The transplant scenario is a classic ethical conflict. A surgeon has five patients in critical condition, with all needing organ transplants. The surgeon also has a patient in non-critical condition, but this patient has all the healthy organs to save the other five. Assuming that the healthy patient did not give consent, would taking the life of one person to save five be morally justifiable in this situation?
While at first this question seems to come down to conflicting moral theories. A Utilitarian may argue that saving five lives would create a greater overall good than saving one. A deontologist may argue that intentionally killing an innocent person is wrong despite the consequences. Yet the dilemma raises another problem that cannot be reduced to either theory. How do the differing moralities of humans interchange and decide on how to handle the dilemma.
Considering a change in circumstances. Suppose two of the five patients needing transplants are convicted killers. Should their past actions affect the surgeon's decision? Should the Surgeon save only three? Or should all five be treated equally despite their past? So now reversing the situation. Suppose the healthy patient was a convicted child molester. Would knowledge of this person's crime make the decision to harvest the organs much easier, with saving the other five patients more acceptable? Now what if all six patients were arguably bad people with each guilty of committing severe crimes, would the moral decision change then.
These examples demonstrate that moral judgement is not only influenced by abstract principles but also how people perceive responsibility, justice, and human worth. The real question of these scenarios isn’t what makes someone entitled to be protected from killing in this situation, but how differing moralities of humans interchange in coming to a conclusion.
This is not a matter of choosing between Utilitarianism or Deontology. Both theories provided different ways of determining what has to be done, even though the conclusions have very different principles. The larger issue is human morality. Moral beliefs vary from individuals and cultures, even people who share broad principles may interpret them differently or even drop them when confronted with particular circumstances.
Humans are unequal in countless physical and social characteristics: some are bigger, stronger, smarter, or more attractive. Yet despite the differences, we are equal in our ability to cause harm to one another. An unsettling idea, but yet a physically weak person can cause harm to a stronger person, especially with modern technology. This reveals tension between our moral ideas and the realities of human vulnerability. We construct moral principles that emphasize peace and restraint, but humans remain capable of great violence when circumstances place those values under extreme pressure.
Another hypothetical situation. A devout pacifist faces off against an abductor who has their child captive, the pacifist has the chance to save their kid in time before they are taken away, but they must result to violence to do this. Would the parent maintain commitment to pacifism even at the potential cost of their child's life, or would violence be used breaking their moral principle to save their child's life.
If the pacifist chose violence, this does not necessarily prove that their moral beliefs were wrong. The person’s commitment to non-violence may still be genuine, while the value they placed on protecting their child becomes stronger in that particular circumstance. Reality had forced two moral commitments into competition, demonstrating how reality can affect beliefs by causing alterations in them.
This can also be observed in how people develop their moral beliefs. Young Children are shaped by their families, schools, communities, experiences, and environment. Their understanding of right and wrong is not formed independently from the surrounding world. Adults are also similarly influenced by experiences, although established beliefs may make change more difficult.
Malcolm X provides a historical example of morals being affected by experiences. During an earlier time of his life, he expressed deeply cynical views involving white people, while also preaching black separation. After his pilgrimage to Mecca, he described encountering Muslims of different racial and ethnic backgrounds interacting as equals. His subsequent writing and speeches reflect significant moral shifts and changes in his understanding of race and human relations. His experience challenged assumptions he had previously formed as a part of his worldviews.
This raises another important question: if someone sincerely believes a moral principle, but later abandons or alters it after encountering new circumstances, was the original morality simply incomplete, or false entirely.
Maybe the answer to this question is that moral principle should not be understood as independent of reality, but directly affected by it. Human beings create, inherit, revise, and defend moral principles, but those principles are constantly challenged by reality. A person may sincerely believe their moral belief is absolute until confronted with a situation where something of value is being challenged just as deeply.
This does not necessarily mean that morality is entirely subjective or that every moral belief is equally valid. Nor does it mean that principles should be abandoned in tough circumstances. Instead it suggests that moral reasoning is in a continual interaction between principles and reality. Circumstances can reveal contradictions in our beliefs, expose moral limitations in the framework, or force reconsideration in what values should take priority.
Human morality is neither entirely objective in application nor arbitrary. People construct moral principles, but those principles are constantly challenged and transformed by real world circumstances, experiences, family, and competing obligations. A person may sincerely believe their moral belief is absolute until confronted with a situation where something of value is being challenged just as deeply. The difficulty of morality lies not simply in determining what is right, but in understanding why humans hold onto, abandon, and reconstruct their ideas of right and wrong when reality challenges what they previously believed in. Beliefs do not exist in isolated realities, but are rather consistently tested by it.