Utilitarian Principle; Survival Lottery Accepted or Not?

Before we proceed straight to the point to our topic let us have a brief
introduction of what is the main topic of this paper. The Jhon Harris’ proposed Survival
Lottery; The Survival Lottery is a thought experiment, proposed by the philosopher John
Harris. The basis of the idea is to ask people to imagine if organ donation were
expected to save more individuals than it would kill. Hypothetically all individuals are
assigned a number and drawn out of lottery when a donation is needed, and are expected
to give up their lives to allow two or more people to live.
Let us also a short definition of the Utilitarian Principle; The utilitarian principle
says your action is ethical only if you can rationally believe that it maximizes the total
expected utility of everyone it affects.
Jeremy Bentham introduced utilitarianism as “the greatest happiness of the greatest
number [,] that is the measure of right and wrong.” This theory demonstrates a
straightforward process to defining what is morally acceptable and which actions should
be taken. However, by doing this, utilitarianism does not consider individual scenarios or
the emotions that people experience, the theory limits itself to a broad scope of
situations.
The utilitarian argument in connection with the survival lottery relies primarily
upon the assumption that all lives are of equal value. This is a widely used assumption
in ethics, and it is one I can stand by for the sake of this paper. If you can save two
lives by sacrificing one, it seems intuitive that this is for the greater good; the classic
trolley thought problem often highlights this intuition. But while I can stand by this first
assumption, there is a second by which I can’t: the assumption that each life has an
equal impact on those around it. This assumption follows from the impartiality clause
that requires utilitarian’s to treat all individuals equally and thus ignore or disbelieve of
the special impact each life has on the world around it.
The survival lottery, alike utilitarianism fails to see individuals as inherently
valuable, instead seeing individuals for their instrumental value. Both concepts see
individuals as a means to an end goal of overall happiness, therefore missing a
fundamental principle of morality, which underlies all of our moral rights.
If my Father or any member of my family would be unlucky enough to be
picked and to be killed for the sake of saving lives by donating his/her organs to our
fellow humans who badly needed it then me as a part of a that family would totally
disagree. I would not want to see my family member lying lifeless and knowing that
his/her death was not caused naturally. Maybe I would be happy of the idea that we help
another family but this proposal is really pointless. I believe that we could then make the
argument that even though two lives were saved at the expense of one and those lives
had equal value, they did not have equal impacts on the lives around them. We must
consider how the untimely death of each individual would affect the rest of the world
beyond the scope of a life’s intrinsic value.
Even if killing and letting die are the same thing, the value of the lives at
question will not always be the same. While Harris’ argument is compelling and there is
much more to be said on the topic, I believe there is enough evidence to suggest that
utilitarian’s might not actually be required to support all instances of the survival theory.
Unless it can be proved that all lives and deaths have an equal impact on the world
around them, the argument cannot fully hold.
One can assert fairly confidently that average, everyday citizens would not be best
pleased if they were selected for their organs to be used to save thw lives of people
they deemed less valuable than themselves. We do not like to admit it, but this is a
form of judgement that we all make, and one of the many reasons why the survival
lottery would not work seamlessly in our society.
It can also be argued that the lottery endeavors to end the lives of the healthy to
prolong the lives of sick. Since the elderly would experience a lot of different illnesses
and diseases, it is likely that a far higher number of old people will require organ
transplants than the young. If people of all ages are killed to save those who primarily
of an older generation, the survival lottery would undoubtedly lead to a society
dominated by the old.
As the lottery is intended to be a utilitarian thought- experiment, this elderly-
dominated society is objectionable, as the old are more likely to die sooner of natural
ills, and so should we not strive to keep the young alive?
The lottery relies on two or more lives saved would be a of a significantly
improves quality, so as to show that the death of a healthy person for their continued
existence was worthwhile, but this is not always going to be true. In fact, in most cases
it will not be true even if organ transplant procedures themselves were perfected, as
Harris supposes, there is still no guarantee that a new organ will be an instant and
effective cure for person’s illness.
Harris himself could argue, as he does in his paper on equal healthcare
opportunities, that ‘each individual is entitled to an equal opportunity to benefit from any
public healthcare system, and that this entitlement is proportionate neither to the size of
their chance of benefitting, not the quality of benefit, nor the length of the lifetime
remaining in which that benefit may be enjoyed’; (Harris, 2022)
This is to say that it does not matter whether somebody will die soon after their
transplant, or if it will not drastically improve their quality of life, but for example, if
somebody is bedridden and completely dependent on somebody else to function, and will
continue to be this way after receiving a new heart from the lottery until the day that
they die.
With a ‘public healthcare system’ as the survival lottery, fairness must be taken into
account when applying these equal opportunities. In my opinion, choosing not to kill a
healthy third- party in order to save the lives of ick patients is not a decision to prefer
the lives of the fortunate to those of the unfortunate but is a rather a decision to respect
the negative rights of the fortunate. Healthy, innocent people need not be part of the
equation when striving to save the sick, and if they are not dragged into the situation in
the first place then it is not possible to make a decision regarding preference. Labelling
the healthy and the sick as the fortunate and the unfortunate brings about regressive
feeling of hostility towards the healthy, when they do not deserve to be brought into the
question at all. In a hospital ward, there are sick people and sick people only.
As long as the end goal of overall happiness is achieved any means are justified
by obtaining the end. Harris uses the individual as a means to a collective end of
happiness. Although the positive outcome of the survival lottery - that more people can
live happy lives - is conceived as an end that everyone would benefit from, Harris firstly
cannot assume that the end is one which is beneficial to all, secondly, Harris still uses
individuals as a means to obtain the collective end. The survival lottery, alike
utilitarianism fails to see individuals as inherently valuable, instead seeing individuals for
their instrumental value.
Killing and letting die have the same consequences, so if the rightness of an act
is determined purely by its consequences then from the Utilitarian perspective, killing
and letting die should be morally equivalent, since the consequence of both acts are the
same, therefore adhering to the equivalence thesis. The survival lottery is a “direct
challenge to the belief that there is a moral difference between killing and letting die” ,
in principle, it follows the basic idea that the two acts are morally equivalent.
 While all individuals involved in the survival lottery have a right to life, the
individual who is sacrificed has his or her right to life infringed upon. If the lottery
system was not put in place, this individual would go on to live a long and healthy life.
The survival lottery dictates that this life is to be cut short, however, in order to
preserve the lives of two unhealthy individuals. Many years of healthful life and
experiences are suddenly being stolen from this individual in order to prolong the lives
of two individuals who were months or years away from their own death. Some would
argue that this re- appropriation of life is therefore impermissible.
Harris anticipated this objection, however, and argues that the two unhealthy
individuals have the right to life as an organ “donor” and denying them these organs
equates to murder. Based on the utilitarian view, murdering the one healthy individual is
the better option than murdering the two unhealthy individuals. Harris goes on to state
that fi someone were to refuse these sick patients the organs they need, they would be
discriminating these unlucky patients and treating them as if they were a lower class,
less worthy of respect and consideration. While his point does not have merit, this is
where I believe his response fail.
At the conclusion, Harris’ proposal which is the survival lottery is denied and not
accepted by the utilitarian principle. I also thinks that this kind of idea is totally absurd
and pointless. Let the people die naturally and let the sick people find their own donor.
For we are just humans we just cannot decide of the lifespan of our fellow human.
Imagine that your life depends on the computer that randomly draws names.