044.75 Moral Dilemmas That Will Break Your Brain #6, #9 (don't laugh)

Hi Nargles and Warbles,

6) Your family is vacationing alone on a private stretch of beach with no lifeguard. Your daughter and your niece, both 7, are best friends and eager to get into the water. You caution them to wait until the water calms some, but they defy you and sneak in anyway. You soon hear screams of distress and find them both caught in a strong current. You are the only swimmer strong enough to save them, but you can only save one at a time. Your niece is a very poor swimmer and likely won’t make it much longer. Your daughter is a stronger swimmer, but only has a 50% chance of holding on long enough for you to come back for her. Who do you save first?

Nargles, I read through your response and I have to disagree. I think you forget that when you're facing a heated situation, emotions often conquer any logical reasoning. You also undermine the intense love a mother gives her child. Wouldn't it be nice if human instincts didn't exist? Realistically, though, there is no way I would save my niece over my child. Right now, you might be able to deeply contemplate who to save and why. During the actual situation, though, trust me, you will save your daughter first without doubt. Hopefully this will not actually happen to anybody.

9) You are a doctor at a top hospital. You have six gravely ill patients, five of whom are in urgent need of organ transplants. You can’t help them, though, because there are no available organs that can be used to save their lives. The sixth patient, however, will die without a particular medicine. If s/he dies, you will be able to save the other five patients by using the organs of patient 6, who is an organ donor. What do you do?

Something I noticed with these questions is that they often ask you to choose between your personal instinct and the greater good. For this question, I would definitely withhold the medicine from the sixth patient. This may make me a murderer, but in the long run, I'd be saving five other people. I would talk to the sixth patient first, though, and ask for permission (I'm pretty sure killing someone on purpose is illegal in most hospitals, but let's pretend that's not a factor). If they said yes, I would make them as comfortable as possible and wait. If they said no, I would try to reason with them. Is it bad that I would go as far as guilt them into dying? If you think about the long-term effects rather than the short-term effects, maybe making a choice becomes easier.

- Quibbles

Response to question 9 (from Nargles)
     It seems quite unrealistic to me that the 6th patient would agree to die in order to save 5 other people. If there was already a medicine to save her, why would she choose to die for some random 5 people? If I were the 6th patient, I would most definitely choose myself over the others. Besides, people are dying left and right all over hospitals. I believe that there would be other organ donors who don't have to die intentionally. I also think this question is very badly worded. For one, do you or do you not have the medicine to give this 6th patient?

Love Always
~Narlges 11/28/14