Transcript euthanasia
euthanasia Question #1 What exactly is a survival lottery, and how would it work? Question #4 What is the one exception that Harris allows to the universal application of the survival lottery? Do you agree that these individuals should be excluded from the lottery? Question #3 One objection to the survival lottery claims that any such policy would cause widespread terror, since anyone could be selected to have his or her organs harvested. How does Harris respond? But, as we have seen, the chances of actually being called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice might be slimmer than is the present risk of being killed on the roads, and most of us to not lie trembling abed, appalled at the prospect of being dispatched on the morrow. The truth is that lives might be more secure under such a scheme… It might be argued that the institution of the survival lottery has not gone far to mitigate the harmful side-effects in terms of terror and distress… Perhaps only a long period of education or propaganda could remove our abhorrence. What this abhorrence reveals about the rights and wrongs of the situation is however more difficult to assess… the promptings of conscience are not necessarily the most reliable guide. Gay marriage will upset people in "normal marriages". (Bob Stewart, British MP, December 2012) The gay marriage bill will be divisive. Bad idea. (David Davies, Welsh MP, 2013) Vingt-Trois, the archbishop of Paris, said the difference between the sexes was a basic human trait and denying it by legalizing marriage and adoption for homosexuals would weaken society's ability to manage its differences peacefully. "This is the way a violent society develops," he told the spring meeting of the French bishops' conference. (Cardinal André VingtTrois, on proposed marriage reform, 2013) Bonus Question What do you think is the best objection to the survival lottery? Why, so the objection goes, should we not give X’s heart to Y or Y’s lungs to X, the same number of lives being thereby preserved and no one else’s life set at risk? The idea in the mind of those who would propose such a step must be something like the following: since Y and Z cannot survive, since they are going to die in any event, there is no harm in putting their names into the lottery, for the chances of their dying cannot thereby be increased and will in fact almost certainly be reduced. Question #2 Some people might object to Harris’s proposal by claiming that it is never morally permissible to kill innocent people. Why doesn’t Harris think this is a good objection? The Utilitarian Argument The Best Interests Argument The Smith and Jones Argument What do we owe each other?