She paused for several seconds to gather her thoughts. “So now you make these monsters human—for the first time. And yes, this is more than a fitting punishment for what they’ve done. But the cured ones weren’t the ones who committed these savage acts now, were they? That was a different version of them. You’re turning a monster into a human, and then punishing the human for the actions of the monster.”
“Whoa,” said Hansen. “Saying you’ve given this some thought is an understatement.”
He rose from the carpet, stretched, and returned to the desk chair, his eyes never leaving Erin’s. “It almost sounds as though you think killing them all might be more humane than curing them all.”
“It just might be,” she replied. “I don’t know. Only God could know something like that. But I’m guessing you’re able to see the moral issues involved with killing one percent of the population. Even without my help.”
“Yeah, I think I’m on top of that one,” he said. “But kidding aside, I have to believe they’d rather be cured than killed.”
“Absolutely. But that’s because, just like they can’t fathom the suffering of others, they can’t possibly fathom what it will be like to suddenly have a conscience. Maybe if they knew, they would prefer death. As I said, my prediction is that there will be a significant number of suicides.”
“It’s a horrible aberration, and situation, no matter how you slice it,” said Hansen thoughtfully.
“I’m not sure if I believe in God,” said Erin. “When you experience what I did before you’re twelve, belief doesn’t come easily. I find it hard to imagine any God taking the time to create a soul in ninety-nine percent of the population, but allowing a perfect storm of genetic errors to make monsters of the others.”
“You’re probably right. But I’ve heard it said that without evil, we wouldn’t be able to recognize or appreciate good.”
Erin twisted her head and stared at him in wonder. For all the thinking she had done recently, this was a thought she had not yet had.
“You make some compelling points,” said Hansen. “About a cure bringing untold misery to the compassionate humans these people will now become. And about the risk of suicide. But isn’t it true these effects will be the most severe in those who have committed the most severe, violent crimes? Didn’t you say the majority of psychopaths are engaged in less-violent offenses?”
Erin nodded. “You’re right. There is a certain symmetry there. Poetic justice again. The psychopaths who have done the least damage will feel the least pain when they gain a soul. Those who’ve caused the most pain, will feel the most pain.”
“To be honest,” said Hansen, “you’ve raised a number of points I wouldn’t have considered. You’ve opened up more cans of worms than I expected. Until I’ve had time to really think this through, I can’t argue with anything you’ve said. But I started this by asking you to forget about the fate of the world hanging in the balance. But now let’s bring that back in. Are you saying you’d still have misgivings, even if it came down to this: either cure them, or lose the entire species because of them?”
“I’d have misgivings, but of course I’d cure them. Provided that I was absolutely certain that Drake and his computer were correct, and these really were the stakes, this is a simple trade-off to make. The world’s easiest trolley problem.”
“Trolley problem?”
“You’ve never done any readings on ethics?”
“What part about carefree geek physicist who loves science fiction and working with an alien visitor didn’t you get?”
Erin laughed. “Jeremy Bentham? John Stuart Mill? Those names ring a bell?”
“I’ve definitely heard of Mill,” he said. “But I couldn’t tell you anything about him.”
“These men came up with a theory of ethics called utilitarianism. The goal of which is basically the greatest good for the greatest number. In choosing between courses of action, this should be the guiding principle. A huge series of thought experiments have been constructed over the years to test this out. Many of these involve trolleys. These techniques are actually known as trolleyology.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Yeah, you tell me about an alien visitor and seventeen alien species, in seventeen locations, hanging out together in hollowed-out asteroids, and I’m the one who’s far-fetched. At least you can Google ‘trolleyology’ to confirm it.”
Hansen laughed. “I can’t say you don’t have a point.”
“Anyway,” continued Erin, “these trolleyology problems reveal some interesting facets of human nature.” She stared at him intently. “Let me give you a few examples. Suppose a runaway trolley is out of control and is coming to a fork in the tracks. You happen to be standing by a lever that can switch them. If the trolley stays on course it will kill five workmen standing on the tracks. If you cause it to switch tracks, it will kill a single workman. Do you switch the track?”
Hansen thought about this for a few seconds and finally nodded.
“Most people agree on this one. Even though you’re taking an action that will kill a man, you’re saving five lives at the same time.” She paused. “What if the five were strangers to you, and the lone person on the other track was your mother?”
“Wow,” said Hansen after a few seconds. “I’m not sure I can answer that.”
Erin smiled. “Sure you can. The answer is that in that case, you’d let the five men die, rather than flip a switch that would kill your own mother. Admit it to yourself.”
Hansen nodded, but looked troubled.
“This is what the majority of people say as well. Final one: Suppose you’re now above the tracks standing beside a very heavy guy. The runaway trolley is heading toward five people. You realize two things: if you jump in front of it, you’re too light to stop it. But if you push the heavy guy next to you down onto the tracks, his body will derail the trolley and the five will be saved. Do you push him?”
There was a long silence. Finally, Hansen shook his head. “No. I don’t see myself doing that.”
“Neither do ninety percent of people from around the world. It’s one thing to throw a switch. It’s another to throw someone under the bus—literally. But if you really think about it using pure reason, you should do it. In both cases one person dies so five can live. What’s interesting is that psychopaths are born utilitarians. Emotions or conscience would never come between them and the math. Two researchers named Bartels and Pizarro studied the ten percent of people who said they would throw the heavy guy onto the tracks. They found them to score high on the scales of psychopathy and Machiavellianism.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that for these types of decisions, you’d actually want to have a psychopath in charge. Anyway, this was just an aside. The real point is that the problem you pose is an easy one. I, and anyone else for that matter, would be willing to do anything—anything—if I was convinced I was preventing species extinction. The math in this case easily outweighs my issues of conscience, any possible weighting of right and wrong.” She paused. “But here’s the thing. I have to be absolutely convinced.”
“Makes sense.”
“But as far as I’m concerned, this could still be just a very elaborate hoax. And even if I was convinced Drake is really an alien, we still can’t be sure of anything else. His projections for our species. His motives. To a normal, the motives of a psychopath are impossible to comprehend. So if the minds of psychopaths are totally alien to us, what about the mind of an actual alien? How do we know anything? Maybe the virus is a cold virus to cure psychopathy.” She paused. “Then again, maybe it’s a virus that will wipe out the human species,” she added, raising her eyebrows. “And you’ve been lied to.”