problem 4:
Doug is a doctor, and a damn good one. he has five very healthy patients except that each one of them has one failing organ. with each of these five patients, a simple transplant surgery would solve their ailments, and all would be assured to go on to live a long life. without a transplant they will all surely die in the near future. the prospects of getting an organ from another source are all but nonexistent. there is a man down in the waiting room that, as it turns out, is a perfect match for all five patients. if Doug were to kill this man and transplant his organs into the five patients above, all of their lives would be saved. what is Doug's ethical response?
Technically, as a doctor you have an ethical responsibilty to each of your patients to care for his/her personal wellbeing. Although in the Utilitarian point of view the answer would be the same as above, I personally believe the doctor should not go through with killing a patient because he has then broken his ethical responsibilty to the patient to care for his wellbeing. Plus, when the other five patients die, each of them may have more organs that can be donated instead of one man giving up all of his.
problem 5:
there is a very famous violinist. he comes down with a fatal illness. this is a strange illness because there is a cure for it, but it a strange one. the violinist can be cured of this illness by being hooked up to William for a period of 13 months. during this time William would be bed ridden next to the violinist. if the violinist were unhooked before 13 months, it will immediately kill him. William is presented with this option, but William declines to allow the violinist to be attached to him. William is the only person on earth that can do this. during the night, a group of violin lovers sneaks into William's house, and attach the violinist to him against his will (the violinist is in a coma and had no knowledge or participation in this). what is William's ethical response?
In this case, you must consider the equal rights of all humans. Just as the violinist has the right to treatment, the treatment (in this case) has a right to say no and that he doesn't want 13 months of his life to be wasted away even if it is to help someone. Being forced into something against your will is a loss of human right and should be corrected. William should unhook the violinist because all actions have consequences and forcing someone into something he/she didn't want to do will have such a consequence (in this case, death of the violinist).
i thought your answers were fairly consistent, except for 4 and 5 here. what was is that caused you to abandon the utilitarian principle in the medical doctor problem?
and 5 really has some interesteding questions to be asked. you talk alot about consequences for actions, the violinist is the one that would be killed instantaneously if he were unhooked, but he had nothing to do being there. he did not ask for it, and he would be being punished for someone else's crime. that seems a little less than fair. also, your answer here seems inconsistent with your answer in problem 6. saving a leg is worth several thousand bucks, but saving a life is not worth a couple of months of his time?
i', not really interested in the what you answered so much as the how you got there of it. interesting stuff.
Just interjecting...like I do... I'm not sure how Shankara would explain her response, but my opinion is number four is perfectly utilitarian in that five organ donors is more than one, and it's consistent with number 5 in that it respects a person's right to choose for them selves. As far as the violinist dying when William unhooks the leach from him, he's in a coma with absolutely no hope anyway, so what difference does it make to him? And yeah, several thousand bucks is not necessarily as valuable as a couple months of someone's time. What if in those couple of months the dude's wife is also going to die and can not be transported to see him before she dies? I'd let some violinist die to see my wife for the last time, wouldn't you?
