Musical ethics

[sawyl]

Reading one of Judith Jarvis Thompsons essays today renewed my acquaintance with the following, interesting analogy:

Imagine that you wake up one morning to find yourself in hospital. You discover that you have been kidnapped by a society of music lovers and your circulatory system has been connected to that of a famous violinist. The violinist has a kidney disease and will die unless he is connected to someone with correct blood type and you are the only person who's blood matches. The doctors in the hospital say that, of course, they would not have allowed the original operation to connect the violinist to go ahead if they could have prevented it, but now that the two of your are connected and you only need to endure the situation for nine months to allow the violin's kidneys to recover, surely you can let the situation be?

It's interesting because it doesn't deny that the violinist has a right to life, but rather it questions whether that right should take precedence over another person's right of self determination.