Thought Experiment: Fetus vs Elderly

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

This is a pretty gruesome situation, but that's part of my fascination with thought experiments. Most scientifically minded people will agree that a fetus fails to meet many criteria for life.

However, there are cases where a fetus is "very much" a subject of emotionally investment by parents and the community surrounding them. Similarly, there are cases where elderly individuals have lost their loved ones and, for the most part, are no longer contributing to society.

Now I don't support killing people for not contributing to society. However, the situation I'm proposing is where a "future child" is statistically likely. This fetus will die or an elderly person will die. The fetus is as described in the "emotional investment" scenario while the elderly is "socially isolated."

To make to implausible scenario occur, we'll say I went to medical school then went insane. Wanting to see how people would respond in this scenario, I held people hostage as above. Assuming negotiating with terrorists isn't problematic (though I'm not sure I'd be a terrorist, technically) what happens if a group of individuals is forced to make a choice between killing the child or the elderly. There is no forced abortion, let's say, and the child is killed with a special x-ray laser device. Things are getting crazier, but the example isn't really the point. And don't worry, if I go insane I'll take out capitalists not pregnant women and the elderly.

I'm basically curious how people would treat the status of the fetus in this scenario given that the "community" probably values it significantly more than the elderly person. That doesn't mean that's the right choice, however. Our emotional sentiments almost always favor "children," which is a big reason pro-life movements are popular, I suspect.

Thoughts?

[leftace53]

I used to be "against" old people in a sense when I was younger, but my thing mainly stemmed from how I was very accident prone, and spent a lot of time in the emergency room. I was always annoyed that they took old people before me, and developed a reasoning for my disapproval of this. I figured that children had their entire lives waiting for them, and old people had experienced their lives for the most part so I didn't understand why the hospital people were bent on saving old people first.
While I've grown from this stance, I can definitely see why society would favour children (I don't necessarily agree with it) because they are after all our future. Foetuses however are completely different. While they are in a sense the ultimate blank slate, they haven't experienced anything really, and barely meet the criteria of life.

In this thought experiment, I'd pick the old dudes to be saved over the fetus (assuming that hurting the fetus doesn't hurt the mother of course).

[Desperado]

The fetus remains ultimately an object, even if it is to help the community it hardly accounts for murdering a fully sentient, conscious being.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm not against old people. I'm not sure my thoughts on this matter. However, if it's a five ten year old vs an 80 year old, I think it's appropriate to choose the younger individual in most cases. It's not about viewing the person's happiness as worth "less" but considering how much of a life they have ahead of them.

In another way of putting it, a principle of sacrificing the elderly first is most advantageous to a society where people are unaware of their future. It's better to place importance on the possibility of being saved at a young age over the possibility of not being saved when old. Rawlsian, rather.

The fetus is just interesting with regards to what counts as moral significance. Are mothers who risk their lives to save a baby about to be born irrational? They might be, they might not be. I just find the moral scenarios that come up with regards to fetuses are quite interesting.

[Abyss Crown]

Are you saying "What would society do?" or "What would you do?"? If you are asking about the former, then... it's complicated. We have to take in various accounts in to considering: A) Physical relationship; B) Mental state of mind (i.e. is being held hostage and mentally can't react normally), this could indirectly influence account A; C) Personal ideological influence, account B could directly influence this.

Most likely, the average group of people would sacrifice the fetus over the living elderly person. Their state of mind, both induced by being held hostage and having the forced choice of sacrifice, would ultimately choose a physically living person (not to imply a fetus over an amount of time isn't alive, I am merely using those words as society would; a physical and living person they see with their own eyes).

To perhaps back-up my claim, let me say this: You are in a room with said elderly person, and talking on the phone with the person holding everyone hostage. You may not know the elderly person, but you, obviously, do not know the fetus. You see a living person in flesh and blood in front of you, and, with the fetus, you cannot (one reason being you're on the phone, the second... it's a fetus).