The following questions are taken from the 'Times' magazine. I
was wondering how I can use Buddhism to answer these
questions:
You are adrift in a life raft after your cruise ship has sunk.
There are too many survivors for the lifte rafts, and yours is
dangerously overloaded. The raft is certain to sink, and even with
the life vests on, all the passengers are sure to die because of
the frigid temperature of the water. One person on the boat is
awake and alert but gravely ill and will not survive the journey no
matter what. Throwing that person overboard would prevent the raft
from sinking. Could you be the one who tosses the person out?
A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workmen
who can't be warned in time. You are standing near a switch that
would divert the trolley onto a siding, but there is a single
unsuspecting workman there. Would you throw the switch, killing one
to save five? Suppose the workman was on a bridge with you and you
could save the men only by pushing him onto the tracks? (He's large
enough to stop the train; you're not.) Suppose you could throw a
switch dropping him through a trapdoor-thus not physically pushing
him?
It's wartime, and you're hiding in a basement with your baby and
a group of other people. Enemy soldiers are outside and will be
drawn to any sound. If you're found, you will all be killed
immediately. Your baby starts to cry loudly and cannot be stopped.
Smothering him to death is the only way to silence him and save the
lives of everyone in the room. Could you do so? Assume the baby is
not yours, the parents are unknown and there will be no penalty for
killing him. Could you be the one who smothers this baby if no one
else would?
Again, these questions are hypothetical and it's unlikely that
we'll run into such situation. But these questions serves to
question what we define as 'morality', 'right action' or even
'right motivation'.
