Hypothetical: Being forced to risk your life

[Learis]

A hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical person "Lonny" and his child.

Let's say Lonny really enjoys a certain air freshener spray. But a tiny minority of people are allergic to it (0.01% chance or 1 in 10,000) and can get extremely sick. Lonny is not allergic, but doesn't know if his child is allergic to it or not. Lonny decides to take the small chance risk and use the air freshener. His child ends up being allergic, enters into a coma and deep sickness. The only way to save the child is to perform a surgery on Lonny to take out some of his fluids to cure his child. The surgery has a 50% chance of killing Lonny and a 50% chance of saving the child.

Do you think Lonny is morally obligated to go through the surgery? Would you go so far as to say he should be legally bound to go through the surgery? Why or why not?

 

[Praxas]

A hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical person "Lonny" and his child.

Let's say Lonny really enjoys a certain air freshener spray. But a tiny minority of people are allergic to it (0.01% chance or 1 in 10,000) and can get extremely sick. Lonny is not allergic, but doesn't know if his child is allergic to it or not. Lonny decides to take the small chance risk and use the air freshener. His child ends up being allergic, enters into a coma and deep sickness. The only way to save the child is to perform a surgery on Lonny to take out some of his fluids to cure his child. The surgery has a 50% chance of killing Lonny and a 50% chance of saving the child.

Do you think Lonny is morally obligated to go through the surgery? Would you go so far as to say he should be legally bound to go through the surgery? Why or why not?

Well given your scenario if they do nothing the kid dies. I wouldn't say they should be forced to do it, however, should they ignore the medical advice and the child dies then charges should be filed against the parents.

 

[shagg]

A hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical person "Lonny" and his child.

Let's say Lonny really enjoys a certain air freshener spray. But a tiny minority of people are allergic to it (0.01% chance or 1 in 10,000) and can get extremely sick. Lonny is not allergic, but doesn't know if his child is allergic to it or not. Lonny decides to take the small chance risk and use the air freshener. His child ends up being allergic, enters into a coma and deep sickness. The only way to save the child is to perform a surgery on Lonny to take out some of his fluids to cure his child. The surgery has a 50% chance of killing Lonny and a 50% chance of saving the child.

Do you think Lonny is morally obligated to go through the surgery? Would you go so far as to say he should be legally bound to go through the surgery? Why or why not?

The way you have to it worded, without the surgery, the child is either forever comatose or will die in a coma eventually(?). So, surgery = 50% chancy at full recovery. No surgery = 100% chance of staying in coma or death. Because of that, the cause is less important. To be honest, the child's condition and possible outcomes outweigh any moral or legal imperative due to the parents actions.

Morally, the obvious choice is the surgery, no matter the cause or who's at fault. Culpability and punishment, moral or legal obligations....... all mean nothing in the face of choosing what is best for the child.

Legally, again the air freshener scenario doesn't matter. It is the choice of the parent, and no one will support laws taking away that choice. You would have to argue that parents who engage in this sort of low-risk casual negligence lose some of their rights as parents should any harm come to the child as a result. Such events are so widespread it would be impossible to enforce. Also, you risk skin cancer letting your child play outside. You risk getting hit by another motorist whenever you get in your car. At what point are the precautions (when taken on a grand scale) more destructive to society than the actual accidents? Imagine only walking, never using cars or bikes or public trans, and even then, cars hit pedestrians, people trip and fall, meteors fall out of the sky occasionally, etc. You could spend your whole life doing nothing but avoiding any and all risk, and still you'd fail to avoid it completely and die eventually. The cost of such precautions outweighs the benefits.

 

[fredmertzz]

A hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical person "Lonny" and his child.

Let's say Lonny really enjoys a certain air freshener spray. But a tiny minority of people are allergic to it (0.01% chance or 1 in 10,000) and can get extremely sick. Lonny is not allergic, but doesn't know if his child is allergic to it or not. Lonny decides to take the small chance risk and use the air freshener. His child ends up being allergic, enters into a coma and deep sickness. The only way to save the child is to perform a surgery on Lonny to take out some of his fluids to cure his child. The surgery has a 50% chance of killing Lonny and a 50% chance of saving the child.

Do you think Lonny is morally obligated to go through the surgery? Would you go so far as to say he should be legally bound to go through the surgery? Why or why not?

The (presumed) results of NOT doing surgery: Lonny lives: 100%. Child dies: 100% 1 life. 1 death. Or of two lives, a 0.50 life/death ratio.
The results of DOING surgery: Lonny lives, son dies: 25%. Lonny lives, son lives: 25% . Lonny dies, son lives: 25%. Lonny dies, Son Dies: 25%. Add the multiple of lives living in each scenario by the odds of each scenario occurring: 0.50 life/death ratio.

Mathematically, the life/death ratio is even.

On to qualitative factors:
1) Does one life have more of a right to live than the other?
2) Is there a moral obligation of the father, who initiated the cause of the coma, to attempt saving the child?
3) Was the father unreasonable to use the air freshener and risk the life of his child?

These lead into a multitude of other questions that would stem from asking these and relationships between the questions. My long short answer is this:

The father was not unreasonable to take that risk (IMO) given the odds. The son's life is not more valuable than the father's (without further information). If his life is at a substantial risk, 50% being substantial, that absolves him of having a moral obligation of surgery.

That being said: I would do the surgery to save any one of my children in a heartbeat, whether or not it was from a risk I knowingly took. But never would I legally force that decision on another. Despite my personal beliefs, objectively I wouldn't blame the father for not doing the surgery, even if I couldn't understand how he could come to that decision.

 

[Evilroddy]

Moral obligation is a personal imperative and varies from person to person. A society-wide ethos may influence private morality but it does not determine morality. The ethics of this scenario are not central to the scenario. The choice is personal and not societal. Where ethics does come into it is when Lonny demands that others aid him in his choice. For example no ethical doctor is going to perform life-threatening surgery or other medical procedures on Lonny when the patient's life is not at risk. Even if Lonny earnestly wants to save his child and is willing to bet his life and that of his child on a coin toss medical procedure. Parents have the right to want to make noble choices/sacrifices to save their children but that right does not extend to forcing medical personnel to cooperate with a parent's borderline suicidal attempts to save a doomed child. A 25% chance of success is not good enough odds.

The state has a long-established prerogative to demand that citizens risk their lives on behalf of others. Conscription in times of war, requiring witness testimony in open court despite a chance for mortal reprisal, policing, firefighting, quarantines and "duty to aid" laws all involve imposing state mandated mortal risk on citizens. So the state could compel Lonny to undergo the medical procedure but why would it? There is no societal interest in trading one life for the other in this scenario. The state should recuse itself from compelling any outcome here.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

 

[Skeptic Bob]

Yes, Lonny has a moral obligation to go through with the surgery. Hell, even if it were certain Lonny would die he has a moral obligation to do it. It goes with the parent/child relationship. Even if Lonny was faultless the obligation still stands.

But no, he does not, and should not, have a legal obligation to go through with the surgery.

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

A hypothetical situation involving a hypothetical person "Lonny" and his child.

Let's say Lonny really enjoys a certain air freshener spray. But a tiny minority of people are allergic to it (0.01% chance or 1 in 10,000) and can get extremely sick. Lonny is not allergic, but doesn't know if his child is allergic to it or not. Lonny decides to take the small chance risk and use the air freshener. His child ends up being allergic, enters into a coma and deep sickness. The only way to save the child is to perform a surgery on Lonny to take out some of his fluids to cure his child. The surgery has a 50% chance of killing Lonny and a 50% chance of saving the child.

Do you think Lonny is morally obligated to go through the surgery? Would you go so far as to say he should be legally bound to go through the surgery? Why or why not?

Just about everything on earth carries a small risk of allergy. Even sunlight can cause allergies. The air freshener is no more risky than a peanut, possibly less so, and I think it's quite a stretch to say Lonny is as fault for exposing him to an unknown allergen. This could have happened just as easily if he's fed him a PB&J, or if the child himself had bumped into a plant he turned out to be allergic to. It was logical to assume his child wouldn't be allergic, because statistically he probably wouldn't be, and it's impossible to test for every allergy in existence.

Do I think he should be forced? No. As others have mentioned, his life is not worth less than his son's, and I don't think we can say he is truly responsible (apart from the fact that I think it is generally wrong to force others to do things with their bodies).

We also have to consider that most of the outcomes for the child aren't necessarily positive. If I'm reading this correctly, there's a 25% chance both live, a 25% chance both die, and then a 50% chance one or the other dies.

Obviously the child dying is a negative outcome for the child. But so if the father dying. If the father dies, his kid has to live with that. It's pretty darn likely that'll be something to puts him in therapy for a good many years, plus all the other downsides that go with reduced parental figures. This profoundly changes his future outlook, creating substantial risks of both child poverty and persistent mental illness. He may recover from this, or he may not. There's no way of knowing. Some children don't.

So, in essence, 75% of the outcomes for the child are various degrees of bad.

I think the decision remains with the father in a legal sense, and there is no outrightly correct choice which bares any chance of a mostly positive outcome in an ethical sense.