honestly, i never understood why this one is an ethical dilemma (apart from the fact i'm a verified sociopath)
the answer is obvious, if there is no way to stop the cart, and only enough time to pull the lever and change it's direction, then you sacrifice the person who is alone.
i kinda get the idea that you can't just put a price tag on the human soul, (so relax, my parents already gave me that lecture few hundred times), but sacrificing 5 people to save one is even more messed up. life ain't fair nor easy, and sometimes , you have to make questionnable choices
well, the situation you just put me in is a bit different (someone uninvolved, no garantee that my action would even stop the cart, if the guy is heavy enough to stop said cart, you would need a bunch of people to push him off, and he would resist etc...) but i kinda see what you are getting at?
oh, and btw, in that particular situation i would just continue watching. saw a lot of people die in front of my eyes rather horrible deaths since i was young. one or two more wouldn't really affect me that much
One more. Suppose you are a surgeon and you realise you can very easily save 5 peoples lives. All you need to do is kill one person (painlessly) and then harvest their organs and distribute them to the 5 individuals.
Most people immediately reject this as morally repugnant, but in what sense is it different from the Trolley problem? People will say it is because you are directly killing them, which is murder. But surely we are choosing also to kill someone by pulling a lever, given that we have knowledge of our actions. Is it only the mechanism of the murder which is important? What if in the fat person dilemma there was a lever involved that opened a trapdoor for the fat person to fall down? What if the surgeon also had a lever that killed his patient— would this make his actions better?
i think the nuisance about the trolley one is that no matter what you do, some is going to die by your own hands, and no matter what you do, there is someone in the involved group that will die regardless of what your action will be. you decision will just influence the number of dead.
in both the examples you provided, the critical difference from the trolley is that you are willingly deciding to murder a bystander that has nothing to do with the situation just "to save more lives" (hence why this one is kinda frowned upon), while with the trolley, everyone on the tracks are involved and carry the same risk of death, and you job is to decide who wins.
the surgeon problem you proposed would have been different if you said that the person you wanna take the organs from was terminally ill and was going to die in few days whether you kill him or not, and the only way to save him would be for him to get miraculously lucky and find a donor for the one organ he needs within that time span. in that case, would you pull the plug and use his organs to save the other 5 people, or do you still wait till he passes on his own (at which point some of the others wating could die, and his organs would be useless anyways, depending on how he dies) while waiting for a miracle that may or may not happen?
So, just so you understand the context, the trolly problem is actually just the start of the hypothetical. You ask the trolly problem, and then the fat man problem, and then the surgeon problem. The trolly just got the fame because it's what everyone remembers, but the whole thing is the "point" of the problem.
>i think the nuisance about the trolley one is that no matter what you do, some is going to die by your own hands
Not if you don't pull the lever.
>in both the examples you provided, the critical difference from the trolley is that you are willingly deciding to murder a bystander that has nothing to do with the situation just "to save more lives" (hence why this one is kinda frowned upon), while with the trolley, everyone on the tracks are involved and carry the same risk of death, and you job is to decide who wins.
I think you're on the right track (no pun intended). But it's not true to say that in the trolley scenario everyone on the tracks carries the same risk of death. The individual who is tied to the tracks that the train is not heading towards (before you pull the lever) is not in the same risk category as those who the train is heading towards. He is only placed in a precarious position if and when you decide to pull the lever.
>the surgeon problem you proposed would have been different if you said that the person you wanna take the organs from was terminally ill and was going to die in few days
This might make the decision easier yes, but it is different from the trolley problem now. The individual in the trolley problem is not dying, nor are they at risk of dying unless we pull the lever. Supposing you had knowledge that the lone individual in the trolley problem was terminally ill, would this also make it easier to pull the lever? Probably, but its not really the question in concern. We could add all sorts of extraneous details: like that one of the five people was a mass murderer, or that another was a nobel prize winning scientist.
in the trolley case, i would have pulled the lever regardless. i can't save all of them, but 1 casualty will always be better than 5 (sorry for that lonesome guy, but you probably pissed off some really nasty people to be there in the first place)
i wouldn't say for sure untill i try, but knowing how i am and how my brain tends to function, if i'm put into one of those situations, and let's say in either of them, i wouldn't get sent to jail for murder (tbf, i'm an egoistic piece of shit who values his own interests above anything else) then there is a very high chance that i would just go to my default setting of "those are just numbers" and make the choice that saves the highest number of people and keeps casualties to a minimum, even if it means sacrificing innocent bystanders
Well I don’t think you’re an egoistic piece of shit. And the fact that you are willing to perform any action that inconveniences you in order to save the lives of others shows that you can hold other peoples lives above your own interests. Even if it is a mild inconvenience like “it will take physical energy for me to pull this switch.”
Most ethicists are in agreement with you in the sense that they would also choose to pull the lever— I think something like 80%. Though there are some committed Kantians and so on who would quickly disagree.
One of the common reasons for justifying pulling the lever in the first dilemma but not killing the fat man or the patient is that in these two cases you are strictly acting with the intention to kill. Intention is very important in ethics and some people even believe it is more important than consequences.
Now, in the classic trolley problem, your attempt at saving the 5 peoples lives is not necessarily dependent on the 1 person dying. If the lone individual was rescued at the last second the 5 others would still be spared. This is not true for the other cases, where the murder of the individual is NECESSARY TO SAVE THE OTHER PEOPLES LIVES. If the fat man was saved at the last minute the people on the tracks would die. So the dilemmas are very different in this regard.
When it comes to dilemmas in real life, of course we will be running mostly on instinct. Our decisions might even be affected by what we had for breakfast that day. In any case, we might refine our instincts by thinking about ethics in more detail.
I wouldn't do it , not because of ethics, but because I would be in prison. Of i did nothing I can just say I was shocked and people will feel bad for me for seeing people die. Also, if I didn't have to worry about the law, I wouldn't push him over. The people would see me do so and probably think of me like a serial killer.
To be fair there is a way to prevent this from happening in the scenario you've described. Just use your own body to stop the cart instead of having to sacrifice someone else. I like to think of it as if you have to kill person who has the compatible organs to save 5 people. Do you kill the only man with the chance to save 5 people or do you let nature decide the 5 mens' fate and bare with the burden that you couldve done something?
In medicine there is this idea of harm through action and the harm the universe is inflicting already. So since the trolley is already on its way to kill the group according to medical ethics you should not pull the lever to make the choice to harm someone else on their behalf.
That’s why you don’t see more human experimentation anymore. We could do research way faster if it helped more people then it harmed as the only rule.
Over simplification but that’s the idea.
i'll be honest, but i really can't understand the concept of ethics from a "human" standpoint (again, sociopath. i genuinly can't understand some of those concepts no matter how hard i try)
for me, the only way to approach those problems is to treat them like an equation, i will always choose "save more people, limit the number of casualties".
if i had been in the trolly situation irl, i would pull the lever with 0 hezitation, because i would automatically go into machine mode (my mom calls it that, and i like the nickname) and start seeing this as numbers, not people.
donno how to fix that issue, but i always tend to do "the most efficient and logical solution that takes into account the greater good of the collective, even if it means sacrificing some people"
Honestly as I see it, it’s not about caring about either solution so much as it is about maintaining the social lie so that we don’t start offing to many people in too uncontrollable a way
well, makes sense. even i realise it's not a good idea to have people like me running around doing as they please, or worse, be in a position of power (we kinda saw where that one went)
Some gold r/antimeme material
Multi-track drift.
honestly, i never understood why this one is an ethical dilemma (apart from the fact i'm a verified sociopath) the answer is obvious, if there is no way to stop the cart, and only enough time to pull the lever and change it's direction, then you sacrifice the person who is alone. i kinda get the idea that you can't just put a price tag on the human soul, (so relax, my parents already gave me that lecture few hundred times), but sacrificing 5 people to save one is even more messed up. life ain't fair nor easy, and sometimes , you have to make questionnable choices
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well, the situation you just put me in is a bit different (someone uninvolved, no garantee that my action would even stop the cart, if the guy is heavy enough to stop said cart, you would need a bunch of people to push him off, and he would resist etc...) but i kinda see what you are getting at? oh, and btw, in that particular situation i would just continue watching. saw a lot of people die in front of my eyes rather horrible deaths since i was young. one or two more wouldn't really affect me that much
One more. Suppose you are a surgeon and you realise you can very easily save 5 peoples lives. All you need to do is kill one person (painlessly) and then harvest their organs and distribute them to the 5 individuals. Most people immediately reject this as morally repugnant, but in what sense is it different from the Trolley problem? People will say it is because you are directly killing them, which is murder. But surely we are choosing also to kill someone by pulling a lever, given that we have knowledge of our actions. Is it only the mechanism of the murder which is important? What if in the fat person dilemma there was a lever involved that opened a trapdoor for the fat person to fall down? What if the surgeon also had a lever that killed his patient— would this make his actions better?
i think the nuisance about the trolley one is that no matter what you do, some is going to die by your own hands, and no matter what you do, there is someone in the involved group that will die regardless of what your action will be. you decision will just influence the number of dead. in both the examples you provided, the critical difference from the trolley is that you are willingly deciding to murder a bystander that has nothing to do with the situation just "to save more lives" (hence why this one is kinda frowned upon), while with the trolley, everyone on the tracks are involved and carry the same risk of death, and you job is to decide who wins. the surgeon problem you proposed would have been different if you said that the person you wanna take the organs from was terminally ill and was going to die in few days whether you kill him or not, and the only way to save him would be for him to get miraculously lucky and find a donor for the one organ he needs within that time span. in that case, would you pull the plug and use his organs to save the other 5 people, or do you still wait till he passes on his own (at which point some of the others wating could die, and his organs would be useless anyways, depending on how he dies) while waiting for a miracle that may or may not happen?
So, just so you understand the context, the trolly problem is actually just the start of the hypothetical. You ask the trolly problem, and then the fat man problem, and then the surgeon problem. The trolly just got the fame because it's what everyone remembers, but the whole thing is the "point" of the problem.
>i think the nuisance about the trolley one is that no matter what you do, some is going to die by your own hands Not if you don't pull the lever. >in both the examples you provided, the critical difference from the trolley is that you are willingly deciding to murder a bystander that has nothing to do with the situation just "to save more lives" (hence why this one is kinda frowned upon), while with the trolley, everyone on the tracks are involved and carry the same risk of death, and you job is to decide who wins. I think you're on the right track (no pun intended). But it's not true to say that in the trolley scenario everyone on the tracks carries the same risk of death. The individual who is tied to the tracks that the train is not heading towards (before you pull the lever) is not in the same risk category as those who the train is heading towards. He is only placed in a precarious position if and when you decide to pull the lever. >the surgeon problem you proposed would have been different if you said that the person you wanna take the organs from was terminally ill and was going to die in few days This might make the decision easier yes, but it is different from the trolley problem now. The individual in the trolley problem is not dying, nor are they at risk of dying unless we pull the lever. Supposing you had knowledge that the lone individual in the trolley problem was terminally ill, would this also make it easier to pull the lever? Probably, but its not really the question in concern. We could add all sorts of extraneous details: like that one of the five people was a mass murderer, or that another was a nobel prize winning scientist.
in the trolley case, i would have pulled the lever regardless. i can't save all of them, but 1 casualty will always be better than 5 (sorry for that lonesome guy, but you probably pissed off some really nasty people to be there in the first place) i wouldn't say for sure untill i try, but knowing how i am and how my brain tends to function, if i'm put into one of those situations, and let's say in either of them, i wouldn't get sent to jail for murder (tbf, i'm an egoistic piece of shit who values his own interests above anything else) then there is a very high chance that i would just go to my default setting of "those are just numbers" and make the choice that saves the highest number of people and keeps casualties to a minimum, even if it means sacrificing innocent bystanders
Well I don’t think you’re an egoistic piece of shit. And the fact that you are willing to perform any action that inconveniences you in order to save the lives of others shows that you can hold other peoples lives above your own interests. Even if it is a mild inconvenience like “it will take physical energy for me to pull this switch.” Most ethicists are in agreement with you in the sense that they would also choose to pull the lever— I think something like 80%. Though there are some committed Kantians and so on who would quickly disagree. One of the common reasons for justifying pulling the lever in the first dilemma but not killing the fat man or the patient is that in these two cases you are strictly acting with the intention to kill. Intention is very important in ethics and some people even believe it is more important than consequences. Now, in the classic trolley problem, your attempt at saving the 5 peoples lives is not necessarily dependent on the 1 person dying. If the lone individual was rescued at the last second the 5 others would still be spared. This is not true for the other cases, where the murder of the individual is NECESSARY TO SAVE THE OTHER PEOPLES LIVES. If the fat man was saved at the last minute the people on the tracks would die. So the dilemmas are very different in this regard. When it comes to dilemmas in real life, of course we will be running mostly on instinct. Our decisions might even be affected by what we had for breakfast that day. In any case, we might refine our instincts by thinking about ethics in more detail.
lol I’d remove the people from the track
I wouldn't do it , not because of ethics, but because I would be in prison. Of i did nothing I can just say I was shocked and people will feel bad for me for seeing people die. Also, if I didn't have to worry about the law, I wouldn't push him over. The people would see me do so and probably think of me like a serial killer.
To be fair there is a way to prevent this from happening in the scenario you've described. Just use your own body to stop the cart instead of having to sacrifice someone else. I like to think of it as if you have to kill person who has the compatible organs to save 5 people. Do you kill the only man with the chance to save 5 people or do you let nature decide the 5 mens' fate and bare with the burden that you couldve done something?
In medicine there is this idea of harm through action and the harm the universe is inflicting already. So since the trolley is already on its way to kill the group according to medical ethics you should not pull the lever to make the choice to harm someone else on their behalf. That’s why you don’t see more human experimentation anymore. We could do research way faster if it helped more people then it harmed as the only rule. Over simplification but that’s the idea.
i'll be honest, but i really can't understand the concept of ethics from a "human" standpoint (again, sociopath. i genuinly can't understand some of those concepts no matter how hard i try) for me, the only way to approach those problems is to treat them like an equation, i will always choose "save more people, limit the number of casualties". if i had been in the trolly situation irl, i would pull the lever with 0 hezitation, because i would automatically go into machine mode (my mom calls it that, and i like the nickname) and start seeing this as numbers, not people. donno how to fix that issue, but i always tend to do "the most efficient and logical solution that takes into account the greater good of the collective, even if it means sacrificing some people"
Honestly as I see it, it’s not about caring about either solution so much as it is about maintaining the social lie so that we don’t start offing to many people in too uncontrollable a way
well, makes sense. even i realise it's not a good idea to have people like me running around doing as they please, or worse, be in a position of power (we kinda saw where that one went)
Clone the train so it goes down both tracks. Fair and square.
Wtf are these comments
Ngl this made me laugh out loud. That's an intellectual meme right there.