The Bystander at the Switch case is a fundamental part of Thomson’s argument in “Trolley Problem.” The basis of her paper is to explain the moral difference between this case, which she deems morally permissible (1398), and the Transplant case, which she deems morally impermissible (1396). In the Bystander at the Switch case, a bystander sees a trolley hurtling towards five workers on the track and has the option of throwing a switch to divert the trolley’s path towards only one worker. Thomson finds the Bystander at the Switch case permissible under two conditions:
1) first, that the same threat is diverted from a larger to a smaller group of people, and
2) second, that the means by which this threat is diverted does not in itself constitute an infringement of anyone’s rights (1407).
However, in order for her thesis to be correct, the Bystander at the Switch case must always be morally permissible. There should be no situation in which it is morally impermissible to kill the one and save the five. If there were such a situation, where both parts of Thomson’s thesis remained true but it would still be morally impermissible to kill the one because of some outside factor, then Thomson’s thesis would no longer be the complete answer.
Let’s consider the Mother-Son case. The trolley is still hurtling towards five workers. Here, the bystander is a woman who has the option of throwing a switch to divert the path of the trolley towards only one person. In this case, however, that one person happens to be her son. Is it still morally permissible for her to throw the switch? I would have to say no.
However, in this case, the decision of flipping the switch to divert the path of the trolley still satisfies both of Thomson’s condi...
... middle of paper ...
... may be able to understand why the mayor would break his promise and flip the switch, but it would never accept why the mother would flip the switch and kill her own son.
The mother-son case illustrates that there are more factors in play than just the two that Thomson presents in her thesis. Thomson’s conditions by themselves cannot explain every situation. The relationship between the people involved can also affect whether a decision is morally permissible or not. If that relationship entails that one person is emotionally bound and ethically responsible for the security and well-being of the other, the first cannot knowingly contribute to the death of the second. Thomson’s thesis must be modified to include this condition as well.
Works Cited
Thomson, Judith J. "The Trolley Problem." The Yale Law Journal 94.6 (1985): 1395-415. JSTOR. Web. 20 Jan. 2009.
According to Thomson, unjust killing comes from the result of depriving someone from a right that they own. In the Henry Fonda case, Fonda was given the magical ability to cure a sickness with just one touch over a fevered brow. So, Fonda has the right to volunteer in touching the fevered brow, but is not obligated to do so because the sick person does not own the right of Henry Fonda’s hand. This analogy is very significant in comparison to Thomson’s argument on justified abortion because it shows that the mother should not be held to any constraints because she has the freedom to her body. Given the fact that the mother has the authority to make any decisions she wants; abortion will always be justified because she is not obligated to give
In Miles Lehrman's documentary, Witness to the Holocaust, he argues, “A perpetrator is not the most dangerous enemy. The most dangerous part is the bystander because neutrality always helps the killer”, This is not a logical claim because bystanders merely witness it; however, they are not committing any crimes against laws or humanity. They may want to help the victim, but they may not do so because being a bystander is simply not illegal. Since forcing someone to be an upstander is illegal, people choose to not be an upstander because it puts them in an undesirable position. After all, standing up for the victim may put the upstander in danger along with the victim. Additionally, becoming an upstander does not guarantee that the victim will be safe and sound afterwards; the perpetrator may continue, perhaps with the upstander as another victim.
The Society of Music Lovers, an organization dedicated to aid the dying artist, searched through all available medical records and realized that only you have the correct blood type for an effective transfusion, which will certainly cure the violinist. The committed organization has thus kidnapped you and attached his circulatory system to yours through various technological means in order to extract poisons from his blood. If you were to disconnect, or unplug yourself from the violinist, he would immediately die, but in nine months he will have recovered and could be safely detached. Thomson concludes that a person’s right to life does not trump the right to use another person’s body.
Thomson starts off her paper by explaining the general premises that a fetus is a person at conception and all persons have the right to life. One of the main premises that Thomson focuses on is the idea that a fetus’ right to life is greater than the mother’s use of her body. Although she believes these premises are arguable, she allows the premises to further her explanation of why abortion could be morally permissible. People would find it more understanding and more willing to help someone who is a relative.
Thomson provides the example of being hooked up for nine months to provide dialysis to an ailing violinist to expose how a fetus’s right to life does not supersede a mother’s right to make medical decisions about her body (48-49). I find that this thought experiment especially helpful in understanding how even though a fetus does have a right to life, because the continuation of their life hinges on the consent of their mother to use her body, it falls to the mother to choose whether or not to allow the fetus to develop to term.
In the article 'A Defense of Abortion' Judith Jarvis Thomson argues that abortion is morally permissible even if the fetus is considered a person. In this paper I will give a fairly detailed description of Thomson main arguments for abortion. In particular I will take a close look at her famous 'violinist' argument. Following will be objections to the argumentative story focused on the reasoning that one person's right to life outweighs another person's right to autonomy. Then appropriate responses to these objections. Concluding the paper I will argue that Thomson's 'violinist' argument supporting the idea of a mother's right to autonomy outweighing a fetus' right to life does not make abortion permissible.
Another basic argument she claims is that the mother also has a right to decide what happens in and to her body but the fetus 's right to live outweighs the mother’s right to decide what happens in and to her body. Therefore, Thomson opposes abortion and claims that a fetus may not be killed unjustly and an abortion may not be performed. Whether the unborn person uses of its mother’s body, because the un-born person has a right to live and use its mother’s body, abortion is unjust killing per Thomson.
Thomson’s argument is presented in three components. The first section deals with the now famous violinist thought experiment. This experiment presents a situation in which you wake up one morning and discover you have been kidnapped and hooked up to an ailing violinist so that his body would have the use of your kidneys for the next nine months. The intuitive and instinctive reaction to this situation is that you have no moral duty to remain hooked up to the violinist, and more, that he (or the people who kidnapped you) does not have the right to demand the use of your body for this period. From a deontological point of view, it can be seen that in a conflict between the right of life of the fetus and the right to bodily integrity of the mother, the mother’s rights will trump those of the fetus. Thomson distills this by saying “the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly”.
The article A Defense of Abortion written by Judith Thomson and the article Why Abortion is Immoral by Don Marquis deal with the arguments of whether abortion is moral, immoral, justified or not. The author Don Marquis wants to prove that abortion is immoral without taking into consideration extreme cases, while Thomson says that abortion is justified in some cases. The latter supports her arguments by saying that abortion is justified in cases such as rape and when the mother’s life, which is the most important here, is in danger. On the other hand, Marquis says that abortion can’t be justified, because abortion is killing a person who might have a future, without much reference to any other cases that might lead to abortion.
Thomson appeals to the strongest case for abortion, rape, to define the rights of the fetus and the pregnant person. Thomson concludes that there are no cases where the person pregnant does not have the right to choose an abortion. Thomson considers the right to life of the pregnant person by presenting the case of a pregnant person dying as a result of their pregnancy. In this case, the right of the pregnant person to decide what happens to their body outweighs both the fetus and the pregnant person’s right to life.
The doctors in Haiti thought Charlotte should not be resuscitated, undergo anymore horrible treatments and die peacefully. Charlotte’s parents were not happy with the doctor’s guidelines and thought the United States medical care would have better technology and could save their daughter. Charlotte’s parents bought her a doll which Charlotte’s parents thought otherwise, the Ethics Advisory Committee had to get involved. The debate surrounded if the doctors were in the right to control the life of someone who were incapable of deciding themselves, or is it the parents right. The Ethics Advisory Committee, stated that the parents were superior to those of the hospital and the hospital should conduct with less painful test.
Many arguments in the abortion debate assume that the morality of abortion depends upon the moral status of the foetus. While I regard the moral status of the foetus as important, it is not the central issue that determines the moral justifiability of abortion. The foetus may be awarded a level of moral status, nevertheless, such status does not result in the prescription of a set moral judgement. As with many morally significant issues, there are competing interests and a variety of possible outcomes that need to be considered when making a moral judgement on abortion. While we need to determine the moral status of the foetus in order to establish the type of entity we are dealing with, it does not, however, exist in a moral vacuum. There are other key issues requiring attention, such as the moral status and interests of the pregnant woman who may desire an abortion, and importantly, the likely consequences of aborting or not aborting a particular foetus. Furthermore, I assert that moral status should be awarded as a matter of degree, based upon the capacities of sentience and self-consciousness an entity possesses. In a bid to reach a coherent conclusion on the issue, the moral status of both foetus and woman, along with the likely results of aborting a particular foetus, must be considered together. Given the multiple facets requiring consideration, I assert that utilitarianism (Mill 1863) offers a coherent framework for weighing and comparing the inputs across a variety of situations, which can determine whether it is ever morally justifiable to have an abortion.
The goal of this paper is to examine John Harris’ experiment of the “Survival Lottery.” Specifically, I want to argue that the lottery makes too high a demand on us to give up our lives. Especially, when I’m pretty sure everyone wants to live. Prior accounts show that Harris proposes that if the argument of the distinction between “killing” and “letting die” is properly contrived, then killing one person to save two could happen on a regular basis. It would be an exception to the obligation not to kill innocent people in regards to the argument that there is a distinction between "killing" and "letting die.” The difference between killing and letting die presents a moral difference. As far as this argument we are obligated not to kill. I
...e right to use the mother’s body has not been extended to the fetus, abortion does not violate the fetuses right to life. Abortion is permissible in many cases, but this does not mean that we have the right to secure the death of the fetus. I agree with Thomson’s view that the death of a fetus is a necessary side-effect of abortion, but is not the goal. Were it possible to remove a fetus without killing it, then it must not be killed. The potential harm or life depreciation of the mother outweighs the fetuses’ potential right to life, whether it may have a future or not. Killing in self-defense is permissible and the possible death or harm that comes from having a baby is enough right for a mother to have an abortion. I support Thomson’s view on abortion and believe that the mother should have a choice whether to abort her baby or not at an early stage of pregnancy.
He presents a few hypothetical stories and one real one to get the students to think this question through. In one of the illustrations used the professor asks how many in the audience would actually push a “fat man” over a bridge onto the tracks below to stop a runaway trolley from killing five workers who were on the tracks in the way of the unstoppable trolley. I was surprised to see that a few hands actually went up. The argument of a student that had raised their hand in hypothetical agreement to pushing the man over the bridge, for the greater good, was that five other lives would be saved for the life of this one. Opposing views, of which whom I agreed with, were that by pushing the “fat man” over the bridge you were actually choosing and making a conscious decision to take a life; who are we to decide whose life is more valuable than