Embedded Files
Kill One To Save Five
Kill One To Save Five
Have you ever thought what is the true value of a human life? Should you have the right to decide who gets to live and who should die? There are some scenarios in utilitarianism in which a person must decide who should live and who should die. In real life in some professions you may encounter a similar situation where you might have to make a decision of taking a life so you can save others' lives. In this blog I will briefly talk about what utilitarianism is and a scenario from utilitarian theory as well as share my own thoughts on it.
What is utilitarianism?
Utilitarianism is a theory which promotes happiness and oppose the actions which can cause unhappiness. However when making decision it promotes happiness for the society as whole.
What is the problem with utilitarianism?
A utilitarian approach does not promote justice. When you seek the benefit for the society as whole you would ignore the rights of the minority. From a utilitarian point of view it is just to ignore the rights of the minority if it results in happiness for the maximum number of people.
Kill one to save five
Here is a scenario which is known as the trolley problem. It has different versions but the most common one is that
A runaway trolley is going down on a railway track. There are five people tied to the track. You are standing next to the lever. If you pull the lever the trolley will switch to the different track. But there is one person tied to the other track as well. You have two choices. You can either let the trolley keep going down on the track and let it kill the five people tied to the track or you can pull the lever and switch it to the different track and the trolley will kill one person tied to the track; the lives of the five people will be saved. What would you do? Would you kill one person so you can save five people?
The most common response
The trolley problem has been surveyed many times. The participants were given this scenario and most of the participants have said they will pull the lever- they will kill one person to save the five people. Interestingly when the scenario was changed a little and the participants were told that the one person tied to the other track is the relative of their romantic partner; most people said they will not pull the lever and they will let the five people die.
A similar situation that you can encounter in real life
Say a police officer arrives at a scene where a criminal is holding an innocent person as a shield to protect himself. The criminal has a gun and he is shooting at other people with his gun while holding the innocent person. The police officer which arrived at the scene has a choice to either shoot the innocent person which is being used as a shield so he can shoot the criminal to stop him shooting at others or he does not shoot the innocent person and let the criminal continue shooting. This situation can be subject to personal opinion. Some people might say the police officer should shoot the innocent person so he can shoot the criminal and save many lives. If the officer does take the innocent person's life would that be just to do so? In my opinion it will not be just to take the innocent life because the police officer's duty is not to protect every life but it is his duty to save one innocent life. It's not just to take an innocent person's right to life so he can save many other lives.
Similarly going back to the trolley problem, it is not just to take one person's life so you can save five people's life. One can also consider unusual circumstances. What if a technical problem occurs with the trolley, it stops moving itself and the five people are saved. If you intervene and change its direction and it does kill one person tied to the track, you are responsible for that person's murder because you pulled the lever and changed the trolley's direction. But if you do not intervene and the trolley does end up killing the five people you are not responsible for killing the five people. It is not your responsibility to save five people but it is your responsibility not to take anyone's life therefore It is not just to take one person's right to life so you can save the five people.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse