What if

What if

 In the passage “What If” by Daniel Sokol he gives a few different scenarios based on the question “Is there a difference between killing someone and them die?”. Daniel Sokol starts off with Thomson’s Violinist which describes a scenario that asks you if you would lay in a hospital bed for nine months just to save a stranger attached to you. And then it includes a real life example of a woman that is pregnant with a child. Is the woman entitled to go along with the full term? Even if she hadn’t taken the right steps that led up to the pregnancy? The readers voted on this and 69.35% voted that you are not obligated to stay attached to the violinist. While the other 30.62% said that you are obligated. Next, Sokol presents another scenario called “The Runaway Trolley Car”. It asks you if you would flip a switch to send a trolley car to kill one person instead of five. And as the results show, 76.85% voted that you should flip the switch. As of the other 23.15% voted on No you shouldn’t flip the switch. A similar scenario is then told next titled The Fat Man and the Trolley Car. It asks you if you push a fat man in front on the trolley car to save five people. The results showed that 26.88% voted that they would push the fat man but the other 73.12% said they would not push the man. Lastly, he gives a very interesting scenario, titled “The Cave Explorers”. You are stuck in a cave and there is only one way out and its through a small hole. Everyone decides to let Big Jack go first and suddenly he gets stuck, and also there is water coming in the cave. Everyone but Big Jack will die inevitably drown if actions are not taken soon. You are giving a choice which is to either stay in a drown or you can blast Big Jack with dynamite which you found in your backpack. The results are then revealed and 74.12% voted yes they would blast Big Jack out of the hole and the other 25.88% say they would stay in and just drown with the other companions. These situations Daniel Sokol...

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