THE DANGERS OF HEALTH

You are a surgeon – and a bit of a philosopher.You are the head of a first-class team of organ transplant specialists that has an immaculate record of successful results. On your waiting list are four young people, all desperately ill and urgently in need of transplants without which they will soon die.Andrea requires a liver transplant, Barry a heart, Clarissa a pancreas and Donald a set of lungs. No donors are available.You are in despair.You did not enter medicine for money; you wanted to help people and improve their lives, yet here you are,watching four people die. These people have done nothing wrong; they would have long

and happy lives ahead,but for their illnesses. If only organs were available, all would be well – for you have overcome the problems of tissue matching, rejection and so on.As you are about to tell your patients there is no hope, you note the arrival of the new receptionist – a young man, namely, Eric.You know from his medical records that he is healthy.Your eyes light up.You ask Eric to accompany you into the operating

theatre, to show him around,of course, of course . . .Your quiet reasoning is:

I want to do my best for as many people as possible. By killing Eric, I am in a position to distribute his organs to Andrea, Barry, Clarissa and Donald, saving their lives.True, the world no longer has Eric; that is, indeed, a sad loss. But the world has gained the other four lives. Four for the price of one is an excellent deal.

Of course, killing Eric would currently be illegal but our aim is what is morally the right thing to do. If we do nothing,we lose Andrea and the others, but Eric lives on. If we sacrifice Eric, we lose his life, but gain four. Assuming that in terms of quality of life – relationships with family, contributions to society – all the individuals are similar, the moral question would seem to rest solely on quantity, on the number of lives saved. Yet, curiously, many people are horrified at the thought of killing one innocent individual, even to save a greater number.

Adapted from Can a Robot be Human? 33 Perplexing Philosophy Puzzles, by Peter Cave