PLN #4

Bella Demiranda

“Short Story”

PLN #4

I think that it is morally permissible to kill one person if his/her death would save the lives of others. “A ship has sunk and there are 10 people in a lifeboat. One other survivor is swimming towards the lifeboat and shouting to be let aboard. However, the lifeboat was only designed to hold 10 people. If you save that one person, the whole lifeboat will sink and nobody will survive. If you don’t save that one person, everyone in the boat lives, but the survivor who is left swimming will drown. What do you do?”
What I would do is let the person on the life raft, but I will have someone that is already on the life raft get off and hold on to the side of the raft. That way,  everyone will survive. The person who is in the water holding on to the side of the raft will switch of every 15 minutes so they don’t get hypothermia. This ‘method’ will save everyone because the raft will always be holding 10 people.
If that was not a possible way to save everyone then I would save the 10 people and have the one person die. I would feel terrible about it but I would feel even worse if all 10 people would be dead. So I do think that it is morally permissible to kill one person if their life will save the lives of others.