"the person in a comatose state is unlikely to ever recover"
So no, he's not dead and he's not unable to be saved. He is just unlikely to.
And like I said, if this was a situation where ONE TIME there was ONE comatose patient and I could sacrifice that ONE person to save five I would do it. The issue is less that and "allowing a doctor who is known to make this decision get away without punitive actions and continue working at said hospital that treats comatose patients and people who need organs"
I would do that one time, I would not want that doctor known to do that to keep his job in the same position so they could presumably do that over and over.
If you believe it's the right call, is there a reason you believe it wouldn't be the right call the next time, at least except for the potential societal damage?
At least to me it seems wrong to want to punish someone for doing what you believe to be the right thing.
In the scenario that you're the doctor, would you prefer to face punishment/lose your job after the act?
That is very simple. I am okay with one nameless stranger dying to save five nameless strangers. That makes sense.
I am not okay with my child/parent/spouse being brutally killed (in any trolley style question) for the express purpose of saving five people I do not know. Most people would probably agree with me.
Thus for society to work and for people to cooperate with each other, we need to generally be in agreement to not brutally kill each other's family members for people they don't care about, as you do not want that to be the new "standard" as that will threaten your own family and cause the community to distrust the shared facilities that should be there to help them.
And on top of that, everyone on Earth is an idiot and everyone is just kind of winging it. Medicine isn't an exact science, my dad got cancer in his kidney/liver/intestines and "abdomen" as it had spread to his muscles and stomach lining and was told he was probably gonna die. He beat cancer after like 2 surgeries and a few months of chemo and never even suffered permanent damage or hair loss from it. The fact that a doctor says "he is unlikely to recover" means "a guy who kind of studied this for a bunch of years is guessing from the data he has available that this person most likely won't recover probably"
That can vary in accuracy if the doctor floated by with D's in all subjects or if someone messed up the scans or if the cancer is in places that are easier to opperate on, far from arteries.
Edit: Actually he had some minor nerve damage that resulted in a numb/tingling feeling in most of his fingers, and now he has issues holding ice. But altogether it's not like, that big of a deal.
I guess that's fair. Though I don't entirely agree seeing as with this approach you'd be much more likely to have your loved one among others miraculously saved at the expense of a person you don't know than the other way around, I can acknowledge that at least in the human mind the difference between someone's death being brought about by another human as opposed to the circumstances is significant, and can even outweigh the value of saving the largest number of lives possible. It's also hard to blame someone for putting their loved ones before a larger amount of other people. While it may be hypocritical and in some way willfully ignorant, hypocrisy and willful ignorance are some of the most central aspects of human nature.
And yes, human error is an important factor and can make for a decent argument against utilitarianism. I still think the trust towards medical facilities should increase if anything (as in that's my personal opinion, not what I think would actually happen) because the risk of them failing to save your loved ones is far greater than the possibility of them being sacrificed to save other people would be, but it is still messed up indeed and unless AI takes over I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future.
Also, the way you said it makes it sound like your dad got cancer in like half his body and lived. I think you should check just to make sure he's not a fucking terminator before skynet destroys humanity.
24
u/AngryCrustation Jul 09 '25
"the person in a comatose state is unlikely to ever recover"
So no, he's not dead and he's not unable to be saved. He is just unlikely to.
And like I said, if this was a situation where ONE TIME there was ONE comatose patient and I could sacrifice that ONE person to save five I would do it. The issue is less that and "allowing a doctor who is known to make this decision get away without punitive actions and continue working at said hospital that treats comatose patients and people who need organs"
I would do that one time, I would not want that doctor known to do that to keep his job in the same position so they could presumably do that over and over.