Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Buddhist Response to Moral Dilemmas
How do you think a Buddhist would respond to the following moral dilemmas:
1-"You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?"
2-A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?
1-"You are an inmate in a concentration camp. A sadistic guard is about to hang your son who tried to escape and wants you to pull the chair from underneath him. He says that if you don’t he will not only kill your son but some other innocent inmate as well. You don’t have any doubt that he means what he says. What should you do?"
2-A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?
0
Comments
2: Flip it. It's you vs. the trolley and you're deciding to save 1 or 5.
In scenario 1, if you pull the chair, one dies. If you do nothing, two die.
In scenario 2, if you flip the switch, one dies. If you do nothing, five die.
Why would effect on your karma be any different if you pulled the chair than if you flipped the switch?
I cannot weigh 5 lives to 1. Once again intention is everything. If I do not flip the switch, it is once again with the intention of protecting my karma, since I do not want to cause the death of someone who is not currently in the line of fire. If I do flip the switch it is with the intention of protecting the lives for 4 people. I would have to flip the switch.
or what if the 5 people is your family and the 1 is your neighbor that you dislike.
I think it is an oversimplification of the matter to just say, one life is better than five lifes, so I am going to choose to end his life.
Each Buddhist would respond differently, but I will answer how I would act.
Kill the guard obviously. Therefore I save 2 people and I will bear the karma upon myself.
Ah, the classic consequentialist dilemma. I would do neither. I would call the driver of the trolley and demand he stop, and if there is no time I will flip the switch, and bear the Karma myself.
I have another dilemma if others wish to think this through.
A doctor has 5 dying patients who each need organ transplants and a healthy person comes in and the doctor kills this patient to harvest his organs and saves all 5 patients. Is what the doctor did morally correct?
I would just break out of the concentration camp and take all the prisoners with me and then nobody has to die then I would capture the mad philosopher, turn him to the good side of the force so that he and I could donate organs to the transplant doctor so that the five patients and the healthy guy could all be saved.
I'm not sure that it matters who is tied to the rails or at least that it should matter. All life has equal value whether they are evil or good. So, at least for me, this doesn't have a bearing on my decision.
This also brings up a question for me about intention: what does Buddhism say about inaction? What I mean is this, if I let two people die by my inaction is that better or worse than killing one person to save another.