Judith Jarvis Thomson: the Trolley Problem

question 32

Essay

Judith Jarvis Thomson: The Trolley Problem
Consider the following case: A bystander can pull a switch, turning a runaway trolley off of a track on which it will kill five innocent people, and onto a track on which it will kill one innocent person. Call this case Bystander at the Switch. Now consider a different case: A surgeon can kill one of his perfectly healthy patients and use his organs to save five other dying patients. Call this case Transplant. In both of these cases, the agent is presented with an opportunity to save five lives for the cost of one. Yet most people believe that, while it is permissible to turn the trolley in Bystander at the Switch, it is impermissible to operate in Transplant. But what explains these different verdicts?
To answer this question, Thomson examines three proposals: killing v. letting die, using someone as a mere means, and the concept of rights. She argues against the first two proposals and in favor of the third. Killing v. letting die, Thomson claims, is too blunt an instrument to distinguish between these cases. Indeed, those endorsing the killing v. letting die distinction should, since bystander would be killing someone by flipping the switch, find bystander's act impermissible. But that, she argues, looks like the wrong verdict. Thomson insists that relying on using someone as a mere means also will not do the required work. Consider a "loop variant" of Bystander at the Switch, where the tracks do not diverge but circle back. Imagine that the five on the straight track are thin, but thick enough so that although all five will be killed if the trolley goes straight, the bodies of the five will stop it. and it will hence not reach the one. On the other hand, the one on the right-hand track is fat. so fat that his body will by itself stop the trolley, and the trolley will hence not reach the five. The loop variant ensures that Bystander must use the one as a means only, but adding the loop hardly seems to make a moral difference - even with the loop, Bystander acts permissibly by flipping the switch. This leaves the concept of rights.
Thomson argues that we can explain the different verdicts in Bystander at the Switch and Transplant by the following two features. First, the bystander saves the five by making something that threatens them instead threaten one. Second, the bystander does not do this saving by means which infringe any of the one's rights. These two features, Thomson concludes, allows us to justify our different intuitions in these two cases (and other difficult cases).
-According to Thomson, part of what distinguishes Bystander at the Switch from Transplant is a "distributive exemption." What does she argue this exemption amounts to? Do you find her argument for this exemption plausible? Defend your answer.

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Definitions:

Non-cash Assets

Assets that are not in the form of cash or cannot be easily converted into cash, such as property, plant, and equipment.

Sale

A sale involves the exchange of a good or service for payment, constituting a basic, essential activity of any business.

Conflict Theory

A social theory that views human society as an arena of inequalities that breed conflict and social change.

Coercion

The practice of compelling someone to act in a certain way by use of force or threats, often undermining their will or consent.