The Survival Lottery The idea of the “survival lottery” helps maximize the amount of lives that can be saved by doctors. It allows doctors to receive organ donations from healthy people, who are randomly selected to die and donate their organs to medicine, rather than having no choice but to let the innocent patient(s) die due to a lack of readily available organs. The point of the survival lottery is to make sure that as few humans die as possible, hence why it is acceptable to kill one person to possibly save two (or even more). I will argue that is not morally permissible to institute a survival lottery because all people expose themselves to different amounts of risks during their respective lives. I will then go on to show how this …show more content…
We all take on risks in our lives that could lead or contribute to our eventual deaths. Whether a decision is as small as deciding between eating fruit instead of chips for a snack, or choosing to be an NFL player instead of a teacher, our choices (however marginally) impact our chances of survival. The lives of the most innocent, including: babies, the poor, the disabled, etc. would be protected, to an extent. This would also discourage people to make choices that could endanger their lives (which we will consider a major positive – as the goal of the survival lottery is to save as many lives as possible). However, even after accounting for risk aversion and “innocence” I think this final amendment ruins the survival lottery. In theory it is morally permissible, but a life with no risk is boring and against our human instincts. In fact, many would describe that life as one not worth living at all. The idea of a survival lottery is not morally permissible, would be impossible to enforce without discriminating against people based on age, sex, income, etc., and, should never be considered unless life on Earth is being threatened (and drastic measures need to be taken to save the