The "famous Violinist" Thought Experiment
The "famous violinist" thought experiment asks a person to consider the ethics of a scenario where they wake to find themselves in a hospital serving as life support to a famous violinist. The person is asked to consider that they were not consulted prior to this arrangement, but that if they detach from the violinist he will die. Thomson wrote, "If you stay in the hospital bed, connected to the violinist, he will be totally cured in nine months. You are unlikely to suffer harm. No one else can save him. Do you have an obligation to stay connected?"
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Famous quotes containing the words famous, thought and/or experiment:
“What climbs the stair?
Nothing that common women ponder on
If you are worth my hope! Neither Content
Nor satisfied Conscience, but that great family
Some ancient famous authors misrepresent,
The Proud Furies each with her torch on high.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“I look on it as no trifling effort of female strength to withstand the artful and ardent solicitations of a man that is thoroughly master of our hearts. Should we in the conflict come off victorious, it hardly pays us for the pain we suffer from the experiment ... and I still persist in it that such a behaviour in any man I love would rob me of that most pleasing thought, namely, the obligation I have to him for not making such a trial.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)