I’m going to support @ASL_v2.0’s POV, although with some caveats. First, that it’s rarely (to be expected) all one thing or another. People can and do use it to stimulate honest discussions on comparative morality, but people ALSO use it (or, at least, similar reasoning) to throw some individual or group under the hypothetical bus/trolley to advance some other goal. Or are just being psychotic little shits.
I fully grant that most if not all the people participating in this thread are in the first group I mentioned. The last group, the psychotic little shits, is, IMHO more the realm of young teens / college students [and those who never outgrow such traits] who are getting their first taste of absolute self-righteousness and unspeakable surety (a group I will -fully- and ruefully include myself in as a teen, and don’t get me started on Bartleby the Scrivener and “I would prefer not too” at a similar age!), who will proudly sneer at others while hugging their moral absolutes.
It’s the group in the middle that’s the most troublesome IMHO. People who say that nearly anything is justifiable (correctly or NOT) if it accomplishes a greater good. The sort of people who point to all the lives saved by the research compiled by Nazi doctors through unspeakably inhumane experiments. Or who say that US/North American has accomplished more than the natives ever could have, justifying the displacement and death of the original inhabitants.
No, these aren’t how the Trolley Problem should be used in an ideal world, or similar arguments, but like our earlier complaint about Schrödinger, that’s how a lot of people with an agenda actually use said thought experiments and comparative morality.
I specified several examples, although as I said in the section you’ve quoted, similar reasoning rather than explicit uses of the trolley problem laid out as such.
Rather than going back and forth, here’s an discussion from Brittanica about some of the concerns using the reasoning of the Trolley Experiment and the more general theory behind it, and yes, it includes examples.
The doctrine of double effect, as Foot herself pointed out, is vulnerable to counterexamples if it is formulated too broadly as the principle that actions that have foreseeable bad consequences are morally permissible as long as those consequences are not directly intended—i.e., as long as they are intended only obliquely.
I see the Trolley Problem as a straightforward “what would you do?” scenario in which you’re asked to quickly choose between two very bad outcomes. Its value is minimal and mainly lies in self-reflection—asking yourself, “hmmm, what would I do in this dilemma?” Sure, you can throw in any number of contingencies and alternate scenarios, and there’s no rule against that, but those are different thought experiments. Additionally, discussing your “solutions” in an open forum often leads to virtue signaling. That’s why its primary (and simple) value is in self-reflection.
For what it’s worth - I suspect very little - you can read Philippa Foot’s original formulation of the Trolley Problem here. (This comes with a mild content warning, see below).
Various points are worth noting, I think.
The problem appears in a 1967 essay titled “Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect”. The purpose of the essay is to engage with a specific moral argument about when it is permissible or justified to take actions which result in the loss of life. Specifically, the argument from the doctrine of double effect made by those opposed to abortion is that there is a distinction between medical interventions which might save an expectant mother’s life at the expense of an unborn child (e.g. a hysterectomy of a womb containing a viable foetus) and those which save an expectant mother’s life by means in which the destruction of the foetus is not merely foreseeable but intended. The essay examines this doctrine and the moral challenges it throws up, not merely on the question of the morality of abortion but in general.
(The content warning comes here: the essay contains some medical descriptions of procedures which result in the loss of a foetus. They are not sensationalised, but they are not pleasant reading either.)
The original Trolley Problem therefore is intended not as a moral test of the reader in its own right, but as a means of illustrating and elucidating certain facets of the doctrine of double effect.
As mentioned above, the Trolley Problem is presented in contrast to a similar moral dilemma. This is not however, the Fat Man problem, nor the Hospital Patient problem. It is the Mob Justice problem, in which a judge threatened by a mob must choose whether or not to frame an innocent person in order to prevent the lynching of five innocents. But the fact that is paired is important - the Trolley Problem is not a stand-alone gotcha but part of a rounded consideration of moral intuitions and principles. Numerous other problems are also presented in the essay as Foot works her way towards a conclusion about the relevance and utility of the doctrine of double effect.
All that said,
The doctrine of double effect:
The doctrine of the double effect is based on a distinction between what a man foresees as a result of his voluntary action and what, in the strict sense, he intends. He intends in the strictest sense both those things that he aims at as ends and those that he aims at as means to his ends. The latter may be regretted in themselves but nevertheless desired for the sake of the end, as we may intend to keep dangerous lunatics confined for the sake of our safety. By contrast a man is said not strictly, or directly, to intend the foreseen consequences of his voluntary actions where these are neither the end at which he is aiming nor the means to this end. Whether the word “intention” should be applied in both cases is not of course what matters: Bentham spoke of "oblique intention,” contrasting it with the “direct intention” of ends and means, and we may as well follow his terminology. Everyone must recognize that some such distinction can be made, though it may be made in a number of different ways, and it is the distinction that is crucial to the doctrine of the double effect. The words “double effect” refer to the two effects that an action may produce: the one aimed at, and the one foreseen but in no way desired. By “the doctrine of the double effect” I mean the thesis that it is sometimes permissible to bring about by oblique intention what one may not directly intend.
The original Trolley Problem:
Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible it 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; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the case of the riots the mob have five hostages, so that in both the exchange is supposed to be one man’s life for the lives of five. The question is why we should say, without hesitation, that the driver should steer for the less occupied track, while most of us would be appalled at the idea that the innocent man could be framed.
The immediate commentary is worth quoting too:
It may be suggested that the special feature of the latter case is that it involves the corruption of justice, and this is, of course, very important indeed. But if we remove that special feature, supposing that some private individual is to kill an innocent person and pass him off as
the criminal we still find ourselves horrified by the idea. The doctrine of double effect offers us a way out of the difficulty, insisting that it is one thing to steer towards someone foreseeing that you will kill him and another to aim at his death as part of your plan. Moreover there is one very important element of good in what is here insisted. In real life it would hardly ever be certain that the man on the narrow track would be killed. Perhaps he might find a foothold on the side of the tunnel and cling on as the vehicle hurtled by. The driver of the tram does not then leap off and brain him with a crowbar.It may be suggested that the special feature of the latter case is that it involves the corruption of justice, and this is, of course, very important indeed. But if we remove that special feature, supposing that some private individual is to kill an innocent person and pass him off as the criminal we still find ourselves horrified by the idea. The doctrine of double effect offers us a way out of the difficulty, insisting that it is one thing to steer towards someone foreseeing that you will kill him and another to aim at his death as part of your plan. Moreover there is one very important element of good in what is here insisted. In real life it would hardly ever be certain that the man on the narrow track would be killed. Perhaps he might find a foothold on the side of the tunnel and cling on as the vehicle hurtled by. The driver of the tram does not then leap off and brain him with a crowbar.
Since you know that the other dopers will fight yhe hypothetical regardless of your actions, you may as well fight the hypothetical also. Basic game theory.
I have no idea where you’re getting this from. It’s not that at all.
The trolley problem, and its follow up, the organ donation problem, is just a way to inquire into our moral intuitions. Generally, it’s better if fewer people suffer. I think everyone agrees with that. But what if you have to act to kill the smaller number of people? You okay with that? If you are in the trolley problem context, what about the organ donation context? What is it that makes one acceptable but the other not? I still don’t have a clear answer, though I have a few ideas.
Also, while I’m here, I never got where the people being chained to the track came from. I think it’s when the thing became a meme. When I first heard the problem it was about track workers who couldn’t get out of the way in time. Given the safety standards of 19th century mines and rail yards, I would not be surprised to learn that some real person had to make that choice.
Well, that maybe explains the one-acceptable-but-the-other-not switcheroo: you’re not a track worker, but you are someone who could be torn apart for your succulent organs.
But you kill someone either way. You’re falling for the silly fallacy that doing nothing is different from doing something. It’s not. Not logically and not morally.
I’d like to follow up by gesturing in the general direction of another fallacy: the slippery slope.
Let’s say you want to live in a world where you have a get-out-of-jail-free card — in that, when you can say, hey, man, I was just standing here, minding my own business, the authorities will leave you be. Oh, sure, you can waive that; you could sign a contract agreeing to do X, just like you’ve been informed that doing Y involves acquiring a duty to do Z — but so long as you don’t do any of that, so long as you can put the whole matter aside with a whiny but I didn’t dooo anything, you’re legally in the clear.
Let’s say that, if you’re ever accused of not helping that panhandler who just keeled over, or that patient who needed an organ, or that guy who got hit by a trolley, or whatever, you don’t want to get into an argument over whether you’ll be jailed or sentenced to hard labor or executed at dawn or whatever; you want the right to preempt any such argument by saying uh, I’m legally in the clear. If you’re ever in any situation where (a) you’ve done nothing and (b) you want to avoid getting locked up by a society that may or may not be big on firing squads, you want for that society to have given you a clearly-marked path to avoiding any such penalties with a minimum of effort: by continuing to do nothing.
Let’s also say that you’re right that doing nothing isn’t logically or morally different from doing something. But could the above sentiment, among enough of the populace, explain why there’d be a desire for some kind of all-purpose default answer when it comes to what am I to do, in this or that scenario, if my goal is to avoid legal responsibility — as opposed to moral responsibility or logical responsibility?
You raise the completely valid point that our criminal legal system, and to a lesser degree our civil legal system, do recognize a distinction between doing nothing and doing something. And it’s a hefty one.
There are limited circumstances where the civil law imposes a “duty to act” or “duty of care” on an otherwise disinterested bystander. The existence of those limited circumstances proves the more general rule that in all other circumstances there is no duty. No legal duty that is.
I suppose my overall response would be “Yeah. So?”. Or more formally, your point is 100% correct but also 100% irrelevant.
If the question is “what is the best ethical moral solution to the trolley problem?”, then the legal answer is immaterial. That IMO is what the Capital T Capital P Trolley Problem is all about.
If the question is instead “What would you really do if you really encountered a real runaway trolley in the real world and had the presence of mind to fully apprehend the situation and the tradeoffs and had time to act on your understanding?”, well then that question / situation totally does include the legal dimension and I’d expect any quality response to include ethical, moral, and legal inputs to their answer. Which strongly biases the “least bad” answer to “do nothing”. It certainly biases the “least bad for me” answer towards “do nothing”. (and “feign ignorance” later if asked, but that’s a meta-question.)
It’s been said over and over. You’re allowing people to die. More people than would have had died had you acted. I forget what that’s called… something about washing your hands of the matter was it?
Of course doing nothing is different from doing something.
I could (just about) afford to donate $10,000 to a hospital in the third world, and likely that would save at least one life. Is not doing that the same as murdering someone?
Or, closer to the examples in this thread, I still have two kidneys. Am I guilty of the murder of someone that died of kidney failure?
While most moral systems of course believe there are circumstances where we are compelled to act, none go as far as claiming in all circumstances inaction and action are the same, otherwise there is little you could do to organise your own life.
You’re falling for the silly fallacy of thinking humans are governed by Asimov’s laws. We’re not. In fact, even our actual robot’s aren’t, and probably never will be, because Asimov’s laws are garbage. But I digress…
If you think acting to harm is the (human) moral equivalent of refraining to act to save, I’ve got news for you: morally, you’re a murderer. There are people you could be saving right now if only you’d put in the effort.
But the reality is, that’s not really how humanity developed, as evidenced both by our laws around homicide and this very conversation, which we are cheerfully having in lieu of saving everyone we possibly can. That’s why trying to reduce human moral decision-making to mere abstraction is such a bad idea. You lose sight of the real world and how humans actually developed within it.
Are you joking? Is it a magical $10,000 that likely cures a non-specific person of an unknown disease and only if you provide the magical money and no one else can do anything to prevent that death? In that case it’s still not the same as murder just like willful inaction in the Trolley Problem is not murder.
No, I am not joking, I am responding to @LSL’s point that it is a “fallacy” to believe that doing nothing is different from doing something.
The fact that you’re adding on constraints – that inaction is only blameworthy if I was in the unique position to save a life – implies you agree with me.
That it is no “fallacy” to say that actions and inaction cannot trivially be equated.
Even if that is the case that is hardly an issue with the trolley problem. Do those people have these abhorrent views because of the trolley problem? Of course not.
I’d say the trolley problem is just exposing their views which is inherently a good thing. Or to be nuanced about it the trolley problem is exposing the inherent contradictions of utilitarian ethical philosophy which is what these people are using (or misusing) to justify their terrible beliefs.