Utility and the Survival Lottery
In his 1975 paper 'The Survival Lottery', Harris proposed a scheme referred to as the 'survival lottery', which, roughly speaking, consists of individuals who have volunteered to be part of the program, agreeing to the possibility of having their named drawn in a type of lottery. The person whose name is called is then sacrificed for their organs, which are transplanted into four or five others who will die without receiving healthy organs. For Harris, the point of the survival lottery is that it will save more lives than are lost through the sacrifice program, and increase the average life expectancy. Hence, it is a logical application of utilitarianism, and utilitarians ought to endorse it.
The utilitarian, …show more content…
Namely, it shifts the consequences of imprudent action from the imprudent individual to the rest of society. For example, under Harris' scheme, the individual who is irresponsible and careless in their health choices can enjoy the benefit of satisfying their unending desire for cheeseburgers and other junk food, yet not have to worry about the consequences of a diseased heart and shortened life. Furthermore, the glutton's organs may end up becoming unfit for transplantation, leaving them even less likely to be called for self-sacrifice. On the other hand, the healthy and restrained individual will continue to run the chance of being called for self-sacrifice, even though it is highly improbable that they will themselves require new organs. As such, they have a chance of paying a heavy cost, in spite of the unlikely event of reaping a benefit (Singer 1977: 219). Here we see a deterioration of the intensives to be healthy and …show more content…
In fact, in light of Singer's paper, the 'utilitarian' actions in many recent papers on self-driving cars seem to promote a severe form of risk pooling, in which pedestrians would loose a significant disincentive to behave prudently when crossing roads. That is, if a self-driving car will sacrifice its passenger to avoid two or more pedestrians, some pedestrians, much like the gluttons, will see the chance of arriving at their destinations quicker by abandoning traffic rules, while having little risk of being injured by a vehicle. Meanwhile, passengers of self-driving cars will face the possibility of being sacrificed for someone else's impatience and thoughtlessness. Therefore, those considering self-driving cars, not to mention those who already possess one, are likely to reject such technology and revert back to conventional vehicles. Given that research (Bonnefon et al. 2016) has shown people favour self-protective algorithms for themselves, not to mention that they see the sacrifice of a family member or friend as reprehensible (Sachdeva et al. 2015), it is too great a burden to ask people to accept the cost of injury and death for them and their loved ones, when that would include scenarios involving
In his 1975 paper 'The Survival Lottery', Harris proposed a scheme referred to as the 'survival lottery', which, roughly speaking, consists of individuals who have volunteered to be part of the program, agreeing to the possibility of having their named drawn in a type of lottery. The person whose name is called is then sacrificed for their organs, which are transplanted into four or five others who will die without receiving healthy organs. For Harris, the point of the survival lottery is that it will save more lives than are lost through the sacrifice program, and increase the average life expectancy. Hence, it is a logical application of utilitarianism, and utilitarians ought to endorse it.
The utilitarian, …show more content…
Namely, it shifts the consequences of imprudent action from the imprudent individual to the rest of society. For example, under Harris' scheme, the individual who is irresponsible and careless in their health choices can enjoy the benefit of satisfying their unending desire for cheeseburgers and other junk food, yet not have to worry about the consequences of a diseased heart and shortened life. Furthermore, the glutton's organs may end up becoming unfit for transplantation, leaving them even less likely to be called for self-sacrifice. On the other hand, the healthy and restrained individual will continue to run the chance of being called for self-sacrifice, even though it is highly improbable that they will themselves require new organs. As such, they have a chance of paying a heavy cost, in spite of the unlikely event of reaping a benefit (Singer 1977: 219). Here we see a deterioration of the intensives to be healthy and …show more content…
In fact, in light of Singer's paper, the 'utilitarian' actions in many recent papers on self-driving cars seem to promote a severe form of risk pooling, in which pedestrians would loose a significant disincentive to behave prudently when crossing roads. That is, if a self-driving car will sacrifice its passenger to avoid two or more pedestrians, some pedestrians, much like the gluttons, will see the chance of arriving at their destinations quicker by abandoning traffic rules, while having little risk of being injured by a vehicle. Meanwhile, passengers of self-driving cars will face the possibility of being sacrificed for someone else's impatience and thoughtlessness. Therefore, those considering self-driving cars, not to mention those who already possess one, are likely to reject such technology and revert back to conventional vehicles. Given that research (Bonnefon et al. 2016) has shown people favour self-protective algorithms for themselves, not to mention that they see the sacrifice of a family member or friend as reprehensible (Sachdeva et al. 2015), it is too great a burden to ask people to accept the cost of injury and death for them and their loved ones, when that would include scenarios involving