The Trolley Problem: Who do you save?
Taken off Wikipedia:
A trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by putting something very heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?
I've always been torn on this one, I'd be interested to see your opinions and rationalizations.
What do you do and why?
Love this question, common logic is if you push the fat man your are a psychopath, I don't buy that, personally it depends on the five on the track. The point of the thought experiment is to try and differ between the direct and indirect complexity of death, ie if you push the fatty, you actively killed the person, if you didn't act you are not directly responsible for their deaths. Personally I say push the fatty 5 > 1.
But what basis do you have to assign a value to one person's life vs someone else's...
Personally I would do nothing. Non-interventionist. I'm sure at any given point in time there are millions of people whose lives you could potentially be saving, but your inaction does not cause what would have already happened. By actively making a decision to sacrifice the one man you are committing homicide
Utilitarian ethics would argue that you should take whatever action will produce the greatest net benefit to the world, and you're more likely to see less misery as a result of 1 person's death than the 5.
Also, just because you didn't cause something to happen doesn't mean that you're not accountable. If I see a baby about to crawl into a swimming pool, would you argue that I'm justified in letting it drown simply because I didn't cause the baby to start drowning?
Also, your deontological argument of necessarily adhering to certain ethical principles eliminates all gray area to ethical problems, and the world essentially exists in between extremes, i.e. in the gray area.
What if you are the fatty and someone pushes you onto the track. Would you die to save 5 people? 5>1 Eh?
wake up from your 19th century dream because no one rides a fucking trolley anymore.
or, just yell for the 5 people to move. assuming the fat guy is close enough to stop the trolley, you're close enough to get within earshot.
This is a stupid hypothetical, for one if 5 people get run over by a trolley that is their own damn fault. Secondly a fat guy isn't going to actually stop a trolley he will simply bounce off and die. But if the world of wonky physics where a fat guy could stop the trolley, he has a higher chance of causing the trolley to derail and potentially kill everyone on the trolley.
I suppose we could replace the fat guy with your mother for greater chances of completely stopping the train?
No. If we do that, the trolley driver will get distracted while eye-fucking her, and run everyone over.
I think you guys derails from the intended purpose of the topic
I think you guys are taking the example too literally.
Here's another thought experiment: You're beside a burning building, and inside is a child and a Picasso worth millions hanging on the wall. Do you save the child or the Picasso, assuming you can sell the painting and use the proceeds to save hundreds of thousands of kids' lives elsewhere in the world?
Both. It isn't that hard to carry a child and a painting.
+1
If you can't carry both, you need to start taking a few hours off every other day and hit the gym... For your general health's sake too.
Even if the proceeds go on to save a ton of lives, you'll forever be billed the asshole that left a child to burn for a painting.
I'm not about to kill a fat man to save five strangers.
Flip that around: would you let five people die to save a fat stranger?
So the options are; be a killer or be a serial killer.....what the heck, I wouldn't mind seeing how the fat stranger would react fter watching me eradicate 5 people in row.
Is someone paying you for this god awful forum content?
I usually don't care much for morbidly obese people, but in this case you don't have time to push the fat fuck because you need that time to get your phone out to film the other 5 getting annihilated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
Indeed I did. I figured WSO would respond better to the fat man example opposed to the lever example BC it was more comprehensive. Boy was I wrong
I'm already on the phone shorting the trolley manufacturer. See you in hell
Put aside the Trolley question.. here's a better one (Originally Posted: 10/25/2016)
I kid, it's no better than the trolley question. Situation: (You and your wife are in the late 20's. Kid is about 4-5.) You, your wife and your kid are on a cruise ship. You enter a disastrous scenario wherein you have the option of saving your wife or your kid. What is the most realistic choice?
1) You choose to save your partner in life. Realistically, you are still both capable of reproducing another child. 2) You decide to save your kid instead. Depression. Single-parent kid. Possible shitty 2nd marriage. Love of your life is gone.
Thoughts?
This.
presumably your wife would make the sacrifice for her child......right?
Are you a lesbian? Because the order on a sinking ship is ALWAYS women and children first.
Also if you are Italian it's women and children, and Captains first. A la Costa Concordia
Exactly - you won't get around sacrificing yourself.
Pretty sure your wife will hate and resent you if you decide to choose her over her child. Maternal instincts are not to be messed with.
The kid obviously. Couldnt live with myself choosing an adult over a kid and my wife would have life insurance the kid would not.
Interesting scenario. Wolvesandbulls makes a point in that my wife would never let me save her over the kid, but I figure for this scenario she plays no role in the initial decision.
Even then, I'd still save the child. I imagine letting the kid die to save a wife would ruin the marriage anyways.
Pushing the fat man would be a good decision if you knew, with absolute certainty, that it would stop the train and would have no other unintended consequences. However, in a split second decision, how could you possibly know either of those things? You couldn't.
Unless he weighed something like 100 tons. And then, you wouldn't be able to push him and he would demolish the bridge (and most things on or under it), so it is a moot point.
You don't push him.
Shove the fat man behind the five, hypothetically.
"A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no one would suspect the doctor. Do you support the morality of the doctor to kill that tourist and provide his healthy organs to those five dying persons and save their lives?"
I think that's either a Will Smith movie, or one of the Saw movies.
I would not - I'm a libertarian pussy and limit my right to action by stipulating that my moralizing must end where it infringes on others. I take no responsibility for these people's situation.
What if this young man passing by is a criminal or pedophile?
There was an excellent film that came out earlier this year which was based on this topic. Relevant clip:
O.K. First off this thread is like one giant game of telephone.
The ORIGINAL scenario contains no fat man as humorous as he may be. There is no pushing of an obese, portly, stout, rubenes
Well, I would sit in terror and not kill a man. The death of the other people wouldn't be on my hands. If I pushed the fat man then his death would be on my hands.
If the fat man was Steve Wozniaki I'd watch on as the five get annihilated while trying to ingratiate myself with him. Ordinarily the life of one should yield to the many - assuming they all add similar value to the world which is impossible to judge superficially...Now, would I throw a Victoria Secrets model to save 20 obese people? Probably not to be honest
I was watching a documentary on autonomous cars and one of the engineers said this sort of scenario is one of the very real moral issues we would need to address if autonomous cars really are the future of driving.
Could the car make moral decisions on behalf of its occupants if it meant sacrificing the occupants life to save for example a school bus full of children?
In reply to the OP: This why it is important to not be overweight, since the fat man on the street corner will never know if you're going to push him into on-coming traffic or not.
Better be skinny to be on the safe side and not have to live in fear of being push in front of trolleys.
Well, so long as you're willing to go to prison for second degree murder for 15-20 years then push the fat guy. Otherwise, accept that the universe is cruel.
Even if you do decide to push the fat man, there's always the chance you mess up the execution. Your timing might be off, you push him at an angle and he doesn't land squarely in front of the trolley, etc.
The planet is over-populated. So push the fat man into the burning wreckage of the crashed trolley.
I've always thought of not doing anything being the "natural state" whereas pushing the fat guy is me physically and directly ending a life
this is such a business insider question
Anyone who has seen Final Destination or Final Destination 2,3,4 or 5 knows the answer to this. You can't cheat death.
I love that the majority of answers in this thread follow the mold of "I'm going to Kirk the shit out of this Kobayashi Maru, and come up with some outside-the-box super solution that doesn't address the intended issue. I AM SMARTER THAN THE RULES. BRING ME YOUR FINEST MEATS AND CHEESES."
Guys, it's just a thought experiment. And clearly, all the best answers feature your mom.
First of all, this is an incomplete story. There are two different scenarios. The first is the ability to pull a lever to switch the train from a track heading towards 5 people, to one towards a single person. Not surprisingly, most people choose to pull the lever to switch the trains.
The second part, which you've posted, brings a different twist, a more direct action and devastating choice. By inflicting the damage directly, most people avoid, or struggle with the ability to push the fat man to save five.
It comes down to two moral philosophical arguments: Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics. The former would of course suggest that any action that effects the greatest good for the greatest amount of people is morally and ethically supported. Hence the choice of killing one to save five is morally justified. I do not agree with this because of it’s simple nature. To me, this practice usually falls short when there is any amount of grey area, which is introduced in scenario two. It would be like firing a coworker because his work affects your team, but does not consider the effect it has on the fired coworker (his financial status, family, life, etc).
The latter, Kantian ethics, proposes that actions that are justified are essentially those which can be justified in each and every situation. A common example is lying. It may be okay, to someone, to lie to save someone pain, i.e. telling someone they look nice when they in fact do not (white lies). However, given lying cannot universally be used as a good thing, it is not a morally acceptable practice. The second imperative states that you should not use people purely as a means to an end. Considering this, using the fat man as a means to an end, albeit a virtuous (to some) end, is morally unjustified. Therefore, under this argument, pushing the fat man is unjustified.
This is a much stronger set of ethical standards (the Kantian Categorical Imperatives) that I do try to follow. In life or business, if a practice or choice is not one that can be followed strictly, in all situations, it is likely a poor choice. For this scenario, there is no excuse to take a life, and there is no difference in the intent (save 5 versus 1) because murder (pushing the fat man) can in no way be justified across every scenario. The issue becomes does your inaction therefore constitute murder? The Utilitarian argument is quite clear in this scenario (yes, and is unjustified give your ability to change the course of the train and save net 4 lives) but the Kantian argument suggests otherwise given the use of the fat man as a means to an end.
For more, I would highly suggest checking out Michael Sandel’s lectures via Youtube on Justice (via Harvard). He starts day one with this story to set the baseline for moral ethics. Incredibly awesome.
Disclosure: I am not a philosopher and I'm sure an expert could have written this in a better way.
Nicely summed up. Though I disagree that there is any significant difference between the lever and fat man scenarios...the ethical choice, concepts involved, and resulting consequences are ultimately the same in my view
The fact that in the fat man scenario you are directly touching him has only an emotional importance not an ethical one
Completely agreed; should have stated differently. Reactions were extremely different in both scenarios nonetheless. There is clearly a different "feeling" when those observing you shout "he pushed the man to his death" versus "he pulled the lever and saved 5 people!" (or he pulled the lever and killed one) - it changes the perception meaningfully, but as you stated, not the steps involved.
The difference is the distinguishing characteristic of a psychopath. but yeah from a purely theoretical perspective its the same.
This video sums it up nicely: http://bigthink.com/videos/are-you-a-psychopath-take-the-test-2
It is a nice thought experiment but in real life no one would push the fat man.
It is pretty simple, you push the fat man and you are guilty of murder.
OP's scenario is obviously not realistic, but MIT has a website dedicated to scenarios involving the brakes failing on a driverless car, which is completely possible: http://moralmachine.mit.edu/
Who dies? The passengers or pedestrians? If you pay attention, the passenger and pedestrian crowds have kids, bank robbers, and doctors in them. What if it has to pick between two different groups of pedestrians to run over?
You can compare your selections against what other people have chosen. This is really interesting, because some governing body will be responsible for making these ethical decisions and programming what the vehicle should do in such scenarios.
What if the trolley doesn't stop when I push the fat. The expected value of death of 6 is above zero. I'd do nothing.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I can push the fat guy enough to save people but the trolley can't enough to kill them?
Somehow that doesn't seem physically possible.
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