How Many Lives Are Worth A Cure?

Maze Runner raises an uncomfortable question: are there limits that science should never cross in the pursuit of a greater good?

Promotional image for Maze Runner (2014)

If you could save billions of people, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice?

What if the survival of humanity depended on hundreds of people?

If their suffering could save billions, would you accept paying this price?

The answer seems obvious until those numbers become real people with stories, faces, and names.

In Maze Runner, this isn’t only a philosophical question but ends up becoming a scientific and ethical dilemma. In a world devastated by the Flare virus, where the human population has declined almost exponentially, the WCKD organisation believes that there is still a chance of finding a cure, but the experiments are conducted on teenagers who are immune to the disease. However, their methods are highly questionable, since, to its scientists, the suffering of hundreds of teenagers is an acceptable price when compared to the extinction of the human race.

In extreme situations such as the one presented in Maze Runner, defining what is right and wrong isn’t simple anymore. After all, when human lives are quickly transformed into numbers, any choice becomes extremely uncomfortable.

Historically, some of the most important debates in scientific ethics have centred on the same question: Do the ends justify the means? Or are there limits that, even in extreme situations, shouldn’t be crossed, even if doing so could lead to positive outcomes?

That’s why Maze Runner is much more complicated than a simple survival story. Behind the maze, the escape attempts, and the post-apocalyptic world, the film uses these questions to present a reflection on the ethical limits and how far science can go in order to achieve a greater good.

At first, the answer is obvious: the methods used by WCKD involve kidnapping, memory erasure, exposure of innocent teenagers to dangerous conditions, and circumstances that lead to psychological exhaustion, and to make matters worse, the experiments were conducted without any prior consent. For Thomas and the other Gladers, WCKD represents the main threat that must be stopped.

However, when we analyse the organisation from a perspective different from that of the Gladers, things become more complex. Unlike many villains in other sci-fi films, WCKD’s main objective isn’t gaining power, dominating society or hurting people. The main objective is to find a cure for the Flare and save humanity from human extinction. Therefore, from this point of view, their actions and decisions become consequences and necessary sacrifices while trying to stop the virus.

This perspective closely aligns with a school of thought known as utilitarianism. Basically, this perspective suggests that an action becomes morally right when it produces the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Therefore, considering this point of view, the suffering of hundreds of teenagers in the narrative could be justified by the survival of humanity.

Scene from Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

The problem appears when this logic is actually applied in practice. After all, who decides how many lives should be sacrificed? Is there a limit to this calculation? And, most importantly, can a human life be used as a means to achieve a greater good?

It’s exactly at this point that WCKD’s methods come into conflict with the fundamental principles of modern scientific ethics. The advance of scientific knowledge can’t be denied. However, history itself has shown there must be limits on the ways this knowledge is obtained. After all, modern science isn’t defined just by its discoveries but also by the limits established to obtain them.

To avoid this dilemma, the main principle used in bioethics is informed consent. Currently, research involving human participants requires individuals to be informed about the study and its risks, respecting the right of each one to accept or decline participation in the research. The logic behind this principle is that no person should be reduced to an object of study.

However, in the narrative, this is totally ignored. The Gladers are kidnapped and lose all knowledge of their previous lives when their memories are erased and they are subjected to extreme situations without any consent. From the perspective of bioethics, these participants go from being autonomous subjects to becoming objects of study in order to find a cure for the Flare.

This concern didn’t arise out of nowhere. Throughout the centuries, many episodes have made it clear that the pursuit of scientific knowledge can cause harmful consequences when ethical principles don’t play a role in the experiments. As a result, it became necessary to create standards that protect dignity, autonomy, and the safety of research participants.

In this way, the main problem with the experiments conducted by WCKD isn’t necessarily their final goal but the means used to achieve the final result. In the end, finding a cure in order to save humanity is, without a doubt, a legitimate goal. However, the main question remains: Is research still morally acceptable when it transforms teenagers into unwilling test subjects, even though they are exactly the ones that should be protected?

This is precisely what turns the main conflict of Maze Runner into something more than just a fight between heroes and villains. After all, if we think about the final objective, both could be heroes, since both are willing to save humanity from extinction. However, the difference is about how each side views the value of a human life, determining if there are, or not, limits.

While WCKD believes that the survival of humanity justifies the experiments conducted on the teenagers, Thomas and the other Gladers reject this idea and believe that, even while seeking a cure for the Flare, human lives should never be reduced to that point. It’s important to note that they never oppose finding a cure itself, but they protest against the methods used in the experiments. In this way, the narrative suggests two different ethical perspectives: one based only on the final outcome and the other on the process itself.

From this perspective, the film interacts indirectly with the audience when it invites us to take a position on this dilemma. Depending on the viewer’s ethical principles, Thomas and the others can be interpreted in different ways. For those who share WCKD’s perspective, their resistance to the experiments isn’t just a claim for the freedom and autonomy lost in the process but is also an obstacle to human survival.

In the end, Maze Runner doesn’t present a definitive answer. Instead, the narrative uses the post-apocalyptic scenario to raise one of the most difficult discussions in science and ethics. In this way, the real conflict of Maze Runner is revealed through two different ways of achieving the same goal.

And perhaps that’s why this discussion is so relevant. After all, if you could save billions of people, how many lives would you be willing to sacrifice?

The answer seems simple when they are just numbers.

But would your answer remain the same if the life of someone close to you had to be sacrificed?

Or if it were you?