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What Are Two Scenarios That Are Central To The Trolley Problem

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Skill 2 In Thomson’s paper, she tries to provide a solution to the “The Trolley Problem”, where “one will die if the agent acts, but five will live who would otherwise die”(Thomson, pg.2). The two scenarios that are central to “The Trolley Problem” are the Trolley and Transplant scenarios. The first scenario has a trolley driver in a runaway trolley who they can either choose to crash into five workers or pull the switch and turn the trolley to crash into one instead (Thomson, pg.2). The second scenario is about a surgeon who can choose to kill one healthy patient or five patients who are about to die from organ failure (Thomson, pg.2). Therefore, Thomson finds it puzzling that it is permissible to kill a person by turning the trolley, but not permissible to kill a person by removing his organs since both of these scenarios have the same “net saving of four lives”(Thomson, pg.2). In this essay, I will articulate how Thomson attempts to solve this puzzle by arguing that her view of redirecting existing harm and avoiding infringement of …show more content…

3). Her moral principles distinguishes negative and positive duties. Negative duty is a duty to not engage in harming people (Foot, pg. 5). Meanwhile, positive duty is a duty to aid people. When facing a conflict of negative duties, Foot’s moral principles are to minimize harm (Thomson, pg. 10). Based on Foot’s principle on the Trolley scenario, it is impermissible for the surgeon to operate on a healthy patient since it is worse to kill one healthy patient by operating on him than letting five patients die (Thomson, pg.3). On the other hand, Foot states that it is permissible for the driver to turn the trolley by throwing the switch because not turning the trolley would kill the five workers which are worse than just killing only one worker (Thomson,

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She speaks of positive duties as, “doing acts of e.g to look after children or aged parents” (380). Then she further explains that positive duties can extend such as acts of charity which are hardly said to be owed. This doctrine explains that it is morally worse to do harm than to allow that harm to occur. One example that Foot gives of a negative is the case of the steering, driver, who has a duty to refrain from injuring five men and duty to injuring one. One example of a positive duty that Foot gives is that of the hospital staff members that are faced with a scarce-drug conflict.

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