E24. "Choose" - What if death is the only option?

Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Discussions

Named “Top 15 Podcast” for 2020!

STORY SUMMARY: A woman wakes up strapped to a lab table. An emotionless doctor asks her to choose what she would do for the trolley problem. She is then graphically shown the results of her choice. A new choice, do you push people out of an over-capacity life raft? She is again graphically show the result of her choice. This goes on for 1000’s of scenarios until the woman is totally exhausted from watching death. Only then does she realize she is being punished, 900 years after a choice she made, to kill children in order to find the cure to a disease.

DISCUSSION: Loads of utilitarian questions in this story, just one after another. Scenario makes them fit in the story very organically. Would a person really get rattled from watching all that death, or get desensitized? In Greek plays, it was called catharsis. It hard to know, is the woman being punished for her past acts, or re-educated, or being used as a deterrent to others? Can a person be punished after they have died? Should they be punished longer than their lifetime, or a single death?

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