The problem here is that the context in which I’m faced with the actual trolley problem is vital. The most plausible way I’d be faced with such a problem (and I didn’t say “plausible,” I said “most plausible”) is that a demon is fucking with me (cite)
If that’s what’s happening, then my choice doesn’t matter.
Second most plausible? A sociopathic villain is fucking with me. And if that’s the case, I can’t trust the conditions around it: the sociopath is clearly out for maximum suffering, and will not honor the conditions of the hypothetical. The best choice in this case is to attack the sociopathic villain and try to overpower them, so that they can’t continue their sociopathic plans.
Sure, it’s an interesting hypothetical, but only because it illuminates some of the inconsistencies in our moral impulses. When it’s used to cast aspersions on people who disagree, I’m not really down with that.
Exactly. And this is the context in which it is raised 99% of the time.
It seems we have implicit rules of thumb when judging what is the most moral action, and sometimes those rules conflict, and we become unsure and/or inconsistent.
I would say it’s something like an optical illusion…hear me out.
To me, optical illusions really show how well our brain parse visual data, because most of the time we are unaware of the vast amount of image processing / analysis that the brain does, and it takes a contrived example to confuse that system.
Well, our “rules of thumb” works well for most of us, most of the time. So well in fact that we think we have a single, unambiguous moral take on any situation. It takes a contrived example to break that.
Agree with this also. Prior to this thread, I hadn’t heard anyone casting aspersions.
Those criticizing anyone who doesn’t turn the trolley to hit the single person: are you prepared to throw the fat person in the way? Do you see your own decision in that situation in the same bad light?
Logic alone can’t tell us what is moral or immoral. What it can tell us is what follows from the premises we are working with. And a big part of the value of hypotheticals like the trolley problem is that they help us clarify what those premises are.
If a logical application of your moral principles, in a real or hypothetical situation, would require you to do something that offends your moral sensibilities, you can then go on to investigate whether that means that your moral principles are wrong or inadequate, or your logic is faulty, or your moral sensibilities could use recalibration, or there are other factors you’ve neglected to consider (and, if so, what those are).
Seconding @Thudlow_Boink : great analogy, and it might help me understand why I like this sort of philosophical puzzle, even if I don’t think it has immediate practical implications.
I’m not sure if you are including me in that group or not. But if you are…
I don’t think that I am criticizing anyone who refuses to throw the lever, or push the fat man. I may very well find myself in a situation where I am unwilling to do so.
I am saying that objectively speaking there is a morally preferable outcome.
Because that pulling the lever and killing one person while saving four is a given. The way you state the second option I’d have to throw said fat man off the bridge and have him land in such a way that he blocks the trolley. But it’s not obvious that you’ll do it right,. You may end up killing five people anyway, and have to live with the guilt of having sacrificed an innocent person.
There is a trolley barreling down the tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, as the trolley leaves the next station, a passenger boarding the trolley will drop a package of fireworks on the platform, causing the fireworks to explode and knock over a luggage scale, killing another passenger. Do you have a duty to pull the lever?
This is what I mean about fighting hypotheticals. The point is to explore whether more direct agency in killing the person makes a difference in the decision you should make, not to speculate about the exact mechanics of dropping a fat man onto the track such that he blocks the trolley.
We can try to craft a more precise hypothetical (maybe there are two tracks, one with five people on it and one with none, but the switch requires electricity and is currently unplugged, and there is only one outlet; but it is taken by some guy’s life support equipment, so if you want to plug in the switch and save the five people you first have to unplug the guy on life support) but if you wanted to you could fight that hypothetical as well.
Eta:
Yeah, that’s a much better way to say what I spent a whole paragraph saying.
I think fighting the hypothetical is intrinsic to evaluating the problem.
In nearly all the hypotheticals, you’re nearly certain of all outcomes. But real life doesn’t work that way.
In the real-world examples (such as killing one person to harvest organs to save others), the negative consequences are essentially certain, but the positive consequences aren’t. In real-world examples, there are always other options to try out. It’s totally legitimate to fight the hypothetical, to say that you won’t accept an artificially-constrained choice and will instead try to find a third way.
Now I’m really struggling not to make an analogy to two-party elections.
It makes a difference in the way I gut-respond to it, so, no, they’re not equivalent.
If you want to say “what if you have to get your hands dirty actually causing the death of the fat man”, then just say so. Don’t accuse me of screwing with your poorly-thought-out hypothertical.
Fighting the hypothetical would be fine if the thought experiment was meant to be a morality barometer, but it isn’t. It’s specifically about how morality isn’t a fungible resource or an easy yes/no switch.
You’ve been teaching a long time. Tell me you’ve never had a troubled kid who was eating up a disproportionate amount of your emotional and professional bandwidth. That’s a trolley problem.
I’m going to go ahead and pull the lever that swings my trolley car away from engaging with your hostility.
I agree, but again, the purpose of the trolley problem hypothetical isn’t to understand how to practically deal with runaway trolleys; it’s to explore how we prioritize two conflicting interests, those being personal culpability and minimizing harm.
Of course, these aren’t the only two factors in a real world situation. But when you fight the hypothetical, all you are doing is avoiding engagement with that particular comparison.
But here you are insisting that details matter without knowing what the details are, or even what the scenario is. So how come your so sure they’re important? What would you do with the details once you have them, if not apply various moral principles/intuitions to them?
I think the key point is that while it’s an interesting thought experiment in theory. In practice there is absolutely no way of knowing what will happen when you pull the switch or if pulling the switch is the only (or best) way to save the people in the tracks.
Inevitably almost always IRL when there is some kind of “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” situation, or at least whenever such claims are made (Tuskegee experiments, Iraq Invasion, etc):
There are more people “tied to the other side of the tracks” than claimed.
The people tied to one set of tracks tends to be the same race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, etc. of the person making the decision, and the other side are not.
That’s what makes it interesting, though. You have an engineered problem with absolute clarity of outcomes, the same trade of 1 life for 5 lives, and the decision is still difficult.
You’re the Trolley Safety Director and through a mishap 6 people are on the tracks, do you keep the trolley on the track with 5 people or direct it to the track with 1?
You’re a passenger on the trolley, notice the driver is unconscious, and that the trolley is headed to run over 5 people, do you make the decision to switch to the track with 1?
Johnny Bravo’s fat man problem, do you shove a guy on the tracks to derail it, or let the trolley run over 5 people?
LHOD’s organ problem, 5 people have come in with different organs missing due to a serial organ thief, and one healthy universal donor dude just arrived for a colonoscopy. Do you cut that guy up to save the other 5?
It’s a school shooter situation, and you can lock the door that has 5 people behind it or the door that has 1, and you only have time to lock one door and hide the key before the shooter comes around the corner.
Each case relates to whether or not it is right to sacrifice one life to save 5, but our feelings about each case may be very, very different, ranging from “of course you sacrifice the 1” to “are you insane?”
