Driverless Automobiles and "The Value of a Life" Question


There is no way to escape the fact that abortion law is a zero sum game. Whenever the fetus is given more rights the mother will have fewer rights. The opposite is also true. When anti abortion zealots discuss abortion they say it is a "moral issue." But, they always, without exception, talk of fetus rights, not women's rights. When confronted with their error they resort to saying, "We're for both the rights of the fetus and the mother." Then they advocate laws exclusively that take away the mother's rights and award them to the fetus.

A most interesting question about the "value of life" came up a few years ago. I recall discussing it back then. It is being revisited with new experiments. 

It is introduced in this way: Suppose you are driving down a hill and the brakes on your car failed. There is a fork in the road and you have only two choices. One is to kill one person standing on the left fork in the road, the other is to kill five people standing on the right fork. Suppose further you have just an instant to size up who they are. The one person standing in the left fork is an old person, the five in the right fork are children. Of course, the choices could involve men and women or other other combinations.

This test was given to people in several parts of the world. Different cultures made tended to make different choices. People of different professions made yet other choices. In the U.S., professional people tended to save the larger number, sacrifice the smaller. In cultures that hold older people in high esteem it was to save the old.  It is similar to the abortion dilemma.

The question is not altogether hypothetical. Driverless cars can be programed to determine whether people it "sees" are old or young, male or female, white or nonwhite and you can figure out all the rest. The choice will be made beforehand by whomever is programing the equipment. As we all know driving is filled with unexpected events. A life and death choice may not require brake failures, just random events where a car cannot stop in time even with good brakes.

The old mantra, "I'm for life" is for simpletons. Such people refuse to consider saving the life of a fetus often puts another life at risk. The dilemma of the driverless automobiles should be a lesson in the realities elsewhere as well. 


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