feotakahari

I originally got this from Judith Thomson’s “famous violinist” argument, which is meant to prove that abortion is okay. She proposes that “you” wake up one day with a famous violinist plugged into your vital organs, and unless you leave him plugged in for nine months, he will die. From there, she argues that you wouldn’t want to have a famous violinist plugged into your vital organs for nine months, so therefore abortion is okay.

What she never considers is that “you” could wake up one day to discover that you’re a famous violinist who’s plugged into someone’s vital organs and will die unless you stay plugged in for nine months. In the magic of Thought Experiments, where anything can happen, it’s all equally valid! And if you don’t want to be unplugged early and die, then you can argue from there that abortion is wrong.

The real issue here is that “what benefits me personally” is not the sole valid definition of morality. But it’s also useful to remember that “me personally” doesn’t have to be a single fixed entity, and it doesn’t have to be whoever the person making the argument decides it ought to be. It turns out the Veil of Ignorance is actually a useful idea, folks! You can argue from the violinist’s perspective, and the perspective of the person plugged into the violinist, and the lawmaker deciding whether it should be legally required to save the violinist, and the surgeon who would have to “unplug” the violinist, and everyone else who’s relevant!

(See also: a good 50% of the arguments defending the movie Passengers, and maybe 20% defending the video game The Last of Us. “If you were in the protagonist’s position, you would do exactly what he did!” But what if I was in some other position?)