What does Utilitarianism Has to do with a Surgeon

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The guiding principle, being utilitarianism, is to act in the way which will always produce the maximum overall amount of goodness in the world. The basic purpose of morality is making the world a much better place to live in (Hinman, 2014). Morality is also about producing some good consequences and not having any kind of good intension. It also states that we should be doing whatever brings the maximum benefit (intrinsic value) to the entire humanity.

Case: rule utilitarian vs. act utilitarian

The case under study is of the surgeon who has to decide killing of a normal, but unjust person for the sake of saving five sick people. An act utilitarian in this case would be considering every probable consequences of sacrificing the sixth normal patient while on the other hand, a rule utilitarian will possibly look for the consequences associated with performing such an operation every time a situation like thos would arise. One of the potential rules would claim that: whenever any surgeon can kill one healthy person for the basic purpose of transplanting his organs to save more than one person who actually needs them, then he can surely do it.

However, as a result of this situation, some major issues may arise. For instance, relatively healthier people will stop going to the hospitals and many would fear that a transplant operations might be performed, etc. Hence, a rule utilitarian will say that we should follow the opposite rule and don't simply harvest the organs of healthy people to give them to the ones who are sick. For a rule utilitarian, it would be completely immoral for any surgeon to kill the normal man and in this case the sixth man. Of course, it is also possible that the act utilitarian ...

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...ciding whether she might intervene. In addition, Thomson claims that if the bystander fails in answering this hypothetical question, that she will indeed sacrifice herself and resultantly might not intervene.

References

Degrees of clarity (n.d.). Utilitarianism and the Transplant Surgeon Objection. Retrieved from http://www.degreesofclarity.com/writing/utilitarianism/

Gorr, M. (1990). THOMSON AND THE TROLLEY PROBLEM. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 59(1), 91-100.

Hinman, L. M. (2014). Utilitarianism: An Introduction. Ethics Matter. Retrieved from http://ethics.sandiego.edu/presentations/AppliedEthics/Theory/Utilitarianism.pdf

Nucci, E. D. (n.d.). Self-Sacrifice and the Trolley Problem. Philosophical Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/1322471/Self-Sacrifice_and_the_Trolley_Problem

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