Trolley Case

Trolley is an emergency rescue case where a runaway trolley careens down a track. Unless the trolley is diverted, it will collide with five workers, causing their death. A bystander could flip the switch to divert the trolley, but this will kill the lone worker on the other track. Should the bystander flip the switch to save five lives? This essay considers Thomson’s (Thomson 1990) justification that it would be permissible to do so. Firstly I consider if turning the trolley is justified solely by the number of lives to be saved. This idea has disturbing implications and thus must be rejected. I introduce the idea that the right to life explains why it is wrong to kill people, even if there are favourable consequences. I explain Thomson’s account that the lone worker forfeits the right to life, and do not find it plausible that one could be bound by a promise to forfeit such an important right. I wonder if Thomson’s idea of tacit consent might instead provide an argument that infringing the right to life is justified.

My intuition is that it is permissible to turn the trolley, and this intuition is shared by many. Do the numbers at stake justify this? Other things being equal, it seems better to have five survivors than one, so perhaps it should always be permissible to have a consequentialist principle, bring about an outcome where the most will live. But this idea has disturbing implications. In the transplant case, a surgeon has five ill patients needing organ transplants. The patients are expected to die very soon as no matching donors can be found. By coincidence, the surgeon encounters a healthy patient, a perfect match for the five needed organs. The surgeon asks the healthy patient if he is willing to give his life so his organs can be used to save the five. The healthy patient refuses, should the surgeon kill the patient and take his organs anyway? Like the bystander in trolley, he could save five by killing one. I think it would be