PHL201H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 21: Thought Experiment, Extreme Measures, Fetus
Document Summary
Thomson: introduction: violinist thought experiment, plugged into violinist against your will. In most cases: may be some cases maybe he only needs 30 minutes plugged in with you where maybe you should stay plugged in, t: logic: In this case can unplug yourself but is selfish but not morally impermissible: person should be allowed to unplug from violinist. Is one of those 2 people allowed to kill the other to save their life. If mother intervenes to get rid of pregnancy to save life: note we"re talking about whether mother"s alive (a) If it"s okay in expanding baby case, then okay in pregnancy. So maybe even if mother is allowed to abort : what if no one else is allowed to assist even though mother is allowed to do it herself, = couldn"t practically have abortions, self-abortion probably means she dies anyways. If don"t kill baby = killing mother dies = killing her to let fetus live.
