A utilitarian can be involved with providing the greatest happiness for the greatest amount of people, so in this first case a utilitarian would trust Thomson and would say that it is mandatory to take the lever and save the more people. An opposing view would say that tugging the lever constitutes as a moral incorrect, and would make the bystander partly in charge of the death. One has a moral obligation to get involved in these cases just by being within the situation and being able to change the results. Deciding to do nothing at all would be considered an immoral act if one values five lives more than one. In the first circumstance, the bystander will not intend to damage anyone; the damage will be achieved regardless of which way the trolley goes. In the second case, forcing and harming the top man is the only way to save the five people on the trolley.
in comparison, Thomson argues that a key distinction between your first trolley problem and the second case is the fact in the first circumstance, you simply redirect the injury, but in the second case, you truly want to do something to the large man to save lots of the five individuals. Thomson states that in the first case, no staff member has more of a right than the other not to be killed, but in the second circumstance, the large man does have a right never to be pushed in the bridge, violating his right to life.
To position the first trolley circumstance in another perspective I am going to present a similar case. Something has gone terribly wrong with an airplane and is also inevitably going to crash and is heading straight to a heavily filled area. The airplane pilot recognizes that regardless innocent people will expire so he converts the airplane towards a less populated area, eliminating less innocent people. Was the pilots action to steer the plane in another way morally permissible? Thomson would say that the pilot's actions were right, because the higher populated are gets the same right to live as the less populated area, and you also are merely deflecting the injury to get rid of less people which is morally permissible because no rights have been violated.
Thomson presents an alternative case to the next trolley problem to raised illustrate her discussion. In this case, a surgeon has 5 patients that are looking for organ transplants, and they'll die minus the organ, but given that they all have a exceptional blood type there are no organs available. A traveler comes into any office for a check up, and the doctor discovers that traveler has the necessary organs which could save these five dying patients. The doctor asks the traveller if he would contribute and but he sincerely declines. Would it be morally permissible for the physician to destroy the bystander and operate in any case? Thomson would claim that it's not permissible to operate on the traveler, because the physician would be violating his to life. This differs from the first trolley case because in the first case you are simply just deflecting the injury as opposed to the next trolley circumstance, and the transplant circumstance, you have to act and do something to an innocent person in order to save the five people. Inside the first case nothing of the staff have significantly more of a right than the other not to be killed, but in the second circumstance the top man has a right not to be killed. Within the transplant circumstance, a utilitarian can be involved with the best happiness for the best number of people, so just like in the first circumstance in which a utilitarian would tell draw the lever to wipe out one and save five, he would do the same in the transplant circumstance to destroy one and save five. Thomson disagrees and says that in the first circumstance killing an example may be a side-effect of eradicating five, in the transplant case you are violating a person's right where in fact the act could have been avoided to begin with. Thomson state governments that getting rid of is worse a fatality caused by enabling someone pass away.
In the first trolley circumstance it would seem to be rational to concur that the person is morally obligated to take the lever and save the five people. In the second case, the individual shouldn't be forced to push the large man onto the record because in cases like this he is getting rid of the man just to save the others while in the first case it is undoubtedly one or the other. It could also seem rational that the physician should not get rid of the person for the transplant because it is similar to the second case. Although in every case you are sacrificing someone to save five, there are situations where it isn't morally permissible to wipe out the main one person, like the second case and the transplant circumstance. In these circumstance the persons to life is violated, and for that reason would make it morally permissible to wipe out them.
In order for Thomson to justify her views she must identify the distinctions in both cases that is strong enough to make a valid argument. In short, Thomson recognizes that in both conditions there can be an innocent bystander who is not responsible in any of the events, but gets the opportunity to try order to save lots of five people rather than the main one. She assumes that there surely is no marriage or tension whatsoever between the bystander and the workers so he has a definite mind on what his decision should be. Thomson says that we need to focus on the protection under the law of people as a "methods to a finish" relationship between the bystander and the personnel. She argues that in both circumstances the bystander will wrong to the individual whose life he chooses to sacrifice, but in the second case where in fact the bystander pushes the top man, there is a immediate violation of his privileges. By undertaking the work of pressing, the bystander is immediately violating on the top mans right not to be wiped out. This differs from the first case where the bystander pulls a lever to wipe out one and save five, since it does not violate the single workers rights; diverting a coach does not violate anyone's protection under the law, but pushing an innocent man will. Thomson feels that this explains why the bystander is allowed to intervene by pulling the lever because the bystander can improve the power without violating anyone's protection under the law, whereas in the second case, to be able to maximize tool the bystander would have to violate someone's protection under the law. The problem comes up that in the first case, even though bystander is in a roundabout way violating the solo workers right, he's indirectly violating his right never to be wiped out. Thomson replies to the concern by stating that although this is true but it being direct or indirect is not relevant whenever a person's right not to be killed can be involved.
