A philosophy question that's melting my brain
By .o0Johnny0o. 6 Comments
Okay, there are three scenarios. Answer them as you go along.
Scenario One
There is a train coming and it's breaks aren't working. There are five people on the tracks and the train can't stop in time and will kill them. However in front of you is a lever that will switch the train onto another track where only one person is standing. Do you pull the lever to have one die rather than five?
Scenario Two
The same train is coming and will run over and kill five people. However this time there's no lever but there is a very large person beside you. If you push this person it will slow the train just enough so that the five other people are saved. You yourself aren't big enough to slow the train (In this hypothetical world, you do go to gym post-January 15th) Do you push the fat guy to have one die rather than five?
Scenario Three
There are five people all aged the same, waiting on an organ donation and one person with an entire body full of healthy organs. If you kill the healthy person, five people will live until they're 90, if you don't kill the healthy person they will live to 90 but the others will die within the day. Do you sacrifice the healthy person to save five people?
Got your answers?
Well apparently this has got philosophers a bit stumped. It's the equivalent of a maths problem for philosophy.
The problem lies in that most people will say yes to the first one, possibly the second and probably not the third but in reality all three are the same question worded differently. Do you sacrifice one for the greater of the group? However the 'gut feeling' that most people experience with the first and the 'gut repulsion' of the last is where philosophers get interested.
I think this is interesting because in comics we see a lot of sacrifice for the greater good and there's traditionally strong moral codes associated with superheroes, anti-heroes and even villians. I'd be interested to know:
Do our views shift slighty in accordance to our favourite characters?
Do you know a similar instance in comics?
Why don't more people smoke pipes?