Let's see where this goes...
I thought last week's thought experiment was quite uncontroversial, yet that erupted into a heated discussion. This week's experiment is intended to poke at one of the most heated arguments in America, so we'll see where this leads, but hopefully it can be discussed with more civility than is usually the case with this issue.
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Dick had made a mistake, but surely the price he was paying was too high. He of course knew that level six of the hospital was a restricted area. But after he had drunk one too many glasses of wine with his colleagues at the finance department Christmas party, he had inadvertently staggered out of the elevator on the sixth floor and passed out on one of the empty beds.
When he woke up, he discovered to his horror that he had been mistaken for a volunteer in a new life-saving procedure. Patients who required vital organ transplants to survive were being hooked up to volunteers, whose own vital organs kept both alive. This would continue until a donor organ could be found, which was usually around nine months later.
Dick quickly called over a nurse to explain the mistake, who in turn brought over a worried-looking doctor.
"I understand your anger," explained the doctor, "but you did behave irresponsibly, and now you are in this position, the brutal truth is that if we disconnect you, the world-renowned violinist who depends on you will die. You would in fact be murdering him."
"But you have no right!" protested Dick. "Even if he dies without me, how can you force me to give up nine months of my life to save him?"
"I think the question you should be asking," said the doctor sternly, "is how you could choose to end the violinist's life."
Source: 'A defence of abortion' by Judith Jarvis Thomson, in Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971), and widely anthologised.
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 85.
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Any initial thoughts? If you are pro-life or pro-choice, is your judgment of Dick's situation consistent with your stance on abortion? Does it need to be? I'll be back on Friday with more of my own thoughts.
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Dick had made a mistake, but surely the price he was paying was too high. He of course knew that level six of the hospital was a restricted area. But after he had drunk one too many glasses of wine with his colleagues at the finance department Christmas party, he had inadvertently staggered out of the elevator on the sixth floor and passed out on one of the empty beds.
When he woke up, he discovered to his horror that he had been mistaken for a volunteer in a new life-saving procedure. Patients who required vital organ transplants to survive were being hooked up to volunteers, whose own vital organs kept both alive. This would continue until a donor organ could be found, which was usually around nine months later.
Dick quickly called over a nurse to explain the mistake, who in turn brought over a worried-looking doctor.
"I understand your anger," explained the doctor, "but you did behave irresponsibly, and now you are in this position, the brutal truth is that if we disconnect you, the world-renowned violinist who depends on you will die. You would in fact be murdering him."
"But you have no right!" protested Dick. "Even if he dies without me, how can you force me to give up nine months of my life to save him?"
"I think the question you should be asking," said the doctor sternly, "is how you could choose to end the violinist's life."
Source: 'A defence of abortion' by Judith Jarvis Thomson, in Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1971), and widely anthologised.
Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 85.
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Any initial thoughts? If you are pro-life or pro-choice, is your judgment of Dick's situation consistent with your stance on abortion? Does it need to be? I'll be back on Friday with more of my own thoughts.
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