Poll: Kill one to save ten?

[Avernus]

Simply put, no. I'd help the one man to live.

It's not a numbers game, it's not a question of saving lives. It's a question on your right to take a life for the benefit of others. If your answer was yes, how is that any better than harvesting the organs of a perfectly healthy man to sell on the black market?

Before you jump all over that, realise that organ harvesting is a very real, and an extremely lucrative business, and that the organs come from people who are for the most part, political detainees. Without stretching your imaginations too far, China tops the list.

It comes down to one very simple question.

Does a man have a right to life. To say no to that, is to condone murder.

What if you are the man on the table? You don't get the option to say please help these other people, let my demise benefit the greater good. You have no say in the matter, it's been arbitrarily decided for you.

 

[cobra_ky]

It violates the Hippocratic oath so no. I'm disgusted with anyone who said yes, I think you all should be cut up for organ transplants as ironic punishment.

Woohoo, another person that hates me!

-Joe

i'm also disgusted with anyone who said yes, but i wouldn't say i hate you. though i would like an explanation why letting the donor die would ever be a good idea.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Hell yes.

10 people are worth 10 times as much as 1 person.

Can't really say that. What if the ten people were all terrible people who committed crimes while the one was a saint who helped everyone else? One person can always bring more worth than ten.

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Not very likely so I don't think I'll ever have to deal with this. My answer is maybe. A lot of thinking would have to go into this and no matter what choice I made, I would never be able to live with myself. If I were in this position, I would probably save the man and then give myself to save those others. Of course, that's easy to say in a hypothetical situation.

 

[Sipo]

the doctor really doesnt have the power to make that kind of a choice. If he can save the guy hes gota do it, unless the doner says to kill him or sometin...

 

[c0ld3r]

Id kill 2 to save 3...

 

[Evilbunny]

I wouldn't let him die. The price for saving those people cannot be my soul.

 

[jonnosferatu]

Someone never bothered to actually read Malthus, clearly.
a) Come on, spell his name right, for Pete's sakes.
b) Malthus wouldn't care either way. His principle was that if the population goes up, resources become scarce and people starting dying, and that if the population goes down, resources are more available and reproduction increases. You wind up at equilibrium within a few cycles either way.

In response to 1, yes, it is your decision. The decision to do nothing is still a decision, and making it only changes your degree of liability in the most superficial of fashions.

A) My bad, I misspelled a name I don't regularly use.
B) Yet we are not at equilibrium so we should do everything we can to reach that point.
C) It was a joke, one that I picked up in debate a long time ago. I'm not a philosophy major.

Retort to the response, so you are saying it becomes viable to kill an innocent person? The way I see it, weighting in and saying "Well ten lifes is worth more than one." is just one way of putting a price on life. Do that and you've turned yourself into ozymandias, aka, a pretentious asshole that believes he knows what's best for everyone. I'm not saying I wouldn't be responsible for the death of the ten individuals.

side note: I might like to ask how these ten people got in this situation.

B) Which, by your source's hypothesis, is a completely futile gesture because the problem will resolve itself regardless of what we do.
C) So? It doesn't make your argument any less flawed.

I never anything of the sort. Stop putting words in my mouth and address my argument: that your statement that "It's not my decision" is false because the choice has been placed in your hands and the decision to do nothing is still a decision.

 

[Woem]

Imagine you are a doctor. Under your responsibility are ten people who each need a different organ transplant to survive. One day, a man who is an organ donor arrives in intensive care after a vehicle accident. He is in critical condition, but he can be saved with immediate care. However, if he dies, the organs he would therefore donate would be enough to save the other ten. If you were the doctor in this case, would you allow the one man to die in order to save the other ten, or would you save the one man, but cause the other ten to die?

Imagine for the sake of this scenario that there is no hope of getting another source of a transplant for the other ten people.

You're paving the way for human farming a la The Island. In this case there really is no difference between "he's critical but can be saved" and "he's really healthy". Unless of course the person is a DNR.

 

[Semitendon]

since when does a man have enough vital organs he can save 10 other people............

yes

Hmmm... I count six vital organs (Edit: that are likely to be transplanted)... heart, lungs, 2 x kidney, liver, skin. Although the skin could go to 5 people. Maybe.

FYI your list should read, Lungs x2...

I only included 'lungs' (not lungs x2) because I assumed that they could only go to one person. Is it possible to save two people with one pair of lungs?

It is possible, however unlikely due to the difficulty's in matching donor to recipient, particularly with lungs.

Good point though, and I understand why you had listed it as one donation.

 

[gigastrike]

I say it's the guy's decision.

 

[lizards]

since when does a man have enough vital organs he can save 10 other people............

yes

Hmmm... I count six vital organs (Edit: that are likely to be transplanted)... heart, lungs, 2 x kidney, liver, skin. Although the skin could go to 5 people. Maybe.

why the hell would you need a skin transplant


hm........maybe he has SKin DIseasE

 

[[Cold-Shoulder]]

I would have to to say yes

 

[Lukeje]

since when does a man have enough vital organs he can save 10 other people............

yes

Hmmm... I count six vital organs (Edit: that are likely to be transplanted)... heart, lungs, 2 x kidney, liver, skin. Although the skin could go to 5 people. Maybe.

why the hell would you need a skin transplant


hm........maybe he has SKin DIseasE

Are you really asking that question? Have you ever seen pictures of burn victims?

 

[FinalHeart95]

Simple math. Ten is greater than one, so I would.

 

[Squarez]

No, you don't let him die.

What do you say to his family.

"Yeah we could have saved him but but those people over there need his organs a lot more that he does."

On top of that it breaks the Hippocratic Oath.

EDIT:

I say it's the guy's decision.

This.