Haha.

I think most young boys opt for 'maximum carnage, biggest crash, and biggest explosion'.


Just a note that this hypothetical assumes you have perfect knowledge of what will happen in both choices. There is no doubt. I think if there is any doubt (people on train might survive if you do nothing) I struggle to see how anyone can throw that switch.

But OK with the theme forming here (which I largely agree with) is there a number that changes your view?

1 Person who is 80 years old sitting on a bench who would die versus a train full of 300 grade school kids going on a trip?

1 person versus the 6,680 passengers and 2,200 person crew, The Symphony of the Seas cruise ship can hold?

Is it the ratio of 4:50 that makes you hold to your principles or are your principles absolute here?

If you know for certain that 8,880 Passengers and crew on that cruise ship will die and you can divert in a way they all live but your action kills one other person, would you?

If there is a 20% chance that all 50 on the train survive and an 80% chance they all die, and you faced this decision every day for the next 1000 days, then your sin of omission has cost about 36,000 lives.

The refusal to be responsible for an innocent person's death even if it will save many others is not an admirable trait. It is a selfish one because the real reason most non religious people invoke this non utilitarian stance is because it lets them avoid doing something that will make them feel bad. But except for the "God's will" argument they really don't have a leg to stand on.

To show this imagine you lived in a country where the 50 vs 4 trolley problem came up all the time in a purely random manner. You have no control over whether you will be one of those 54. But you can vote for who will make the decision as to whether to pull the switch if you are ever in that circumstance. Assuming someone perfectly understands the scenario and assuming one candidate is certain to pull the switch and the other candidate is certain not to, I'm guessing 90% of non religious voters would vote for the first guy.

The Trolley Dilemma ceases to be interesting, in my opinion, if its appearance is commonplace. If the scenario was commonplace, trains would be outlawed.

Thanks.

But, as GreatWhiteFish pointed out, there is a principle in play here.


No.

Say there is no car with a family, just a safe track. Are people saying that they still wouldn't pull the switch to divert the train, because the crash is a "natural event" and the passengers accepted the risk? That's absurd.



The ethics of committing a lesser evil to avoid a greater evil is covered in religion by Thomas Aquinas Law of Double Effect. Its okay to do so or else we would not be allowed self-defense against a homicidal attack. So diverting the train in the original trolley problem is morally defensible.

Except that it isn't a principal. Dying is a natural consequence of driving in a world with trolley problems the exact same amount as it is a natural consequence of being on a trolley or in the path of a trolley.

Most people would kill a single individual not only to keep 8,880 others from dying but also to keep 8,880 people from having to wear a mask.

Is a simple utilitarian justification for deciding based only on EV, possibly a naive version of utilitarianism? What about ideas like fairness, rights of the minority, rights of the individual? How about the value of "mind your own business"? If you pull the switch and get sued for wrongful death by the families of the 4, what's the chance they would win in court? What would it mean for the culture?

Suppose instead of the 4 in the car you could have 4 people chosen at random? Would this have negative effects on society? What if you had 4 people chosen by an A.I. based on their usefulness to society? Suppose there is no train but an A.I. told you that killing 4 useless eaters would reduce the overall death rate by 50 people?


PairTheBoard

I'm pretty sure that no people posting in this thread are saying that.


I like Aquinas a lot. But I'm not sure that the homicidal attack analogy works here, because everyone in the Trolley Dilemma is innocent, while the homicidal maniac is perpetrating evil, making him the sole agent who voluntarily assumed the role of accepting punishment for his sin.

The bolded is an excellent point. However, another excellent point is that many theologians would disagree with Aquinas.

Wrong subforum. Additionally, not relevant as the occupants of the automobile did not tithe the proper amount and their lives and souls are thereby forfeit.

How so? Excluding theistic perspectives from a Philosophy Forum would be far more ridiculous than excluding Libertarian perspectives from the Politics Forum, in my opinion.

Huh?

This was settled/decided/decreed quite a long time ago. Kind of like the prohibition on eating lobster, it doesn't matter whether you have false beliefs that it is a ridiculous rule.

Huh?

The car occupants are receiving their fair share of Sklansky life.

Under your "flip a coin" solution, everybody gets an equal (fair) chance to survive. But then you've reduced the EV for survivors from the max of 50 to 27. It's a solution that sacrifices EV for the sake of fairness. It balances naive utilitarianism with the cultural value of fairness.


PairTheBoard

I would say it's impossible to be fair. You cannot distribute both survival chances and Sklansky life fairly.

I think there is no rationale to answer the question. Either way its the decision of the person who is responsible for the switch and as such its his decision and we have to accept it either way.

To me that would be a gut-reaction which I cannot predict without actually being in the situation. My gut right now tells me I wouldnt pull the switch, but then again if I were to work in that job and my duty is to see my train-passengers be as safe as possible, I probably would pull it.

In any way I dont think anyone should be made to pull or not pull the switch based on anything but his own decision. Id be highly suprised if anyone can present me a convincing case for one decison or the other.

Well said. No matter what the switch operator decided to do, I myself wouldn't berate the poor soul who had to make a split-second decision of this magnitude.

I think this goes to my question where I ask people who have stated 'they absolutely would not throw the switch', in an attempt to determine if their positions are absolute or if a bigger number of deaths would change their view.

Is it that 4 deaths versus 50 deaths is not enough of a gap to make them act? Or would they not act if it was 4 deaths versus 10K deaths?

That would lead to the question of 'do we think there is a ratio where society generally would think of the person as wrong/monstrous for not acting to save the bigger number at the expense of the smaller???




I think all of these hypotheticals die if we nitpick them for the literal so if we are to have these discussions we must avoid that. For instance one could merely say 'we will never have perfect knowledge thus this entire debate cannot be engaged', but while that is true in reality it is fine to posit we do have 'perfect knowledge' for the sake of hypothetical debate to flesh out the ideas.

If 'trains being outlawed' becomes a point of contention for you instead assume it is an ancient hunter gather society that has re-occurring issues with deadly sickness outbreaks they do not know the cause of. What they do know is the early, pre contagious signs, and that if they immediately send that person into exile (like lepers of old) the spread that typically kills at least 50 others will be avoided. But in this hypothetical that exile equals certain death to hostile environment.

So to David's example, they choose to exile on average what works out to 4 people on a regular basis to save the corresponding 50+ that would die each time if they did not.

Thus far the choice to 'not act' is winning the poll. We have 4 posters who have chosen the answer "I would never throw the switch. We have no right to play God or decision maker here."

Those are GreatWhiteFish, Howard Beale, lagtight, TimM.

If you guys care to opine further i am very curious if skewing the numbers wider would make you change your view.

Say a nuclear bomb that would either hit a population centre killing hundreds of millions (where you have no culpability) or you are given the power to redirect it to an area where when it explodes it will kill 4 people and those 4 are dying by your redirect choice.

Again. The question was not supposed to have details that people can hang their hat on. Change it to:

Somehow you know that five (no need for it to be fifty) people are about to die through no fault of their own. Unless you push a button. If you do, it reduces to four DIFFERENT people. YOU HAVE ZERO OTHER INFORMATION. That essentially reduces the question to "Is the fact that you did something that causes the death of four totally random people somehow a reason to not do it even though it saves five random people?"

To me the only two reasons not to push the button are "God's will" or "I don't want to feel bad" (though of course you should if you are an atheist who doesn't push.)

By the way this isn't a silly hypothetical question. It has happened several times in an almost completely analogous way. I speak of the situation pilots have found themselves in when they think their plane is going down. Regardless of whether they can bail out, they have usually first steered the plane into an area where it figures to kill fewer people even though they have changed the path that nature intended.

Of course this brings up the question that has thus far remained unsaid.

If your reason to not switch to the smaller number is mainly because it is comprised of younger or more admirable people, does that mean that if it was them about to die you would pull the switch to direct the trolley to the large number?

Most everyone would be fine if trolley switches were programmed to derail the car with the fewest people.

Diverting the trolley is correct, while letting 50 people die is wrong.

An event like this has happened in real life where a runaway train headed for metro Los Angeles was purposely derailed into a less populated housing area to prevent a greater disaster. Thankfully the the right thing was done and only a few people were injured.

"Railroad switched cars off main line, knowing derailment 'likely'. Saturday, June 21, 2003
A freight train derails and scatters its load of lumber into homes in Commerce, California. Residents watch train demolish homes

COMMERCE, California (CNN) -- A runaway freight train carrying lumber through Southern California derailed after being switched to a side track Friday in suburban Commerce, which sent its cargo crashing into three homes and left 13 people injured, the Los Angeles Fire Department said."

https://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/West...ils/index.html