Do you like bending your mind this way and that?
I’ve recently bought a book, a collection of one hundred philosophical puzzles that stimulate thought on a host of moral, social, and personal dilemmas. Author Julian Baggini presents abstract philosophical issues in concrete terms. He also suggests possible solutions (but not claiming which are more correct than others) and encourage readers to draw their own conclusions.
I think you might want to take a look at it. The title of the book is The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher.
Have a taste of what’s inside the book and we’ll see how you’ll react to this one:
Life dependency
Dick had made a mistake, but surely the price he was paying was too high. He, of course, knew that level six of the hospital was a restricted area. But after he had drunk one too many glasses of wine with his colleagues at the finance department Christmas party, he had inadvertently staggered out of the elevator on the sixth floor and passed out on one of the empty beds.
When he woke up, he discovered to his horror that he had been mistaken for a volunteer in a new life-saving procedure. Patients who required vital organ transplants to survive were being hooked up to volunteers, whose own vital organs kept both alive. This would continue until a donor organ could be found, which was usually around nine months later.
Dick quickly called over a nurse to explain the mistake, who in turn brought over a worried-looking doctor.
“I understand your anger,” explained the doctor, “but you did behave irresponsibly, and now you are in this position, the brutal truth is that if we disconnect you, the world-renowned violinist who depends on you will die. You would in fact be murdering him.”
“But you have no right!” protested Dick. “Even if he dies without me, how can you force me to give up nine months of my life to save him?”
“I think the question you should be asking,” said the doctor sternly, “is how you could choose to end this violinist’s life.”
Source: The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher by Julian Baggini
I think this is a better way of spending the day than watching all those telenovelas, which I don’t watch. Haha.
So, what do you think of the above-mentioned problem?
