Surveys

Thanks to Sarah and Glyn to this link to the BBC Magazine, which presents a number of well-known philosophical thought experiments (Thomson's violinist, and the Trolley Problem - which we used for interviews last year, but I guess won't be much good any more!)

Some of the comments almost made me tear my hair out. I'll just mention two:

Thomson's violinist is not the same principle as abortion. If you choose to disconnect yourself you are in essence withdrawing treatment, that is refusing to intervene to save the life of someone who would otherwise die. In an abortion you're choosing to deliberately end the life of someone who would otherwise live.

The foetus is obviously supposed to be not independently viable. Therefore if you 'withdraw' your provision, it will die. Just like the violinist. Someone else does point to a difference:

I would like to point out a problem I have with the direct application of the violinist thought experiment, as presented above, to the case of abortion. In the experiment, if the violinist chooses to stay connected, they need have nothing to do with the violinist once the nine months have elapsed. If a woman is pregnant, and chooses to keep the baby, they will have to bring the baby up - with important consequences for her life, that of the baby, and that of those close to her - or give the baby up for adoption - which again is likely to affect her strongly and will certainly affect the baby.

The natural reading of this is the woman faces further burdens of childcare, beyond the initial 9 months of life support. Accepting the premise (rather than argue the baby allows the woman to live a fulfilled life she couldn't otherwise, or somesuch), then there are further costs to the woman, so if disconnecting the violinist is permissible then so, a fortiori, is abortion. Since the argument is supposed to be favourable to abortion, this isn't really a problem. Abortion will actually be allowed in all cases where disconnecting the violinist is, and maybe some others (because of the higher cost).

Personally, I think it's a shame they didn't discuss Taurek, who discusses one or five cases like the Trolley Problem, and argues fairness requires tossing a coin. No one faces anything worse than death - it isn't worse for any of the five that five die (as opposed to that they die). There is no one who suffers a greater harm of five deaths. Tossing a coin, however, gives everyone a 50% chance of survival.

Also, one other point I owe to Parfit, is one might reasonably think it's better to kill the one in case 3 than case 2. In case 2, that death is (in a sense) gratuitous and unnecessary, because it isn't essential to your plan that there's a person on the other line. In case 3, the fat man's death is necessary, and the essential means to save five. If you were the one killed, would you rather your death did the good of directly saving five, or was merely unfortunate?

For some further thoughts/comments, see Crooked Timber. (But try the survey first, before some insights are given away)

While I'm plugging surveys, my friend Rob offers the chance to plot your views on liberty on his handy matrix. (For now, see the comments thread for my thoughts)

And for those not sick of trolleys, a humorous variant here.