For 3 Quarks Daily
We are fortunate to live in an equitable society, with high levels of trust and excellent administrative transparency. Many old diseases have been eradicated, and most people live healthily to old age. However, our utopia has been suffering for a long time from a peculiar and cruel illness, about which after a century of research the following is now known with moral certainty.
Everyone has a one in five chance of falling victim to this disease. No genetic or lifestyle factors predict it in any way, and it is undetectable until you are exactly thirty years of age. At that point, there are two days during which it is symptomless but detectable with advanced medical equipment, after which it is irreversibly fatal and kills rapidly. There is no cure except one: during these crucial two days, tissue from the vital organs of one healthy peer can save with certainty the lives of five diseased people. However, the required procedure inevitably kills the donor.
Continue reading “Why we ought to kill the healthy patient”