Fight Club 10/29

Pro (kill one person to save five) - Maddie Michel
Con (don't need to kill one person to save five) - Rachel Hanson
Scribe - Laura Erb

Pro:
-in this situation with the train, the switch should be flipped - it is better for one person to die rather than many
-if you were at a fork and the train was going to hit 5 unsuspecting people, the switch should be flipped so the train only hits one person on the other side
-if one of the people was sleeping, he wouldn't know what "hit him"
-self-driving cars should be programmed to minimize death, car should be programmed to run off the road and kill driver and passengers to save pedestrians
-more people would end up dying if cars were not programmed to save lives - better that driver dies because then less people die
-a person operating the self-driving car takes on the responsibility of knowing they might die - makes cars safer, less deaths on the road
-final dilemma is with organ failure - people with organ failure should be given option to live instead of one healthy person, because it can allow more people to live
-overall, all these examples show that the decision should be made for the greater good
-90% of people would flip the switch in the study beause it's more logical to save more people than kill more people - human nature to save people
-people have altrustic tendencies to help others - explains why most people would choose to  flip the switch the
-burden of guilt on individual who doesn't act to save more people
-death of single person is easier to bear than death of many - doctor would have lost more lives than if he had harvested the organs and lost one person
-overall, if there must be death, it is morally right that fewer people are sacrificed

Con:
-if you have to risk someone else's life to save a life, then it's not worth it - something could go wrong, and you might end up killing more people than you save
-you can't interfere with what's going to happen (in regards to fate); if people are going to die you can't change that
-no one is going to drive a car that will kill them in order to save other people, plus the technology might not be advanced enough to know when this is completely necessary (may kill you when there's still time for people to get out of the way)
-in a hospital situation, you cannot purposely take someone's life even if it's to save other lives - you have to let the one person live

How about the fat guy situation?
Pro: although you'd feel guilty about causing a death yourself, I'd feel more guilty knowing 5 people died instead of the one. It all goes back to the greater good of many instead of being selfish and just saving one person

Counterargument - pro:
-you would say that in a situation where a car is going towards people, it shouldn't divert from the people - in that situation, you'd kill pedestrians, driver, passengers
-technology malfunction - it's trying to get better, there has to be testing
-driver has to take on risk of them dying
-taking someone's life in regards to organ failure - if the person who is healthy is a murderer, and the other people are sick children, should you save better lives over someone "evil"?

Counterargument - con:
-against self-driving cars
-technology isn't developed, cars can't make split-second decisions
-you can't intentionally take someone else's life, every life matters, the children were going to die anyway

In the situation of a bystander, should you let what is happening happen or should you save more people?
Pro: bystanders should get involved, it would be wrong not to get involved if people can be saved - not sure what they can do, but if they can do something to save people, why not?

What if the one person is a child, and the five people are adults?
Pro: adults should live and kid should die, because saving more people is more important - not fair to say that his life is more important than theirs
Con: Child deserves to live because they have a lot of years ahead of them