The purpose of this essay is to set up a thought experiment in which a moral dilemma must be resolved. The problem with the experiments submitted for consideration is the impossibility of a single correct solution. The questions proposed for consideration go beyond the limits of standard philosophical tasks, presenting unresolved issues requiring the manifestation of ethical immorality. In each of the proposed cases, a person is invited to make a choice as a result of which people should suffer, more or less.
Traditionally, the most reasonable way to solve this problem would be guided by the principles of utilitarianism. According to this concept, when making decisions, one must follow the principle of the greatest benefit or the least harm. This approach removes the moral problem of the conscious sacrifice of the life of one person. In the first problem, the most utilitarian solution would be to turn the train in the direction of one person in order to save five. A similar choice is logical with all other cases – one needs to sacrifice one person in order to save several. Given the old adage that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, the right thing to do would be to sacrifice one person to save five in each case.
However, looking more closely at each of these tasks, there are at first glance insignificant differences that add to the moral dilemma for the decision maker. Situation 1 represents a case of a quick choice that must be made literally in one moment. The automatism of the decision and its utilitarianism naturally stem from the inability to ponder the moral implications of a given situation for long. The natural human cognitive response would be to save more people immediately. This would be consistent with the principle of deontology, according to which human morality requires them to fulfill their duty, that is, to serve people and save lives. A similar situation is the dilemma presented in Case 3. It also deals with the possibility of saving five people without providing salvation to one who is in a similar situation. This is precisely the small but rather significant difference between examples 1 and 3, and examples 2 and 4.
It should be noted that each of the six persons who are rates in experiments 1 and 3 are already doomed to death. However, in the second case, the surgeon needs to put under the knife and disassemble an innocent and healthy person, that is, to commit a crime in the name of saving other people. On the one hand, this moral choice requires a completely different state of consciousness and can be more interpreted as an act of violence and cruelty. On the other hand, the deontological principle which can meet the requirement of saving more lives may actually explain and rationalize this seemingly cruel murder. The situation is similar with case 4, in which a person is offered the choice to sacrifice an innocent person in order to save more people. In this case, the person to whom this decision is offered could sacrifice himself by throwing himself onto the rails, but the instinct of self-preservation will not allow this. Thus, in the fourth case, the savior will literally be a killer who pushed an innocent person under the rails. In exactly the same way, a surgeon who cuts an absolutely innocent person into organs will be directly involved not only in making a vital decision, but in an act of murder, immoral and brutal.
In the dilemmas proposed in questions 1 and 3, there is some difference between the decision made and the voluntary killing of an innocent person in cases 2 and 4. The decision maker is not directly involved in the act of sacrificing another person, since the decision made is not formally an act of murder as such. Of course, the decision maker sentences a person to death in order to save the other five, but does not become a murderer himself, which removes part of the responsibility. But certainly the similarity of all four proposed questions lies in the need to take responsibility for the death of a person. One of the solutions to these dilemmas would be the complete non-involvement of the decision maker to relieve himself of responsibility. However, it can also be interpreted as a manifestation of complete immorality and unwillingness to save anyone.
Thus, all four dilemmas are similar in that they can be solved solely depending on the moral character of a person and their ideas about responsibility and ethics. The subjective idea of these general concepts determines the principle of mercy by which a person will or will not be guided. Some people may withdraw completely from decision making in order to avoid any responsibility, but even then they find themselves unwitting accomplices in a chain of uncontrollable events. So the utilitarian sacrifice of fewer people on the principle of the lesser evil seems logical in every case. However, depending on the specific case, a person takes on more or less responsibility due to different decision-making formats and the level of their own involvement in the act of “killing for good”. However, it is difficult not to note the internal insolubility of each of these conflicts in which it is impossible to make a decision without causing suffering to one’s neighbor.
References
Kuzmich Jr., J. (2021). Jazz improvisation with creative essential elements. The Vault at Music & Arts. Web.
Ulven, J. (2020). The history of jazz music. Web.