Survival Lottery

The Survival Lottery is one of the most powerful and disturbing thought experiments in contemporary ethics. It was introduced by the British philosopher John Harris in his 1975 paper "The Survival Lottery" published in the journal Philosophy. The basic scenario is as follows:

Two patients, A and B, are dying of organ failure. A needs a heart, B needs a liver. Without transplants, both will die. A healthy person, C, is a perfect match for both organs. In a standard ethical framework, we would not kill C to save A and B. But Harris asks: why not? If we can save two lives at the cost of one, why is that not the right thing to do?

Harris extends this into a social policy: a lottery is instituted in which all citizens are eligible. A computer randomly selects one person per period, who is then killed and their organs distributed to those in need. The lottery is fair, transparent, and designed to maximize the number of lives saved.

The thought experiment is not meant as a serious policy proposal. It is a reductio ad absurdum of act-utilitarianism, showing that a theory focused solely on maximizing aggregate welfare can justify outcomes that most people find morally abhorrent. The Survival Lottery has since become a standard example in debates about the ethics of killing, the distinction between acts and omissions, and the limits of consequentialist reasoning.

Key philosophical issues raised by the Survival Lottery include: the moral significance of the distinction between killing and letting die; the question of whether we have a duty to save lives that can override the prohibition on killing; the problem of negative responsibility; and the tension between impartial benevolence and respect for individual rights.

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