Over the past year, I have learned a lot about ethics. It seems a subject that is not very widely taught, at least to teenagers. There are two approaches to it that I would like to outline.
The first is known as utilitarianism. The proponents of it believe that the worth of an act results from the consequence of the act. Thus, if a train will kill five people who are tied to its track, but can be shifted to another track with only one person tied up, it is morally right to shift the train. You have a better consequence (5 lives saved and 1 death) versus the alternative (1 life saved and 5 deaths). The act does not matter, but the result does. Another example would be stealing food to save a starving person. The end justifies the means.
The other approach to ethics is called deontology. It judges the act based on how it follows rules, so they believe that that some actions are wrong regardless of the outcome. Most religions follow deontology, with various codes of behavior like the 10 Commandments. If God commanded an action, then it should be preformed because it is a duty.
Most people believe it would be wrong to kill a person to harvest his organs in order to save the lives of five others, but how is that different from the trolley scenario? Deontologists believe that the difference is respecting the rights of individuals.
