Trolly Problem: Debate Over Active Ethnics

    Would you take action to save people's lives if it meant having to take it from another person? Scenarios like this were created in the form of thought experiments to evaluate applied ethics and human values by Philippa Foot and later built upon by Judith Thomson. To get our minds back on what was discussed during the midterm presentations I would like to briefly cover the background of Foot and Thomson with the goal to further explain their philosophy and reasoning for the though experiment. 

(Philippa Foot)

    Philippa Foot was born on Oct. 3, 1920 (passed 2010) in Owston Ferry, Lincolnshire. She was accepted into Oxford, met Donald MacKinnon as a philosophy tutor and picked up an interest in Kant who she earned a Bachelor of Letters for her research report on. While in Somerville she met Elizabeth Anscombe, who she credits for her interest in analytical philosophy (influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein). 

(Judith Thomson)

    Judith Thomson was born on Oct. 4, 1929 (passed 2020) in New York City, New York. She was proactive in college earning two Bachelors, a Masters, and a PhD all in philosophy. She had an initial interest in Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy but later rejected his views while keeping the belief philosophers should take careful note to word usage. Thomson earned fame through a few of her works with the biggest impact coming from her work on abortion. 

(Visual representation of Rescue I and Rescue II)

    Although both philosophers worked on the thought experiments towards evaluating the nature of moral judgements, they had differing viewpoints on the ethical belief of people with a keen interest in abortion. Foot started her search for resolving issues in applied ethics by creating the thought experiment of Rescue I and Rescue II. The experiment is as follows: you are driving along the beach and see people stranded in a tide, in Rescue I you have the option to save one person or a group of five, but you are unable to save everyone. In Rescue II you can save the five but to reach them you have to run over and kill the one person. Foot saw a significant moral difference between the two leading to her believing it is impermissible saving five in Rescue II but permissible saving them in Rescue I. If you were to save the five in Rescue II you are initiating a casual sequence of killing one in contrast to Rescue I saving the five leading to the deadly casual sequence occur as it was not initiated by the driver. She isn't saying letting all deadly casual sequences is permissible but there is a distinct difference between doing and allowing in the case of moral status of an action; she felt it was easier to withhold goods and services than justifying an interference. Foot broke this down into positive rights, the obligation of others to provide some service, and negative rights, the right to non-interference which she felt held a heavier weight than the positive rights. 

(Visual representation of the Trolley Case)

    With this focus of understanding applied ethics, she developed the thought experiment the trolley case. The case is as follows: you are the conductor of an out-of-control trolley on a track heading towards a group of five people who will be killed in the collision, but you have the option to change the track and avoid the five, but it sends you hurling towards one person on the track. Although the previous case was said one live is not worth five, it is different for this case as this case is not dealing with positive and negative right but instead negative against negative. Foot believed it is better to take the fewest number of negative rights and switch the track, meaning she viewed it is impermissible to interfere with someone's negative rights. 

    Thomson took the trolley case and altered it by placing a bystander at the manual switch to change the track and making the conductor have no control. If the bystander leaves the switch as it is the trolley will plow into the five on the track, but if the bystander throws the switch the trolley will plow into the one person. This scenario was further built upon adding to the change of how the track runs with it running a loop with the bodies of the five able to stop the trolley. It is also possible the one can stop the trolley as is large enough, but she made the point people find it harder to bring themselves to change the track if they are unaware the one can stop it. She also made the alteration of being able to stop the trolley by throwing a fat man off a bridge and onto the track. She found the bystander able to throw the switch but not willing to push the man off the bridge. What she was trying to get at was the faults she believed Foot had in developing her philosophy of the persons positive and negative rights in these cases.  

(Visual representation of the connection between abortion and the violinist case)

    Along with the trolley case, Thomson developed another thought experiment involving a violinist who will die if they don't receive help. The experiment is as follows: you have been kidnapped and made unconscious by the Society of Music Lovers, who attached a violinist into your circulatory system; the violinist has failing kidneys and if you detach him, he will die but he is a person none the less and has a right to life. Thomson believes it to be morally permissible to disconnect the violinist and uses this case as a counterargument towards the people against abortion as the statement "the right to life" is not always as clear cut as they make it seem. She believed no matter the outcome of if a fetus is a person, abortion can be morally permissible in certain circumstances if pregnancy occurs non-consensually.

    With these thought experiments trying to evaluate the nature of moral judgements, the underlying issue causing this investigation is the argument of the right to abortions and euthanasia. Thomson supported the option of abortion in some cases where pregnancy occurred non-consensually. On the opposing view of abortion, Foot went against Thomsons analogy of the violinist as there was the major fault of the moral significance between disconnecting someone from someone's body and the initiation of a fatal sequence of abortion. Foot connects it to the case of Rescue I being the violinist as you are not initiating a fatal sequence as the person was already on the verge of death, and Rescue II was going through abortion. Foot clarifies the case of initiating a fatal casual sequence by stating a fetus is safe inside the mother's womb and dependent on her in the same way as children depend on the parents for food. 

 

   Continuing under the focus of applied ethnics, Foot regarded euthanasia under the same case of initiating a fatal sequence. Defining it as killing for the good of the individual in question, which she wonders if it can be permissible. With the goal of clarifying if it is morally acceptable, she attempts to define what a good life for a person is and if they have the minimum of basic human goods. With the lack of the minimal goods, Foot believed life is not good to a person. Debating the two different parts of active euthanasia of being involuntary, which she saw as impermissible, and voluntary as the main focus of debate. She feels nevertheless if voluntary active euthanasia is permissible, it's not a matter of rights but as whether it would be good for the person to die and if it is contrary to charity.