With the transplant problem compare that to a similar triage problem. You have 6 life or death patients 1 of which has a condition that takes a lot of resources to cure and 5 that take a little. You can only save the hard case or the easy cases. From the point of view of basic utilitarianism the transplant problem and the triage problem seems almost identical. But it seems way easier to let the hard case die rather than disassemble a live person. That a intuition puts a dent in the general pattern of a rule doesn’t mean that the rule stops applying.
Also if you bite the bullet that its okay to repurpose healthy lives for transplants then you could think of the improvement that instead of taking all the 5 organs from one life you could take the organs from 5 different healthy lives which could give them an increased chance of being alive (or like even if you can’t live without a liver a life of dialysis might be preferrable to death). The step from agreeing that the rule should be followed in that case to advocating to kill people seems hasty and unneccesary.
For most part philosophy doesn’t have a deadline, we will ponder the things to our contention and even then a little bit more. So the contradictions should puzzle us but we don’t ever need to commit to an answer that we know is partially wrong.
I have also found that if I understand to apply a rule to a particular situation it can override the intuition how it initially seems and theorethising an intuition gives it more legitimacy. For example if people knew that doctors might actively harm patients then people would be reluctant to seek medical attention. This kind of rule would strongly differentiate between the transplant problem and the triage problem. Understanding that this kind of rule could be in conflict with “help as much as you can” takes more intricate and detailed applying rather than a vague general case. If you would let the hard case die in triage and would keep the healthy person alive in transplant does that mean you don’t follow or do not believe in utilitarianism? If you would kill to save millions but wouldn’t kill to save thousands do you believe in the hippocratic oath?
With the transplant problem compare that to a similar triage problem. You have 6 life or death patients 1 of which has a condition that takes a lot of resources to cure and 5 that take a little. You can only save the hard case or the easy cases. From the point of view of basic utilitarianism the transplant problem and the triage problem seems almost identical. But it seems way easier to let the hard case die rather than disassemble a live person. That a intuition puts a dent in the general pattern of a rule doesn’t mean that the rule stops applying.
Also if you bite the bullet that its okay to repurpose healthy lives for transplants then you could think of the improvement that instead of taking all the 5 organs from one life you could take the organs from 5 different healthy lives which could give them an increased chance of being alive (or like even if you can’t live without a liver a life of dialysis might be preferrable to death). The step from agreeing that the rule should be followed in that case to advocating to kill people seems hasty and unneccesary.
For most part philosophy doesn’t have a deadline, we will ponder the things to our contention and even then a little bit more. So the contradictions should puzzle us but we don’t ever need to commit to an answer that we know is partially wrong.
I have also found that if I understand to apply a rule to a particular situation it can override the intuition how it initially seems and theorethising an intuition gives it more legitimacy. For example if people knew that doctors might actively harm patients then people would be reluctant to seek medical attention. This kind of rule would strongly differentiate between the transplant problem and the triage problem. Understanding that this kind of rule could be in conflict with “help as much as you can” takes more intricate and detailed applying rather than a vague general case. If you would let the hard case die in triage and would keep the healthy person alive in transplant does that mean you don’t follow or do not believe in utilitarianism? If you would kill to save millions but wouldn’t kill to save thousands do you believe in the hippocratic oath?