that it is the worst one of all. At least making a decision to act, trying to save as many as I could, and, consequently, causing the death of another, is doing something. I do not believe in fate or destiny; either are too arbitrary, too capricious for my taste. As a result, I would tend to interfere with what some would call the natural order of things. |