An Analysis Of The Trolley Driver And Transplant Case

714 Words2 Pages

When addressing the Trolley Driver and Transplant cases, philosophers and people alike tend to run into a moral problem. In both cases, the doctor and the trolley driver have to choose between intervening with the problem in which they are facing, which in both cases will save five people, or letting the problem run its course, which will save only one person’s life. The common problem philosophers face with these two cases is that the majority of people believe it is morally permissible to intervene in the Trolley Driver case, but morally impermissible to intervene in the Transplant case. How could this possibly make sense if the two cases are structured the same? Shouldn’t a person always want to save as many lives as they can or is that case dependent? The Trolley Driver
In the Trolley Driver and Transplant case, the choices the doctor and the trolley driver have to make may seem very similar, but what differentiates the two cases is the amount of time both have to make their decision. In the Trolley Driver case, the trolley driver must make a very snap decision on who to kill and who to save. He has no time to think of the logistics of the situation such as the ones presented in class like he should not intervene because technically he would be murdering the one person if he turns onto the other track, instead of just letting five die which is believed to be significantly less worse than killing. Also, more people would probably forgive his killings because they would understand the intense situation he was put into with little to no time to make a perfect decision. His morality would not have to be questioned as well because he did not have time to think enough for his morals to play into his decision. It also can be doubted that he actually wanted to kill someone since the choice was presented so abruptly, unlike in the Transplant

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