What would you do? Moral choice question.
Hey Steemers, let's see where your moral compasses point.
Are you familiar with the trolley problem?
(source: McGedden, Trolley Problem Wikipedia page)
Let's say you were walking next to the train tracks one day, and noticed a runaway train coming in your direction. Next to you is a lever, which you can use to point the train down 1 of 2 tracks.
Track 1 (the current track) has 5 people on it that will not be able to get out of the way in time.
Track 2 (the optional track) has 1 person on it that will not be able to get out of the way in time.
If you do nothing, the train will continue down track 1, killing 5 people. If you pull the lever, the train will divert, killing one person based on your actions. What would you do?
- What is the most moral/ethical decision here?
- Would it matter who the people on the tracks were?
- What do you believe the right thing to do would be?
- Would your answer change if you were in either or the groups on the track, and someone else was in charge of pulling the lever?
- What do you believe shaped your philosophy towards your choice?
I'm curious to see your responses!
-Bobby
I would multi-track drift of course
Brutal!
Trolley Problem is such a fun thought experiment. I remember when I first read about it and wrote it down to share with others. Thanks for sharing!
I like how it keeps getting more and more difficult when you add in more variables. One of the more interesting variants it the "fat man" predicament, where you can save everyone if you purposefully push a fat man onto the track to block the trolley. Seems similar to pulling the lever, until you realize how the choice is a lot more personal/involved.
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I have my own position on this that I haven't seen elaborated elsewhere. I think that you are not morally required to pull the lever, but you are also not morally required not to pull the lever. So, there is no further answer to the question "What is the most moral/ethical decision here?" other than that neither choice is morally obligatory, both options are fine.
"Would it matter who the people on the tracks were?"
Yes. My explanation is in terms of self-defence and assisted self-defence. If the five people on track one included my personal loved ones, I would definitely divert the train. And I think that by doing so I would be assisting my loved ones' self-defence, something I believe that I am surely permitted to do.
I believe that just like morality can never demand of a person that he or she abstain from saving her own life, even when as an unfortunate consequence of this an innocent person gets harmed or killed, so morality cannot require that the we abstain from assisting others in saving their lives.
Thought provoking points!
Moral requirements, I feel, change from culture to culture. Although I believe that there is a universal moral law, I don't believe that we've been able to agree on it yet (and I don't know what it is myself). I think the only way we can find it is through continual discussion and reflection like this.
I haven't thought of it in this light before. Although I feel like there are situation that would require one "demand" that someone else self-sacrifice, I would also agree that self-sacrifice is a decision that you can't make for another person (you can sacrifice them, but self-sacrifice is ultimately their decision).
I would be interested to see how a judge would preside over a case with a similar situation. Good thoughts!
I will write a post someday about moral requirement.
Why are people standing on train tracks? How is one able to assess all of this information while there are still people who remain oblivious on the track?
Hmmm... Let's say that they were all tied to the tracks by an evil villain! Your position by the lever allows you to see that they are tied (no evil villain in sight).
Haha well hmm that presents another question. Leaving the track as-is and killing the 5 people is the natural course of the track. By intervening, would I not be intentionally killing the one person by altering the natural course of the deadly train?
You would be! As you know there's one person on the other track, you know that flipping the switch would result in their death. The question is: do you believe that it's better to stand by and let the 5 die, or to kill the one to save 5 lives?
Although killing one would require your physical action, allowing the 5 to die would also be a conscious choice that you make.
Both have consequences. Pulling the lever means reducing the largest amount of suffering. The suffering of the loss of one person and the reactions of everyone they know and their families compared to that of five individuals. Without pulling the lever, that would still involve living knowing that you didn't do everything in your power to reduce the loss of life. Isn't that what firefighters and medical professionals do? They try to preserve as much life as possible while knowing in some instances life slips through your hands and there's nothing you can do.
That's an excellent argument, and veers towards a utilitarian perspective on the situation. In this situation, you're stuck between 2 very hard choices (without a 3rd option, unfortunately). It sounds like you've made up your mind and chosen to save the most lives possible.
So let's throw you a curveball. :-D
Let's say that the ONE person on the other track is someone that you love dearly, while the 5 others are strangers. Would this change your decision? Why or why not?
I think the knee-jerk reaction would of course be yes, because you have feelings for that person. However, if the intent is preserve the largest amount of life is no. The feelings that come from seeing someone you care about near death is what all of those families / friends will soon feel, times five. It would be selfish to think that I had sacrified all those lives selfishly. Now with this into the mix, the consequences are even more severe. Would you save someone you love knowing you let 5 innocent people die because of it? Or would you let the train run over a loved one to spare 5 lives?
Excellent question! I would want follow your exact thought process and save the 5. It would probably ruin me to do so, and I'd spend the rest of my life trying to stop something similar from happening. Those 5 people could be just as important to others, so saving my one would be selfish, and I don't think I'd be able to live with that.
There is one exception to this decision:
If I knew with 100% certainty that those 5 people were evil people (without getting into the definition behind what evil is), I would not divert the train and let them die.
Thanks for this discussion! Really dug it!
I apply utilitarian thought and divert the train, although utilitarianism is not universally applicable to all ethical dilemmas in my view.
But the details matter, what if it takes place in a society with vigilante justice and I just diverted the train from five mass shooters into a child? I think the core issue is that I do not believe reducing the net loss of life is always the most moral course of action.
In actuality I would likely pull the wrong lever and make the situation worse somehow, I have a knack for that sort of thing.
I know that feeling!
I believe underneath it all that so long as you are authentically, mindfully trying to make the right decision here, you'd be acting morally, even if you pulled the incorrect lever.
Close my eyes and pray for mormon Jesus to intervene
It's hard to make a decision without the sick loopdeeloop