I doubled up a number a while back so now we skip forward lol
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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I happily live with myself. The death is on the hands of whomever tied those people to the tracks.
Yes, I pulled the lever and by so chose who lived and who died, but if I was that person alone on the tracks I wouldn't blame the one pulling the lever, I believe it was the lesser of two evil. I would still be fucking pissed, but at the one who tied me there, not the person forced to choose.
This is why I prefer the scenario which uses rail workers instead so there is no criminal that tied anyone down.
Imo arguing about who tied them down completely ruins the entire point of the scenario.
I agree with you in theory.
But, easier said than done.
Absolutely, it would still be an horrible experience
But would you push the fat man over the railing?
As before, 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 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?
- Some random philosopher
No.
In the traditional problem, the man tied to the tracks has no input in the final result, they are just a passive piece of the problem, we can assume what their thinking is and that it is how I rationalized my solution: I would expect the lever to be pulled if I was tied to the tracks and so I pull it myself knowing I would not blame the one pulling the lever for my death.
But in this scenario the man has the ability to act for himself: he can decide to jump. I would never expect him to do so (actually I would never expect 99% of people to pull the lever if they were to die themselves) because that is an action that goes too much against all of our instincts and by pushing them I would, in my opinion, commit a murder.
If I was the fat man I would not jump, and if I was pushed I would absolutely blame the one doing it for my death.
You could think that killing 1 to save 5 is the better outcome, but who decide that 1 human is less worth than those 5? It's just the numbers? Then you could argue that between fighting WWII and submitting to the Nazi the better outcome would have been to not fight them because the people that died in camps were less then the victims of the war. Of course that's an overblown example, but it show why I'm extremely uncomfortable with pushing the fat man: imposing your will on someone who has the ability to act is almost never the answer
Suppose the man is blind then. He has the ability to jump but is unaware of the trolley hurliing towards the people on the track. While he has the ability to act his only "crime" is being unaware. Isn't this equivalent to the original trolley problem?
[I]t may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other.
In this case, all six men are unaware of the runaway trolley heading towards them, believing themselves to be safe. The one working on his own track has not made up his mind yet as to whether he would want himself to be sacrificed. You would impose your own will onto him, wouldn't you?
I don't have any solution for variations of the trolley problem that satisfy me. I would likely act based upon what I felt was right at the time without considering (all) the implications. Without the threat of running out of time however, I believe it's much more difficult to decide how to act.
I find this dilemma fails to actually deliver the point.
If you do not act you are not absolved of morality because you had a choice. You made a choice and your morals were tested.
Also saving greater numbers over lesser does not make you a murderer. It makes you a hero.
There is no moral dilemma, you couldn't have saved all of them. The murdered is the person who tied them up with the intent to kill.
Kant would disagree.
Many philosophers (many of whom are Kant's contemporaries,) think Emmanuel Kant can be a dick sometimes.
But Kant would argue by pulling the lever and getting involved, you are taking responsibility, but ultimatly the guy(s) who secured the victims to the tracks are to blame. And your lawyer will argue this in both criminal and civil court.
I think you misunderstood. It's the scenario that's flawed not what happens when you pull the lever.
Whoever set up the contraption has responsibility.
Yes, but partitioning blame is not the point. Thomas Aquinas wouldn't touch the lever, because doing so may jeopardize his path to heaven.
Kant wasn't around when Nazi Jew hunters were literally scouring Europe for hidden Jewish refugees, but he did address the murderer at the door and argued it was right and proper not to lie to the murderer to protect a friend.
Sartre and Camus (and pretty much all their contemporaries) had to deal with real Nazis, so they'd pull the damn lever because ultimately it doesn't matter who set it up, even if they successfully escape to Brazil or Argentina. The situation is here and now and up to us to act. (And while there are few literal trolleys, there are plenty of instances in which a smaller mischief supports a greater good, or preventing a greater harm, sometimes involving selecting who lives and dies.)
A mother would steal medicine for her sick and dying kids, for instance, and rightly so, which is why it is necessary to create a society in which she doesn't have to, and defy the society that prevents her from caring for those children.
Countless Muslims in Spain would eat pork before their colleagues and before God so as to not be discovered and reported to the Inquisition. But then in Islam (by my limited comprehension) God forgives when you do what you do to survive.
There's no right answer to the Trolley problem. It happens to be a paradox of deontological ethics (mores defined by creed) but its point in full form is to show that there are often no right answers, and we are driven as much by what we feel is right or wrong, as by what we compute is the most rational ethic.
The Trolley problem just happens to be the one turned into a meme, and is easy to draw on a chalkboard in philosophy class.
If you do not act you are not absolved of morality because you had a choice. You made a choice and your morals were tested.
You hold the opinion that deliberate inaction is an action in itself, that the worth of lives can be quantified and from that conclude that a failure to reduce a loss in life is tantamount to condemning those lives to death. That conclusion is valid under those premises, but the point of the dilemma is that not everybody agrees with those premises.
Why does this person have a gun out??
That's a cop. I'm assuming there are some black people nearby, hence the gun.
Do you live with yourself?
Very unfortunately I do. Wouldn't if people didn't insist I stay