John Harris The Survival Lottery Utilitarianism

Orion Yeck
John Parsons
Analysis Portion
2-16-15
The Survival Lottery
“The Survival Lottery” by philosopher John Harris proposes a new idea on how to handle organ transplants. Let’s consider the following situation: There are two people who are dying of an unavoidable disease. The first patient is called Y and his heart is failing. The second patient is called Z and his lungs are failing. If Y and Z do not receive a new heart and lung they will die. There are no organs available to be donated, and patients Y and Z are not happy that they have to die. Suppose there is another person completely unrelated to both Y and Z who is completely healthy. Let’s call him A. Innocent person A has a healthy heart and working lungs. “The Survival Lottery”

explores the possibility of killing person A in order to save patients Y and Z, rather than having the two patients die. We can rule out any form of surgical error because all operations have a 100% success rate, so patients X and Y will both survive the transplant surgeries. In order to obtain the organs of a healthy person to give to the dying patients Y and Z, a lottery system would be implemented. The lottery system would assign a number to every person healthy enough to give organs. If more than one patient was in need of an organ, the lottery system would be used to pick a random healthy person to give the organs needed. Using the lottery system would kill one person, but it would also save two people. This way would actually maximize the amount of people that doctors could save. “The Survival Lottery” suggests that because most people would want to save as many people as possible, they should want to implement the survival lottery.
With every proposition, there is always going to be a few special situations. There would be a couple of circumstances where someone would not be able to have an organ donated to them. One circumstance is if the patient was very old. A healthy organ would not be taken away from a young person to give to an older person that probably would not live much longer anyway. Another circumstance would be if the people themselves caused their illness, such as if they smoked cigarettes, did drugs, or drank alcohol. Since they made poor decisions with their body, they would not deserve a chance to get the surgery because they would probably just ruin the new organ. If a person is so sick that even a transplant can’t save them, they do not qualify for a new organ. The lottery system would account for all of these special circumstances and situations.
There are two main viewpoints in “The Survival Lottery.” The first takes a look at how someone of a utilitarian view should see his proposition.

The second is how most other people would probably see it, even those who would consider themselves a utilitarian. Utilitarianism views are meant to make as many people as possible happy. The only way to make the most amounts of people happy would be to kill innocent, healthy A in order to save the dying Y and Z. According to Harris, someone who considers themselves a utilitarian should agree with the survival lottery because it would save the maximum amount of lives. The lottery chooses a healthy person to kill, but in return saves two other lives. In reality, most people, even those who would say that they believe in utilitarianism, would not agree with the lottery system. It would bring about many questions as to who would be considered healthy enough for the lottery, who would decide whether or not an unhealthy organ was the person’s fault, and what age would be considered too

old.
However, there is a third scenario in “The Survival Lottery”.

Harris suggests that Y’s good lungs be used to save Z or to use Z’s good heart to save Y. In this situation, only one person would die. The overall happiness would be greater in the entire situation because even though one person is still dying, no outside person would be involved. It is the same amount of death, but it involves less people. However, this is still unfair to whichever person dies. “The Survival Lottery” suggests that patients Y’s and Z’s numbers be thrown into the lottery. They are going to die eventually, so their numbers should also be put into the lottery. Harris raises the counter point that some people would not believe that people should be categorized. They would say that it is morally wrong to put the patients into a sub-class as if their life is not as important as others. A utilitarian would have to believe this because it results in the most happiness. This is also the fairest way to decide who is in the lottery. It does not call on an innocent person to sacrifice his life and make more people unnecessarily

unhappy.
There are many weak points to “The Survival Lottery”. A major weak point is that most people would not want the government to be able to determine who lives and who dies. Who is to say which of the two patients should die? Many people would believe that killing an innocent person is worse than letting someone die. Killing someone to change the outcome of another person’s illness is like playing God. Another weak point is that if someone does not want to die to give their organs away, they should not have to. Just because two people have had bad luck with their health does not mean that the government has the right to kill an innocent person. The general public’s view would be that the lottery would be highly unfair. A had nothing to do with patients Y and Z, so A should not be forced to give up his life. Also, many people would live in fear of being drawn in the lottery to give up their life. It would create a problem in which many people would try to hide from the lottery system. This could even create a revolution against the government. Mass chaos is not what utilitarian views are. The lottery system would create a situation in which massive amounts of people would be unhappy, not just the select few dying of a natural illness.