Philosopher Thomson now suggest another scenario
There is a surgeon with five patients. Each of his patients is dying from failure of a different organ and could be saved by a transplant. Since there are no organs available by normal channels, the surgeon considers drugging one of his (healthy) colleague and removing his organs to use for transplants.
By killing one, many will be saved. This is utilitarianism. This is similar to the trolley story. The death of one will save the five. Or is it? Do you agree? Is the choice of allowing the trolley kill one person the same as killing another person for his organs?
Do you think Batman should kill the Joker?
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Batman not killing the Joker is an irrational solution. Faith is irrational. (though Joker has demonstrated that obsessive and pure selfish evil can be irrational and beyond human as well, who are more used to the middle ground.) If Batman has faith in goodness, he would know that the very act of unforgiveness and hatred is the seed of evil which he should avoid. Batman did not create Joker, otherwise his faith would be based upon the perfect understanding of the ability of Joker towards goodness or the lack of it. Regardless, having faith in goodness means Batman would prefer to let Joker destroy himself with evil as he would have faith that the lack of goodness leads to death anyway. The very hint of doubting this amounts to a belief that goodness and faith is sometimes irrelevant, the very seed that breeds evil and the likes of Joker.
ReplyDeleteWrote a simpler version of this on my blog, probably more relevant since we do not usually deal with the ideal type of Joker and evil in everyday life.
http://daddyparentingtips.blogspot.com/2008/06/tip-64-have-faith-in-love.html