experimental question asked in interview.....?

Question

You are walking along the railroad tracks when you hear a train racing up behind you Next to you is an unlocked rail switch at a Y in the tracks Ahead theres five rail workers having lunch on the tracks all wearing headphones completely unaware of the train bearing down upon them On the other side is one person sitting on the rails unaware of the train. decide do you throw the switch send the train toward the lone individual and cause his death or do nothing and allow the five men to die..You are the finest doctor in all the land While you are doing a routine checkup on a man five people are brought to you who were critically injured Coincidentally all five victims and the man in for a checkup share the same blood type Each of the victims is injured in a different vital organ and will die without a transplant You are such a great doctor that it is guaranteed that all the transplants will be successful and each person would make a complete recovery so decide...

do you kill the healthy individual and harvest his organs so that the five men will survive or do nothing and allow the victims to die. whats the difference between the two?

Answer 1

So you are studying, Rawles and "The greater good for the greater number." In business that is seldom the case. It is nice for philosophy but terrible for business. Assume if you will that the lone person is your boss and the other five persons are customers or coworkers, who do you think your boss wants you to save, them or him? "Some times the needs of the one far out weight the needs of the many or the few," a corollary to Rawles.
In reality, if you touch the railway switch you will be guilty of murder, same goes for harvesting a healthy donor. If you do nothing in both situations you will be legally okay. The most you could do as the doctor is try and save them all even though some may and probably will die. Remember, this is an interview, they want to see if you can figure out that some problems are beyond your control and adjust to them. These are two of those situations.

Answer 2

At first I thought the difference between the two was that in one scenario a doctor was involved. Doctors promise to "do no harm."

After rereading, I think there is no difference. In both cases there is an innocent person who would be spared, if I did nothing. If I took any steps, the innocent person would be killed.

I don't think it makes a difference that the first man is sitting on the railroad tracks putting himself in danger. Without intervention, he would be spared, thus he is in no danger.

Answer 3

All things being equal, I would just flip a coin, leave it to chance. At least then I'd have something else to blame it on.

But this is so contrived. If I have time to see this situation, surely I would have time to run in the direction of that individual sitting on the train tracks and yell at him to move his ***, he is not wearing head phones after all. Plus for all I know he wants to commit suicide and that is why is just sitting on the track waiting for the train to hit him.

For the other one, it would be illegal for me to kill someone. Plus there may be a compromise, like the individual may be willing to give his kidney for one of them. And if there isn't any other donors, then they are screwed.

Answer 4

In the first case.....I'd throw the switch n Save the 5 people....
2nd case.........won't kill the person up for checkup......But will find other donors...
Difference b/w the two situations is dat.......
1st case....only 2 options- kill 1/kill 5.....
2nd case.....3 options-kill 1/let 5 die/ save all

Answer 5

Id send the train to the workers- they know the dangers.

and would just leeve them or fin other donars, you cant kill a man to save others lol