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:
“Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe....”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult.”
—Hippocrates (c. 460–370 B.C.)