PHILOS 2YY3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Post Bellum, Fat Man, Strategic Bombing
20 Dec 2016
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The doctrine of doing and allowing: the doctrine that it is worse to do a bad thing than to allow a bad thing to happen. Bystander at the switch: should you do nothing and let 5 die or turn the trolley and kill one: the bystander should intervene. Killing one is worse than letting 5 die = false: therefore there is no explanation for why the surgeon cant kill the man. If causing harm is worse than allowing it happen, bystander may not throw switch. But, bystander may throw switch (says t) Hypothesis 1: treating as a mere means is wrong. Surgeon does this, bystander doesn(cid:495)t: if one goes out of existence, bystander saves 5 by turning trolley. Thompson says yes: so, treating as a mere means doesn(cid:495)t explain difference with transplant. If they die, it is basically because he killed them. Another example: he killed them on purpose for their wills: this means he still can(cid:495)t kill the man.
