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Lightwave comments on Human errors, human values - Less Wrong
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If the likelihood of me needing a life-saving organ transplant at some point in my life is the same as for most other people, then I think I'd bite the bullet and agree to a system in which random healthy people are killed for their organs. Why? Because I'd have 5x the chance of being saved than being killed.
Except, of course, for the chance of being slain in the inevitable civil war that ensues. ;)
I remember a short story - title and author escape me - where this was actually much like what was going on. Everyone had their relevant types on file, and if some number of people needed an organ you could supply, you were harvested for said organs. The protagonist got notified that there were nearly enough people who needed his organs and he went undercover and visited them all, thinking he'd kill one and get out of it, but he finds that they aren't what he expected (e.g. the one who needs a liver is a girl with hepatitis, not some drunk) and decides not to, and then one dies anyway and he's off the hook.
Larry Niven wrote a number of short stories about organ transplants; in one of them, "The Jigsaw Man", the primary source of organs for transplant is executions of criminals, which has led to more and more crimes being punishable by death. The main character of the story, who is currently in jail and awaiting trial, escapes through what amounts a stroke of luck, and finds out that the organ banks are right next to the jail. Certain that he is about to be recaptured and eventually executed, he decides to commit a crime worthy of the punishment he is going to receive: destroying a large number of the preserved organs. At the end of the story, he's brought to trial only for the crime he originally committed: running red lights.
I've read that story, but it's not the one I was thinking of in the grandparent.
I didn't intend to suggest that "The Jigsaw Man" was the story in question.
That sounds like an interesting short story...I wish you remembered the title so I could go track it down.
In current practice, organ transplant recipients are typically old people who die shortly after receiving the transplant. The problem is still interesting; but you have to impose some artificial restrictions.
Sure, it's just a thought experiment, like trolley problems. I've seen it used in arguments against consequentialism/utilitarianism, but I'm not sure how many of utilitarians bite this bullet (I guess it depends what type of consequentialist/utilitarian you are).