>> And you thought philosophy was easy:
>> 
>>               STS 110 Ethics and Public Policy Exam II
>>                          March 16, 1993-94
>>                           Prof. R. McGinn
>> 
>>                      ESSAY QUESTION (30 points)
>> 
>> INSTRUCTIONS:  making abundant use of course materials, compose a closely 
>> reasoned essay answering the following question bearing on one of the course's
>> central themes (ethics and technology).  Limit:  6 Blue Book sides.
>> 
>> Consider the following case:
>> 
>> On Twin Earth, a brain in a vat is at the wheel of a runaway trolley.  There 
>> are only two options that the brain can take:  the right side of the fork in 
>> the track or the left side of the fork.  There is no way in sight of derailing
>> or stopping the trolley and the brain is aware of this, for the brain -- 
>> unlike Bo -- knows trolleys.  The brain is causally hooked up to the trolley 
>> such that the brain can determine the course which the trolley will take.  On
>> the right side of the track there is a single railroad worker, Jones, who 
>> will definitely be killed if the brain steers the trolley to the right.  If 
>> the railman on the right lives, he will go on to kill five men for the sake 
>> of killing them, but in doing so will inadvertently save the lives of thirty 
>> orphans (one of the five men he will kill is planning to destroy a bridge 
>> that the orphan's bus will be crossing later that night).  One of the orphans
>> that will be killed would grow up to become a tyrant who would make good, 
>> utilitarian men do bad things, another would grow up to become John Sununu, 
>> while a third would invent the pop-top can.
>> 
>> If the brain in the vat chooses the left side of the track, the trolley will 
>> definitely hit and kill a railman on the left side of the track, "Leftie," 
>> and will hit and destroy ten beating hearts on the track that could (and 
>> would) have been transplanted into ten patients in the local hospital that 
>> will die without donor hearts.  These are the only hearts available, and the 
>> brain is aware of this, for the brain knows hearts.  If the railman on the 
>> left side of the track lives, he too will kill five men, in fact the same 
>> five that the railman on the right would kill.  However, "Leftie" will kill 
>> the five as an unintended consequence of saving ten men:  he will 
>> inadvertently kill the five men rushing the ten hearts to the local hospital 
>> for transplantation.  A further result of "Leftie's" act would be that the 
>> busload of orphans will be spared.  Among the five men killed by "Leftie" are
>> both the man responsible for putting the brain at the controls of the trolley,
>> and the author of this example.  If the ten hearts and "Leftie" are killed by 
>> the trolley, the ten prospective heart-transplant patients will die and
>> their kidneys will be used to save the lives of twenty kidney-transplant
>> patients, one of whom will grow up to cure cancer and one of whom will grow 
>> up to be Hitler.  There are other kidneys and dialysis machines available, 
>> however the brain does not know kidneys, and this is not a factor.
>> 
>> Assume that the brain's choice, whatever it turns out to be, will serve as an 
>> example to other brains-in-vats and so the effects of its decision will be 
>> amplified.  Also assume that if the brain chooses the right side of the fork,
>> an unjust war free of war crimes will ensue, while if the brain chooses the 
>> left fork, a just war fraught with war crimes will result.  Furthermore, 
>> there is an intermittently active Cartesian demon deceiving the brain such 
>> that the brain is never sure if it is being deceived.
>> 
>> QUESTION:  Ethically speaking, what should the brain do?  Justify your
>>answer.