The Trolley Problem & Bodily Autonomy

A trolley is on a track and on its way to hit five workers. Unfortunately, the people are too far away to hear you, so you cannot call to them. As it happens, someone has died, and you are transporting his body. If you throw the corpse on the track, the trolley will stop, but the body will be destroyed. Before he died, this person said not to let his corpse be harmed for any reason. Is it ethically permissible for you to throw his body onto the track?

You are a doctor who deals in organ transplants. A patient has died after adamantly refusing to become an organ donor. However, there is an organ shortage, and if you harvest his organs against his wishes, they can be used to save five people. Is it ethically permissible for you to do this?

I have a feeling that most people will answer yes to scenario 1 and no to scenario 2. In an attempt to reconcile these positions, we might turn to the doctrine of double effect, which holds that we should use people as an end but never as a mere means. But this does not effectively differentiate the two positions. In both scenarios, the dead body is being used as a means rather than an end.

Hence, I see 3 possible solutions:

1) Despite our intuitions, it is not morally permissible to throw the body onto the track.

2) Despite our intuitions, it is morally permissible to harvest the organs of the dead without consent.

3) There is some new moral framework that has not yet been developed, which reconciles the two positions.

The main standard of bodily autonomy is not to decrease bodily autonomy.

This solves the moral issue of both examples by lack of action.

For example, in scenario 2, it is permissible, but not mandatory action.

So you would not be wrong for doing or not doing it.

Not doing it would be okay because it is lack of action. Lack of action is not morally wrong and is not an action.

Doing it would be okay as it increases autonomy of multiple people.

So anyone having problem with doing it wouldnt have to do it.

I say yes to both. As moral quandaries go, these aren’t that quandary-ish. The movie “Saving Private Ryan” presented the quandary of risking a whole platoon of soldiers to save the remaining son of a mother who had already lost her two older sons to the war. In contrast, the scenarios you pose are more akin to a platoon of soldiers being risked to recover a corpse!

My understanding of “the trolley problem” involves a decision between saving a trolley with an infant on board versus saving a trolley with a dozen adults on it.

I bring it up because harvesting the organs of the dead without consent is illegal in most countries. So a lot of people would probably consider it a more difficult question, even though it's very straightforward from a consequentialist perspective, as you point out.

It depends on what moral structure you have in mind. With a utilitarian moral structure, assuming the person has no family, it would be permissible to throw his corpse onto the track, and you would most certainly be obligated to harvest his organs. However, there are many alternative moral structures with many other parameters, including religious ones, so there is no definitive answer without more specifications.

I'll clarify that no one is on the trolly in Scenario #1, though I don't think it would affect your answer.

Trouble is, that scenario 1 is wholly hypothetical and improbable.

Whereas scenario 2, though hypothetical is feasible.

Therefore improbability and feasibility will dictate our moral appreciation of the two scenarios, in respect of social expectations and social justice.

We can still have an answer for hypothetical scenarios. The probability of scenario 1 occurring has little to do with whether we should take action if it does occur.

Did you read the rest of my post?

Hypothetical or not......We will inevitably  view your two scenarios differently.

Because we are conditioned to do so.

Fair enough.

Though I would suggest that morality is relative to predicament.

And the difficulty with hypothetical predicaments is that they have  no real comparison.

But I still maintain that, improbability and feasibility  will affect how we view your two hypotheticals.

I'm not sure that any real sense of morality, will enter into the experiment.

instead of looking for a loop hole to 'the ends doesn't justify the means', why not just scrap the ends means argument altogether? obviously we shouldn't do whatever we want to achieve good ends, but there is the concept of 'proportionalism', which says as long as the means are proportional to the ends, they are moral. i know there's less moral clarity when it comes to the details, but the moral framework is more workable. i can't find any hypotheticals that trip up the whole paradigm when it comes to proportionalism. 

Kingdom of ends is a rather difficult moral standard to hold. Some decisions are such that not everyone is an end himself.

While I understand your perspective, I believe that by understanding these hypothetical questions we can fill in the gaps of reality and gain a more comprehensive understanding of our morality.

I dont see how a trolley could operate on its own. Unless the operator died, creating the same scenario where no onle living is onboard. Coincides with "workers" on the tracks as well. A trolley with riders would not be on the same track being worked on. 

Th double layer of tricky is how people act. How we react is not always what is moral. Even the person who says throw the body or take the organs may in actuality do nothing in the moment. 

Whether humans act upon what is moral depends on what the person does and which moral structure we are referencing.

I'm not sure that we can fully understand the morality of an abstract idea, if there is no direct association with a real experience. 

We would be unemotionally detached from the hypothetical scenario and therefore free to make hypothetical judgements.

Judgements that would not  necessarily need to be representative of an innate sense of morality.

Again, it would depend on which moral structure you are referring to. I may be able to better understand your version of morality if you explain it.

Do you believe morality to be based on emotion, logic, a combination of both; or a metric such as health, money, or happiness?

Do you believe morality is based on the outcome, the action, or the intention?

Do you believe morality is judged by the present or does it include the future?

Do you believe that the morality of a situation is judged by the net value, or do you believe certain things are purely right, while others purely wrong?

Then finally, do you believe morality to be founded inherently based, such as a religious morality, or do you believe morality is a social construct with a purpose, such as promoting a more civil society?

Yeah ...we also have to include environment and situation. Unlike the other two, these factors are independent of an actor/agent - seperate from the person who is in a moral dellimma. 

Im thinking of things that trigger our fight, flight, freeze responses.  Some have absolutely no control over these responses. So it might not matter what moral structure someone follows or how they behave. Even the most strict individuals can waiver in unexpected situations. 

Yes, if an individual has no control over their physiological responses, then the moral structure they follow will not determine their actions.

The first scenario doesn't make sense. I was looking for this dillemma on the web and the story is different than yours. Why is so?

We can discuss the second one, though. I say "yes" because of the Hippocratic Oath.

I made up this version.

Here is how I would explain morality: