Monday, March 23, 2009

I think it is interesting that Thompson does not defend that on argument is underdeveloped here (perhaps because it is dealt with earlier one is morally required to pull the lever. What is the "Central Utilitarian Idea" she references on 196? Is this something from the chapter we read that I'm forgetting or something farther back? Why is believing that this matter should be left to fate a way around the problem? Wouldn't his miraculously being in a position to hit the lever be just as much a part of fate as the other considerations? I feel like her).

I, like Mike, got last over the last four pages or so and would really like to go over this as a group. I am also unsure what she means by "deflection" on page 180.

A primary distinction, Thompson claims, between trolley and transplant is that there is no way we could ever get people to consent in the instance of transplant--one's health is a matter of choice, so this would create what she deems moral hazard. Plus, she notes, there is never a time when we do not know what our health is. First, could a system like Rawls veil of ignorance be informative here? Couldn't we project the necessary conditions to come to a rational decision about actions? In this sense, there could be some way in which the transplant is analogous to the trolley. Of course, Thompson goes on to not emphasize hypothetical consent, so it doesn't matter all too much.

I think I understand her claim about "whatever it is about them in virtue of which they would consent" but I'd like to go over this too.

3 comments:

  1. I haven't read Rawls in a while, so this may be based on misinformation, but could one argue that Thomson is doing something similar to Rawls's veil of ignorance when she discusses the views of the workers before they know their work assignments. In that case, they would be making a decision based upon what is best without making exceptions for individual circumstances (which is my shaky recollection of what Rawls does with the veil of ignorance)

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  2. I think the Central Utilitarian idea she is talking about is his argument that in order to violate anothers right without permission one would need to have a sufficiently large amount utility being maximized by the action. Its the starting argument dealt with in the last chapter we read where she is saying that you can not cut up the guy because not enough utility is being maximized by doing so. I thought it was interesting how in turning Bloggs into a bystander we are confronted with a new series of problems that lead to the possibility of multiple permissible acts. She says that Bloggs may feel unable to kill and thus do nothing which is to show that a distinction in killing versus letting die is important in some instances but at the same time Bloggs could feel the need to pull the lever and by virtue of all those involved being of the same party who shared equally in a known threat. Finally Bloggs could also flip a coin to help make a choice about what to do thereby leaving it up to chance. I know this section is sort of off the topic of where she is going with the chapter but I thought it was interesting that at least at this level of investigation it seems that both may be possible.

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  3. I don't quite understand the revised tradeoff idea either, but what I understood 'deflection' to mean on p. 180 is that we cannot differentiate the trolley and the transplant by saying that in the trolley example, Bloggs, by turning the switch, would shift the consequences of the trolley threatening five people onto the one one person, and at the same time, say that in the transplant example the surgeon would NOT do the same (by switching the consequences or the threat from the five ailing people on to the one person being cut up).

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