What Is And Isn 't Owned. Thomson And The Trolley Problem

To begin with, Thomson uses a thought experiment about a hypothetical famous violinist, to further her argument that abortion is morally permissible. In this thought experiment, you are kidnapped and unconsciously plugged to a famous violinist so that your kidney can remove toxins from the violinist’s kidney and ultimately save his life. Thomson argues that you are not required to stay plugged to the famous violinist even if unplugging yourself from the violinist would result in his death. Thomson argues that while everyone has the right to life, no one has the right to dictate what happens to another person 's body.

The Trolley Dilemma is a scenario where a train heading straight toward five men working on the tracks, have no idea the train is heading toward them, and nowhere to go. It would appear that death is inevitable. On another track, there is another worker all working alone. He too has no idea the train is coming. You are standing next to the lever that can switch the tracks. What would you do? Would you do nothing, resulting in killing five people, who might not know what hit them, or do you pull the lever, diverting the train, killing only one which allows the five to survive?

There is a widely shared view that active and passive euthanasia are importantly different. It is said to be one thing (passive euthanasia) to let patients die, which may sometimes be permissible, but it is quite another (active euthanasia) to kill them, which never is. This discrimination between two forms of euthanasia has been forcefully attacked by certain philosophers on the ground that the underlying distinction between killing and letting die is either not clear or, if clear, not morally important. This paper defends that there is distinction between killing and letting die. My first argument that will defend my thesis will be based on the definition of killing or letting to die and the difference in the intentions that accompany the

In this paper, I will explain John Stuart Mill’s moral theory of Utilitarianism, what I think it means, and how it works. I will also explain the Dax Cowart case, and determine if Dax’s choice to die was morally right or wrong. In order to fully understand the implications of Dax’s decision, and to accurately determine its affect on those his decision involves, I will break down and analyze the affect of Dax’s decision for Dax, his mother, Ada, and the Doctor. Lastly, I will gather prior evidence and form a valid conclusion of whether Dax’s choice was morally right or wrong.

In this paper, I will explicate how a Utilitarian and a Kantian would understand the Trolley Problem and describe why I consider the Utilitarian approach to fare better in the case of the Trolley Problem. On one hand, a Utilitarian, a believer in the philosophy of Utilitarianism, believes that a morally admirable action is one that helps the maximum number of people. A Kantian, on the other hand, is a believer and follower of the Kantian ethics, which fundamentally preach that the correctness or wrongness of one’s actions depends on if one carries out one’s duty, and not on the consequences of one’s actions. In order to further understand the perspectives of these two philosophies, I will explain how they would comprehend the Trolley Problem, which is, essentially, a theoretical moral predicament where a trolley is speeding down a railway track and five people are tied to the track and a bystander has two options: either pull a lever, divert the train to an alternate railway track with one person on it and kill that one person and save five people, and thus intentionally commit homicide, or the bystander doesn’t pull the lever and lets five people die, therefore submissively allowing five deaths.

Thompson claims that abortion is sometimes morally permissible in cases of self-defense like rape, incest, and failed birth control. In Thomson’s argument, she assumes that the fetus is a person from conception. She then tries to show that that abortion is morally permissible even though the fetus has a right to life. She uses the violinist analogy to show that having a right to life does not imply having the right to someone else’s body. Thompson also uses the people seed analogy to show that abortion is morally permissible when pregnancy occurs while using a form of birth control. I agree with Thompson’s view on abortion and found her examples to be very persuasive.

Thomson’s argument, “A Defense on Abortion,” is a piece written to point out the issues in many arguments made against abortion. She points out specific issues in arguments made, for example, about life beginning at conception and if that truly matters as an argument against abortion. Thomson uses multiple analogies when making her points against the arguments made against abortion. These analogies are used to show that the arguments made do not really make sense in saying it is immoral to have an abortion. These analogies do not work in all cases, and sometimes they only work in very atypical cases, but still make a strong argument. There are also objections made to Thomson’s argument, which she then replies to, which makes her argument even stronger. Her replies to these arguments are very strong, saying biology does not always equate responsibility, and that reasonable precaution is an important factor in the morality of abortion. There are some major issues in her responses to these objections.

Williams also delivers the idea of agent-regret which, to him, matters to the person in the unlucky case more than any extrinsic moral judgments. Agent-regret is defined as “thought being formed in part by first personal conceptions of how one might have acted otherwise”, (Williams, p.27), and required “a first-personal subject-matter” and “not yet merely a particular kind of psychological content, but also a particular kind of expression”, (Williams, 27). Hence, even if the driver A is morally treated as equal as driver B, the agent-regret of guilt may follow him to the

1. In Killing, Letting Die, and The Trolley Problem Thomson says, “Mrs. Foot thinks that if Edward does nothing, he kills five, and I agree with this: If a driver of a trolley drives it full speed into five people, he kills them, even if he only drives it into them because his brakes have failed.” (page 2323) This is incorrect as Edward is not the means to the man’s death. Nothing he does causes the death, he did not tamper with the breaks to cause them to stop working and run into the men. He also does not intend in any way to cause the killings. He does not want to murder the men on the tracks, he had no input on what was going to happen, no motivations. Therefore, how can it be his fault if he did not contribute to the means and he did

The violinist: The argument Thomson tries to make is that a person is not obligated to allow someone to live of their life functions. The scenario he presents, is you were abducted and your organs were connected to the violinist so the violinist can live. You are not morally obligated to stay attached to the violinist even if without you they are dead.

Thomson continues to dissect her scenarios that promote her support of abortion. She ends this essay after explaining that although she supports abortion rights, she does not think that all cases are suitable for abortion.

John Finnis, in his article A Philosophical Case Against Euthanasia, provides a compelling theoretical framework through which to view contemporary discourse surrounding euthanasia. First, this paper will draw on Finnis' position in order to establish the natural law understanding of the intrinsic value of human life. It will be argued that the right to life comes from a source other than the individual who is alive, or his family or caregivers, granting it either implicitly or explicitly. It will further be argued that the individual's duty not to have oneself euthanized, or euthanize another, is not an incident of any special responsibility that one assumes or undertakes, but is a straightforward incident of an ordinary duty everyone owes his

Throughout life people face countless decisions; however, making the wrong choice may lead to a catastrophic consequence. As a woman was being brutally stabbed in Kew Gardens near Austin Street, numerous bystanders did not help or act upon calling the police. The choice of the bystanders to not phone the police lead to the death of an innocent woman. Had just one of the thirty-eight people called the police, that innocent woman would still have breath in her lungs. In the article “Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police,” Martin Gansberg expresses his anger and disapproval toward those who left a poor woman to die. If the thirty-eight people took immediate action and did not make excuses, the precious life of Catherine Genovese would have been rescued.

Nowell-Smith looks at moral right based and utilitarian theories. The right of not to be killed can be argued against by the right to want to end living. He provides an example of euthanasia societies where a lot of older people who still enjoy live just have a desire to have an opportunity to end their lives the way they want to. The fear of being helpless and slowly dying in the institutions drives these people to join these societies and ask for a law to be changed. Nowell-Smith also makes an argument against Law Reform Commission of Canada’s report Euthanasia, Suicide and Cessation of Treatment that suggests that euthanasia laws should not be changed. One of the arguments is that it may go out of control and could lead to serious abuses and mistakes. Nowell-Smith argues that it can be controlled stating the example of Dutch system where voluntary active euthanasia practices only in hospitals and where everything is considered before any action is done so there is no mistake.

The trolley problem can be expanded to discuss a number of related ethical dilemmas, all referring to the conflicts inherent in utilitarianism and consequentialist ethics. The problem with the trolley driver scenario is that the driver is faced with a choice of whether to infringe on the rights of one man (the man on the tracks) or whether to allow the trolley to crash, thereby killing the five people on board. The driver is stuck between two equally unfortunate situations, and the issue calls into question whether it is more ethical to save five lives than it is to refrain from infringing on the life on an innocent man. Inherent to the problem is the fact that it is impossible to know whether the diversion of the trolley will in fact save the five lives.