1 vs 5 psychology (poll 3 of 3)

Kill 1 to save 5, or let the 5 die?

  • Kill the one to save the 5

    Votes: 6 24.0%

  • Let the 5 die, and the one live

    Votes: 19 76.0%
  • Total voters
    25
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strawman

strawman

You are a doctor with 5 patients needing different organ transplants. They will die within the next few days without transplants.

A man traveling through town comes to you for medical care, and it turns out he is an exact match (donor) for the five other patients, and has enough organs that they would surely live if this man died. During casual conversation you learn he has no relatives, no travel plan, and if he were to simply disappear no-one would ever find out.

There is an absolute guarantee that nobody, no journalists, police, FBI, random passer-by, nobody whatsoever, would find out.

Do you kill him, or not?

This is the third of three polls in this series.

-Adam
 
Wahad

Wahad

No thanks, I don't want to lose my job.

If there is an absolute guarantee that nobody, no journalists, police, FBI, random passer-by, nobody whatsoever, would find out, then sure.
 
Covar

Covar

there's no guarantee the transplants would work. I'm willing to believe your little train deathtrap experiments have been set up to work as you explain, but there is no way that you can ensure that the transplant will stick.
 
Wahad

Wahad

Tinwhistler said:
Nope.
Those organs belong to the man. It sucks for the 5, but whose to say that their lives are worth more than his?
Click to expand...
From a purely technical standpoint, if these people had no other donor organs, their lives would in fact be worth more - they'd pay for the transplant which would most likely be a considerably higher sum then the minor medical attention this random stranger would pay for.
 
strawman

strawman

Covar said:
there's no guarantee the transplants would work.
Click to expand...
The transplants are known to work for this unusual case with 100% certainty. There is absolutely no doubt in your mind that you can make this trade and it will work without a hitch, and no one will ever know.

-Adam
 
I

Icarus

No for several reasons:

- an accident is often caused by human error like the train incident but failing organs are often caused by either natural circumstances or because of a bad lifestyle choice. In either case, it's very different since they either have themselves to blame, or nature.

- actively killing a healthy person and doing so in a very undeserving way is very different from an old man, at the end of his life, dying in what will be heralded as a selfless act. Even though 5 people is more than 1 person math-wise, you can never discount the moral implications. Say you had to pick between 5 jerks or one little girl - say that 5 jerks would get killed or the little girl would be raped and murdered. Easy choice, right? Numbers mean nothing.

- ironically, those persons who need a donor are, in fact, the prime donors after death so those 5 people may well give life to more than 5 others.
 
Hylian

Hylian

I may inform the man that his organs could save the lives of 5 people but in no way could I take his life to save theirs.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

You could always do what China does and have him arrested for a crime he didn't commit, have him executed, and then harvest his organs in one of their "deathmobiles" to be sold on the black market for money.
 
C

Chibibar

If this man has no relatives, friends or family, I would inform the man that he has the organs to save 5 people. It is HIS organs, not mine to decide to give to someone else. If the man chose not to sacrifice himself (he is entitle it is his life) then I let the man go.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Surprise surprise! I pick dissect him. If only for the fact I'd be able to commit direct murder scott-free in this scenario.

The other 5 living? Eh, I'll call it the price of my satisfaction.

Mostly choosing the 1 murder due to the fact I wouldn't get to watch the 5 die.
 
Shegokigo

Shegokigo

Funny thing is, I love being 100% honest in polls like this. I lie enough about what/who I am day to day "out there", I find it very VERY liberating to just speak my mind every minute I'm on Halforum.
 
M

Mr_Chaz

hylian said:
I may inform the man that his organs could save the lives of 5 people but in no way could I take his life to save theirs.
Click to expand...
Pretty much this one. It's odd, in the other two I voted to kill the one to save the five, because in those cases I am the only one who can make the decision, and there isn't the time for anything else. Here I would tell the potential donor, but I wouldn't kill him. I also wouldn't judge him if he decided not to donate.

I guess the difference to me is that the man has an opportunity to make his own choice, whereas that wasn't the case in the previous two.
 
L

LordRavage

I would kill everyone and harvest all their organs for 6 other people.

Just to be sure.

:D
 
R

Raemon777

In this case I do save the one (with the same caveat everyone else is providing). The reasoning is an extension of my uncertainty about Poll 2 - there is a benefit to living in a social contract in which doctors do not kill innocent people willy nilly.
 
General Specific

General Specific

I would not harm the man. I would raise the point of the 5 other patients if there was a kidney needed or something like that which the man could donate without losing his own life, but I could not kill him to save 5 others. If the man is a match for all 5, then they are also likely to be matches for each other. I would also approach each patient and ask if they would be willing to donate the other organs needed if they died before finding a match. That way, though they are dead, they'd at least save the life of another.
 
Piotyr

Piotyr

To show that I am actually trying to help the thought experiment, here's one that was actually posed to my wife in an ethics course:

You are a triage nurse, and are assessing serious injuries to a family of six involved in an auto accident. One individual is in serious condition, but has no organ damage outside of possible brain damage. The other five individuals are all in critical condition, each with injuries that will require organ replacement, and would be compatible with the sixth, who is an organ donor. Do you treat the five at the expense of the one possible brain injury, or do you treat the one you know will survive without the more drastic measures?
 
I

Icarus

Piotyr said:
To show that I am actually trying to help the thought experiment, here's one that was actually posed to my wife in an ethics course:

You are a triage nurse, and are assessing serious injuries to a family of six involved in an auto accident. One individual is in serious condition, but has no organ damage outside of possible brain damage. The other five individuals are all in critical condition, each with injuries that will require organ replacement, and would be compatible with the sixth, who is an organ donor. Do you treat the five at the expense of the one possible brain injury, or do you treat the one you know will survive without the more drastic measures?
Click to expand...
A doctor is not allowed to refuse treatment on a patient so this is a purely theoretical case since you'd HAVE to treat the person with a potential brain injury. Say we did have a choice, there's still too many "what ifs" for me to be able to answer that - it really depends on the situation.
 
K

Kitty Sinatra

possible brain damage makes the choice super easy: I'd never kill someone on the possibility. Not that I'd ever kill one person to save others. That is, I'd only harvest organs from someone after failing to keep them alive.
 
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