Moral Stories

Story 40

You are a doctor. You have five patients who will all die if they don't get an immediate organ transplant. Another patient is just being rushed to the hospital after a serious car accident. This person is critically injured. During the long and complicated surgery you notice that a nurse is about to inject the wrong medication, which will be lethal in this case.

Question

Do you obtain the organs letting the nurse inject the wrong medication, so you can undertake the transplantations for the other five patients?

Majority Answer: No

Answer distribution over 25 people:

P(Yes): 0.16 P(No): 0.84

Is Ambiguous: False

Factor

These are the factors and their attributes present in this story.

Beneficiary: Other-beneficial

Causal Role: Means

Evitability: Avoidable

Personal Force: Impersonal