It’s an interesting issue. I agree with the majority that it’s moral to sacrifice one person to save five others in the first scenario but it’s not moral to sacrifice one person to save five others in the second scenario. But I can’t explain why I feel differently about the two cases.
I’d like to take this opportunity to shill for my new favorite podcast, which has tackled this very problem. It’s called “Radio Lab” and though it’s been on a while, I just discovered it a month or so ago (when This American Life used a segment from RadioLab on their show).
Anyway, RadioLab did an episode entitled “Morality”, and it began with what I believe is the original form of The Trolley Problem. They delve into the “brain science” behind why this may be so, and while they don’t come to a definite conclusion (and I find myself discomforted by some of the science), the discussion is fascinating!
Their website is here, and like I said, the relevant episode is titled “Morality”.
[ol]
[li] kill the one. being in the trolley puts the onus of doing something solely on you, and in that short time it’s just a numbers decision. not doing anything would be a conscious decision to kill the five on your part. [/li][] kill the five. being a doctor the onus on you is to do everything in your power to save the lives of your patients; and certainly murder is not a valid option available to a doctor. saving the five would mean murder, having the one volunteer or even to present such a choice to the healthy man would be soliciting suicide. [/ol] * interestingly, i might change my choice for this scenario if i was not on the trolley. that is, if a heroic action is required on my part to jump on the trolley and save the five.
Our duty is to see to the greater good.
If we were in a world where there were only six people alive, then harvesting the one for organs might make sense. In a world where the majority of people are healthy and the imminent end of the species isn’t depending on this, the individual rights of each person are much more important than saving five ill people. Illness happens and people die. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this.
In my opinion, the first problem is not just about your ethics.
You have 6 stupid people (in two groups) who are standing on trolley tracks just below the crest of a hill and not listening for a trolley. 
You also work for a company that doesn’t do maintenance and doesn’t build in safety systems. :smack:
Given all that I would tell the interviewer that I would run over 5 stupid people, as it would make the World a better place. :rolleyes:
I would also ask him about the people concerned. Are any of them of breeding age? Because the survivial of the human race matters more to me…
In the second case, I would blame God. He designed these bodies badly. 
But if you really want an ‘ethics’ answer, I would say that in the first case the situation means that even no action by you means someone will die. Therefore you may as well kill the minimum.
In the second case there is no need for you to kill anyone.
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Hit the five people. They are in the path of the trolley. They one guy isn’t. I’d be pretty upset if you decided to run me over because a group of idiots decided to walk in the path of the trolley. Well for that brief second before my death anyway.
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Those five people are a goner, unless the healthy guy is going to volunteer. I doubt I’d even inform him of the other patients. I’m not one to force a shitty decision on another person. The five people are suffering from fate and it’s a slut. It will screw anyone.
Unless I’m missing something here, in the first scenario, you have two choices: kill five people or kill one person. No matter what, at least one person will die.
In the second, your choices are to kill one person or to kill no people. Or does the hypothetical assume that the perfect donor is the only chance for these people? I think my hesitation to kill the perfect donor stems from my implicit assumption that the need for an organ transplant is not an instant death sentence the way getting run over by a trolley is.
So what if people are fighting the hypothetical? Sometimes, the only reasonable answer is a slap in the face.
The hypothetical has omitted mention of the surgeon’s hippocratic oath, which means he has pledged not to do such things as sacrificing the life of a healthy patient simply because others might be saved.
A surgeon who fails to do this will not be held in any way responsible for the deaths of the five others, whereas the trolley driver will be considered as involved in any death his trolley causes.
Part one, take out the 1 person.
Part two, explain the situation to the healthy guy and let him decide.
The difference is in one you have to make the life or death decision, in part 2 you don’t.
Nobody’s mentioned the time issue. In the first scenario you only have seconds to make a decision, so of course you will make a different decision then one you approach in cool blood and being able to think about it.
These situations don’t seem remotely the same to me, but I can’t entirely put my finger on why, other than that timing thing. It’s the difference between shooting a man who is currently, at this moment, beating his wife, and shooting a man who beats his wife every day but at the moment is having a beer.
To me it is obvious, in the first one the power of life and death is solely given to you, in the second this is not the case, you can take it into your hands, but you can also involve others.
Could it be that the moral imperative not to harm is stronger than the moral imperative to help?
so in scenario1, you choose to not harm 5 people, which outweighs the resulting harm to the one, whereas in scenario2, you are not the one harming the 5 dying patients, so the moral imperative here is not to harm the one, rather than choosing to help the 5
or am i just babbling?
Agreed. I imagine that in that split second where a decision is required I would not think about hitting five people versus hitting just one person, but rather something along the lines of “Holy shit - there are people in the track. Oh wait - there’s a spur maybe I can use that. Damn - that’s not an option because there’s somebody there.” As **boytyperanma ** points out, the person in the spur is innocent. Suppose you were driving and there were five drunks walking right in front of you against a light. They are completely at fault, but the only way you could avoid them would be to swerve onto the sidewalk where a little girl was playing with her dolly. Would you really intentionally hit the little girl in order to spare the drunks?
In the first scenerio, you’re making a split second decision to choose the lesser of two tragedies.
In the second scenerio, you’re contemplating murder.
Seems pretty clear to me why one’s preferable over the other.
the 5 drunks are all nobel laureates and the little girls dolly is full of crack which she is delivering. Could be anyway, from your perspective in the trolley you don’t know. For the purposes of this exercise I think it is assumed that all the people are equally worthy.
I have a feeling this is not a recently-created variant. 
Worth has nothing to do with it. My example was tongue-in-cheek. I chose it to emphasise that it is not just a question of numbers - the people who knowingly put themselves in danger are responsible for what might happen to them. Can you imagine how a court case might play out if you actually *chose * to hit somebody? IANAL but I believe that’s called manslaughter. “But judge, I only decided to kill the person who was minding their own business because the brakes weren’t working and the trolley would have run into those other five people who by their own choice were standing in the middle of the tracks on a hill.”
ETA: If it were merely a question of numbers, what would you do if there were five people on the track, and four on the spur?
The first thing I thought upon seeing the thread title was “It goes ‘clang, clang, clang’.” I am so gay.
OK, enough lurking.
I think the difference in the two situations comes down to this: in the case of the trolley victims or the organ doner, you are talking about taking away their naturally-given lives. In the case of the 5 patients, you are talking about giving extensions to their already nearly-expired natural-lives. Through some combination of nature, luck, and lifestyle choices, those people have been selected to pass on, and sad as that is it doesn’t match the tragedy of a life stolen away by outside forces.
We’re all given our fair share of life. Handing out an extension is a noble cause, but never at the expense of taking away someone else’s fair share.