You find that you just happen to be standing next to a side track that veers into a sand pit, potentially providing safety for the trolley's five passengers. All you have to do is pull a hand lever to switch the tracks, and you'll save the five people. Sounds easy, right? But there's a problem. Along this offshoot of track leading to the sandpit stands a man who is totally unaware of the trolley's problem and the action you're considering. There's no time to warn him. So by pulling the lever and guiding the trolley to safety, you'll save the five passengers. But you'll kill the man. What do you do?
Consider another, similar dilemma. You're walking along the track again, you notice the trolley is out of control, although this time there is no auxiliary track. But there is a man within arm's reach, between you and the track. He's large enough to stop the runaway trolley. You can save the five people on the trolley by pushing him onto the tracks, stopping the out-of-control vehicle, but you'll kill the man by using him to stop the trolley. Again, what do you do?
Taken from HERE.
The situation here is difficult and complicated. I can tell that this situation is usually used for a psychological test. Why? Because the answer of people can determine whether if they are selfish enough to kill a man or not. Personally, if I am put in that position, I will seek for other alternatives. For example, I will look for other options, potential alternatives that can save both; Passengers and the man. If I am expected to choose between saving the lives of 5 people or 1, I would consider saving 5 people instead of 1. Not that I want to kill a person, but its better than not saving 5 lives. However, a heroic option is also available: you become the victim to save the 5 passengers. This option is available but it is unrealistic. I can say it is unrealistic because I know that human beings are not that nice, we have our own ego to save yourself than to save others.
ReplyDeleteI find the situation above upsetting. To choose between saving five lives or saving a man’s life is very difficult for me. If I were in this situation, I would pull the lever to switch the tracks and save five people. If by doing so I will kill a man, I would still do it. I believe that to save more lives is much more important than just to save one life. It does not mean that I am okay with killing someone. It simply means that I care for five lives more than that man’s life. It would be different if I have a superpower. If I have a superpower like Spider-man does, I would pull the lever to switch the tracks and pull the man with my web at the same time. Of course that will never happen because life is not a movie.
ReplyDeletethis case is a classical philosophical problem about ethic and the right decision to do, the most rational solution in both cases would be to stop the trolley and safe the life of the five people inside, because it is technically the “best” solution by saving the greatest number at least according to the utilitarianism school of thinking and the greater good theory.
ReplyDeleteI believe I would stop the trolley in the first scenario by pulling the lever, it seems fair to do what you can to save the 5 people stuck in the trolley, however in the second case it would be more complicated, pushing someone on the trolley to stop it would mean that I would be the direct reasons of his death, and nobody want that, on the first scenario we only pull the lever so we feel less guilty to sacrifice someone to save the five people in danger.
Life is full of decision making; and one specific example is in this article. In order to make decision, people should really think about the effect and consider many other aspects. But in this case, there is no time left to think and consider aspects; all we know is how to get this trolley stop and save people’s live. Like some other student’s opinion, I would also agree that probably the finest solution is to save the live of the five people and kill the one person rather than the vice versa. Because this decision is all about choosing a priority; saving the live of five person is way better than saving one person’s life isn’t? So this decision is all about time, priority, and number of options we have. Also, please noted that my answer does not intended to any ego or self-preference; is just shows a probable solution that might be done when facing this certain of issue within a limited of time and source.
ReplyDeleteI am aware that in the first dilemma, a lot of people would probably pull the lever to make the trolley go to the direction of the sandpit for a safe landing to save the five people inside, nevertheless killing the man along the track because that’s what I would do as well; before…but this time I would actually choose not to pull the lever because if I do, it also means I would be killing someone in the process where letting five people die by accident wouldn’t be caused by me at all. I would probably feel guilty for the rest of my life for killing someone if I do pull the lever. For the second dilemma, I would probably not push the man as well because that would be worse than pulling the lever as it would be directly killing the man to save the lives inside the trolley and again, I would probably be guilty for the rest of my life for doing so.
ReplyDeleteNo one's life is worth more than other's lives. You save up the lives of the people, then you will be called a savior. But once you kill, even once, accidentally or not, you will still be acknowledged as doing a murder. Nevertheless, we can not always generalize things and the occurrences in life. There many moments where we have to take on chances, make different options. Bad things happen and things do not always go in our plan. In this specific moment as explained in the text, i would still try as hard as i can to save the people in the trolley without having to take on another's life. This may sound like heroic horseshoeee but i will totally go for it, maybe this will give a good meaning to my life. I would jump off and pulling the switch as i hold the man's body who is standing in between.
ReplyDeleteIf ever the man was going to fall, i would push him back to the trolley so he can balance his body by holding to the steer or the switch. Hopefully my grab on his body would be strong enough so he would not fall of the trolley. And also if I was jumping all of a sudden, I am pretty sure the man will soon notice because I will jump by screaming too. As a man seeing another man screaming right in front of your bare eyes, there will be some sort of a connection switch. The best case is that we will hold of each other’s body as I try to pull the switch down. The worst case, still in the hope saving as many lives as we can. I will try to maximize the use of my reflexes on that moment to save the most of lives, even if it takes mine for the sacrifice. No matter what happens, i have tried my best.
DeleteAs a human being, we do have conscious of other human being’s whereabouts. We also tend to do good things towards them and will feel guilty if we do something bad to them. I personally think that it is hard being in a position where we can save lives in certain situations that will cost other lives. For me it is not as simple as saving people with the highest quantity, it is rather of saving all of them or didn’t save any of them. Call me a weirdo but I really think that saving five people’s lives is not something that you could make as a reason to sacrifice one person’s live. Just because the quantity in the trolley is higher than the quantity of a person that you could sacrifice so that those five people could be saved doesn’t mean that it is the right thing to do.
ReplyDeleteIf I’m in that kind of situation I won’t do anything so that the five passengers in the trolley still can’t be saved and the person that can be sacrificed could still be alive (this is considering that there are no other things that you can do to save those five passengers besides sacrificing that one person). It is what it is, and I’m not someone that could judge on who should live and who should die. People may think that if you do that, that means you consider those five people to be dead rather than the one person. Imagine this, someone suffers from a blood deficiency and he/she really need a blood donor with the same blood type as him/her (will not survive if not given the blood immediately). As a person with a different blood type as him/her I can’t force someone with the same blood type to be a donor to him/her. What I’m trying to say is that if you sacrifice the person by pulling the lever, the death of that one person is definitely your fault because you chose to do it, but if you let those five people die, it is not fully your fault because you didn’t do anything.
DeleteIn life, there are many decisions that we have to make. Unfortunately, we can only choose only one decision in every situation. Every decision that we make has it’s own consequences. The incident that is given is a situation that requires us to make a decision in a short time. And it would have to sacrifice someone's life. If there was a way to safe both sides, of course we would choose that. But if I would have to choose either to save 5 people or just 1 person, I would save 5 people. Not that I want to kill the man, but more lives would be saved. There is a possibility that a person would go in to the track and sacrifice his life to stop the trolley. But there is only a small possibility that a person would do that. Questions like these are difficult to answer and could be categorized as a psychological question.
ReplyDeleteI have seen this kind of question so many times in many media like internet and TV. In the end my choice is to do nothing and let the five people die. This choice applies to both cases that present in the article. I know technically if I choose to sacrifice one person I can safe five other persons in the trolley. But in that unlikely scenario some people will not do anything because the pressure that they experience will immobilize them and give them a shock. I also afraid if I chose to sacrifice one person to save five people I will have a lot of legal trouble since what I basically do is an unplanned murder that can send me to jail for a long time. There are certainly people will sacrifice one people to safe five people but I am not one of those people since my ego and selfishness to care about myself are bigger than my heart calling to safe five people.
ReplyDeleteThe trolley problem, in its essence, can be seen as a test to decide whether a person adheres to deontological or utilitarian ethics. Deontological ethics is the view that the morality of a certain action is judged by referring to a moral code, whilst utilitarian ethics is the idea that an action is considered “good” if it maximizes utility (the ends justify the means). A person holding on to deontological ethics will refrain from pulling the lever to save the 5 people stuck on the trolley as doing so would mean that he would be committing an act of killing by causing the death of the innocent bystander. A person subscribing to utilitarian ethics will pull the lever to save the 5 people as he or she will assume that killing 1 person to save 5 people is better for society than having 5 people needlessly die. If I was placed in that scenario, I will not pull the lever as I am not willing to get my hands dirty.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I will go crazy if I ever face this situation in my real life. Of course, as a human being with humanity, I want to stop the trolley and save every single person involved. I've read the dilemmas over and over again until I had my decision in hand. For the first dilemma, the word 'potentially providing safety' made me think twice, but I would still pull the lever. I feel optimistic that someone would warn and save the man who stands in the track. Also, these five people on the trolley are making loud noise, so the man maybe could hear them and try to save himself. Second dilemma and I decided to not push the man to the front of the trolley. How can I stop the trolley with crashing it into a man and still saving the passengers? I would probably going mad if I pushed and kill this man and also injured the passengers. I believe that there are better upcoming options if I let the trolley alone.
ReplyDeleteThis has been a long debate, the obvious choice is to save 5 people since 5 surely is more important than a single life... Right? Logically sure, but is it right to kill an innocent man just to save more lives? Honestly I would probably save the 5 people if I was in the first situation, I could justify my actions then. However the second options seems to evil for me, in the end it is the same... kill 1 to save 5, or spare 1 and let 5 die. Pulling a lever is so much different from actually pushing a man to his death. Maybe it would be better to leave it alone? But could you live knowing you could have saved those 5 people? That's why I would go with the logical choice anytime. I would kill that man if it means I could save 5 more people. I mean, don't we all ever wondered what it feels like to kill another man? I'm joking... Or am I?
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that this is actually a pretty difficult and terrible situation to be involved in. Neither two of the choices is can be considered as a good choice. If i manage to pull the lever by killing the man, then i have officially become a murderer. On the other hand, if i did not pull that lever, it means that i just let a group of five people got killed right in front of my sight. I think what makes it so hard is because it involved our emotions as a human. Therefore if we ignore this kind of emotions aspect and be “objective” towards this dilemma, then it simply turned into a decision of saving a live of one person or five. Therefore if i have to choose, i’ll go with the one where i have to kill the man to be able to pull the lever and save the the five people.
ReplyDeleteNo matter how ferocious the decision that probably most people, including me, are going to make, I think it is already too clear for the questioner to have guessed what his/her answerers will answer to the dilemma that he/she brings forth. For me, I would go for the lever and save the five people in the trolley at the expense of the man’s life. Knowing that the question didn’t specify the characteristics or even the ages of the five people, it is only save to assume that at least two to three people in the trolley belong to the economically active population. In that case, it would translate to a ratio of two to one or even three to one, in which case the man lost on both scenarios. Therefore, the outcome where the man has to die is something that the five people should never take for granted as he will ask them about the kinds of meaningful contributions that they had brought to the society knowing that he had sacrificed himself hoping that it was not for nothing. That is, if you believed in the afterlife.
ReplyDeleteThe second dilemma is where the real thinking starts. In the second dilemma, we are asked to either kill a man by pushing him onto the tracks or to let the five people die. This seems similar at first glance, but it gets increasingly different when you think about it. The difference in this case is you would commit first degree murder. If one chose to push the man on the tracks to stop the trolley, it would still be intentionally killing the man without his consent. It would be much different if he would jump on the tracks himself. Although it is for a bigger cause, it would still be in a moral grey area. People would still either judge or support us and our act will cause mass controversy. In my opinion, I would let the trolley go and let the five people die because its better to be a bystander than to be a murderer.
ReplyDeleteThe first dilemma is a classic one. We often see this in the internet and it always gathers different opinions out of different people. This case tells us to imagine a scenario where we can play ‘God’. We get to be the judge, jury, and executioner of the lives of six people. In my personal opinion, I think it would be better to drive the trolley into the sand pit, although it would kill the man that is unaware. In this case, I think that the lives of the 5 people in the trolley outweigh the life of the man. Don’t get this wrong, a life of a man is a life of a man. It is still a very heavy sin to kill a man, yet as a human being; it would be much more devastating letting those 5 people on the trolley die knowing I could possibly save them.
ReplyDeleteThe situation above is a difficult situation where every second in the trolley is useful. If I am in that situation, first thing I would do is to pull the man out of the trolley and then quickly change the track of the trolley. Even though changing tracks in a high speed is not the best idea as there are possibilities of the trolley falling to either the left or the right side of the trolley. When the trolley reached the sand pit, I would run and check on the 5 passengers that were on the uncontrolled trolley. Last thing would be calling 911 so that, they could clear out the scene and process this case. Another way of stopping the trolley is by blocking the way of the trolley using car. But, I think that by the time my car engine is on, the trolley would have crash into many things and have lots of victims.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I found this article really interesting. This probably because I love solving dilemma situations similar to this article. From the text, we can obviously see that both choices will lead to a catastrophe. From numbers point of view, sacrificing one may be better than 5. But, is it acceptable to actually sacrifice someone’s life in the first place? Just like many other dilemmas, this made as questioned ourselves whether we as a human being would choose the best outcome of the situation or to stick to our morale code. Personally, I would not sacrifice someone’s life for others. I believed that it is considered murder regardless of the amount of people saved. In this kind of situation I would think of myself as if I was the man that is going to be sacrificed. Let’s be honest, most of us wont threw away our life in a blink of an eye. The conclusion is through knowing ourselves not wanting to sacrifice our own life this gave us no reason to actually sacrifice someone’s life.
ReplyDeleteThe fun and difficult part of these kinds of test I reckon resides in a place where the dilemma stays in which whose life is much more worth saving than the other. First of all we cannot say that five lives is better than one but in these kinds of games it wouldn’t be as fun if we do not stay with the choices in the game. For the first situation, I would pull the lever in which would save the five people in the trolley although it seems contradictory towards my first statement in which five lives cannot be said better than one but the main reason that we should think about as well is the chances of something else happening as an aftermath. For example there can be more than five people dying if I did not pull the lever and not yet mentioning about the damage to other properties. And for the second inquiry, the best mid thought decision would be to not do anything because we cannot guarantee that a big enough man can hold a trolley from speeding. Uncertainty sometimes can lead to much worst calamity.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, those scenarios put me in a position I never want to be in. Choosing between people’s lives isn’t something a human being should do. And, I don’t think I would ever make a decision where I know someone’s life would be taken. However, if I were to be put in that position, I would try my best to find other alternatives. I would really avoid being put in that position, but still I would try my best to help those people. I would try and find a solution that would save everyone’s lives. But, if there is no other way, then I will try and switch with the man. I prefer my life to be sacrificed instead of the man. If I were to sacrifice the man, I don’t think I would ever be able to live with the guilt. That is why I don’t think I will ever be able to make the choice which would make another human being lose their life.
ReplyDeleteAs a human being, of course we have to help each other right?, but sometimes there is a case where we don’t have to either, because there are factors that will impact our decision to help others, one of it is personality I guess. So in this article I think this is some kind of psychological question where you are faced with a dilemma and your action will result the current condition of your mind. Like if decide to kill everyone maybe it means you are a psycho. But I’m here to give my answer to those dilemmas, so in the first dilemma I am face whether I should save a one person’s life or five person’s live. After a minute or two I decided actually not to help the people on the trolley, why? Because first, I think depends on the situation if I’m quite lazy at that time I maybe I won’t pull the lever. Second, even if I’m not lazy at that time I still won’t pull the lever because if I pull the lever then the man would’ve died in a sudden without knowing he’s going to be hit by a trolley, scary right?. That’s why I decided not to pull the lever and let the trolley crash because at least the people in the trolley got time to message or call their loved ones or maybe pray to god. In the second dilemma I think it’s simpler than the first one, I think If I were in the second dilemma I would ask the man first if he wants to sacrifice himself for the others or not if he says no then I would not use him a meat shield and maybe watch the trolley crash together with him.
ReplyDeleteThe dilemma represented in the article above are very, very hard because it presented the types of question everyone would struggle: trading lives. No one in their right mind would be able to weigh in the value of a soul. Although there are two dilemmas, they both have similar trade offs; five lives or one, but there is one clear difference in the two dilemmas. In the first dilemma, I could save both the group and the man, by simply shouting at the man as I pull the lever, I’m sure the man would have enough reflex to get away. Back to the dilemmas presented, although it pains me, I would choose to save the lives of the group of passengers in the trolley. If Ill ever get put in that situation, I don’t know if ill do the same thing, especially if the one person is someone I know, cause again, only god knows the value of souls.
ReplyDeleteIn this case, I think I do not have to make any decision. Why would I think like this? Because in my opinion, if you want to survive, you have to make your own decision and not relying on others. Those people in the trolley can make their own decision and take action to save themselves rather than do nothing and just sit tight while waiting for a superhero to save the day. They can just jump off the trolley, suffer some broken bone but everyone can live happily ever after including me because I do not have to suffer this moral dilemma.
ReplyDeleteBut, if I have to make any decision, I will save one innocent man and let the other five people die. Life is about decision making and they have make a decision to ride the trolley. When they have decided to ride the trolley, they have considered the consequences and willingly to take the risk.
Well this is a situation where you either save five people or one, or another way to look at it is letting 1 people die or 5 people die. Having to choose what action I should take is a lot of responsibility. Whether you choose to let 1 person die or 5 people die wouldn’t matter for myself, because the burden of death cause by my choice of action are too much for me to carry. So if I were to see which one benefits me, I wouldn’t be able to answer because neither of them benefits me. But another thing to consider is what would happen after the incident once i made a decision. Since there are two different dilemmas, I think my answer would be different for the two. For the first dilemma where the man is totally unaware of what is happening, I would probably choose to save 5 people and let 1 die.
ReplyDeleteBecause that one person is unaware of the situation, I could just play along with what's happening. I would pull the lever to save the 5 passengers on the trolley, and then I would warn him even if I have no chance of saving him. I could then say that I tried to warn him, but it was too late. Yes it sounds evil, but that’s what I would to in the first dilemma. For the second dilemma, I would save the one person who is between me and the track. If I push the person, it would seem that I murder him rather than saving the 5 passengers on the trolley. With this situation I would then be in a worst situation. So I would decide to save the one person between me and the track, and I could say that there was no other option, cause what human would choose to sacrifice another in their last minute decision.
DeleteChoosing what to do in a situation like this would be very difficult. And to think about how I have all the time I need right now to answer these questions; I can’t imagine what it would be like if I am actually in that position, I honestly wouldn’t know what to do. But after reading both questions and considering the situation, I decided that I have a different answer for each question. For the first one, I would choose to pull the lever and shout at the man to warn him at the same time, hopefully saving him too. However, even if he ended up getting killed, I would have saved 5 people and I think it’s still better than 1. But for the second one, I would not use the man to stop the trolley. Pushing him to save the lives of the people in the trolley is just immoral, and I would never do something like that without the man’s consent.
ReplyDeleteIf I got to be positioned in that position, whatever decision I will make, I will regret it. Because this is talking about other people’s life and it will be very difficult. Simply, you are in charge to decide about other people’s life. If I got to choose, the first choice would be not to be in that position. Because whether I killed 1 person or 5 person, I will still be guilty forever because I still killed someone. However, this is a situation that everyone doesn’t hope to experience, but could happen to anyone. So, if I got to choose, I will choose to save the life of 5 persons. Because I think, it is still be more ethical to save more people than to save one people. Yes I know that the guilt is still be there, but I also know I will be burdened with more guilt if I killed 5 person in one time.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest both of these situation sucks and i dont wanna be in one of those 2 situations. Its a very bad situation in which people’s life depends on you. In the situation in which the trolley consisting of 5 passengers is running uncontrollably and there is a chance for me to save them i would take that choice. However in this case there is a price to pay or in other words colateral damage oryou can call it a sacrifice. It’s not a decision you can make instantly. It takes up a lot of thinking as people’s life depends on this choice.In my opinion killing is killing. There is no excuse or reason to justify killing as i believe its not up to us humans to decide when someone should die. So i would choose to sacrifice the one man in orderto save the five passengers. I choose to sacrifice the one man and save the 5 passengers as i believe that the sin of killing one man or killing two man is of equal sin.
ReplyDeleteAside from that i belive that this choice is for a better cause. Even though we can not assume that 5 peoples live is more valuable than a persons life in the eye of humans it is betetr to sacrifice a person and save 5 lives rather than letting the five passengers die. I would feel guilty if i just stood there watching those five passengers die instead of doing something to save them. But i have my doubts too. Especially for the second situation . In the second situation in order to save the five passengers i have to push the 1 man. Even though it’s for the purpose of saving the five passengers it would put in a dangerous position as if people saw what i did it would look like that i tried to kill the 1 man on purpose. Worst case i can be put behind bars for this crime.
DeleteIt is a very tough decision to decide because it is the matter of life and death, moreover this decision has to be decide in a split of second which makes it even harder. If I were put in this kind of urgent situation, I would probably let the trolley passed by because if I pull the lever and redirect the trolley into the sand pit then there will be one man killed and I have absolutely no rights to choose who will be sacrificed although the ratio is 5 to 1. I think as human we have no right to decide one’s life because it is beyond our thought and ability so if I let the trolley passed by then maybe there is another chance to save them without any danger to others or considering the stiff and tough structure of the trolley itself maybe if it hits something it wont break and all the five passengers is saved.ß
ReplyDeleteI have to say that I had an inner conflict trying to find the best answer to this problem. I normally tend to overthink the situations and analyze in depth all possible alternatives to every situation I encounter in my life. In this case the alternatives is killing one person or allowed five to be killed, regarding which option I choose, all alternatives end in killing a person and, personally, I won’t be able to live with that. Every single individual has a family and I would feel so guilty just to think that I cause some suffering to their families. What I would do if I encounter myself in this situation? (which I really hope never happens to me) I would try to sacrifice myself so I can avoid so many deaths as possible. I am aware isn’t one of the possible alternatives offer in the example, but if I can push the man I can also jump instead.
ReplyDeleteI hope I never have to come across a situation like this in real life, because the thought of someone’s fate resting in my decision is so terrifying and haunting. In the first situation, if I don’t pull the lever, I’ll have the guilt of letting five people die but if I do pull it, I’ll have the guilt of murdering an innocent bystander. If I am truly forced to choose and my body isn’t paralyzed in fear of the situation happening, I would choose to pull the lever because the weight of five souls is much heavier than one. However, with the second case, I am even more conflicted. Although I do have good intentions of saving the trolley by pushing him, I will still push him to the middle of the tracks and killing him and that would make me no different than any other murderer. I personally think that the guilt of purposely killing someone directly like that is a much heavier weight to bear than the guilt of witnessing an accident.
ReplyDeleteThe trolley problem is a really famous question that is used to see how far will humanity’s ethic and moral and what they will go to sacrifice and saving people. There’s been many variations of the problem, but they all ask the same question: Who would you save? I would personally save the five people by sacrificing the one person. This is because I did not mean to purposely kill the man, and it is much better to save five people. Although if there was a bit more detail regarding the passengers and the man. But that’s what makes this problem so difficult to answer; you are answering based on quantity and the ethics I have built myself with. I think I would do the same for the second problem. If I am able to save and help many people by sacrificing one, it is much better even if I do feel bad for using the person like that.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very hard decision to make given in this situation since it involves someone’s lives to be threatened or sacrifice. But if I have to make one, I would not pull the lever because if I do, It would directly kill a man, when in fact the one who was in danger was people who were stuck in the tram in the first place. It’s like I put a man in danger and it was because of me, even if I help five people who were formerly in danger. While for the second dilemma, for me personally, it would be ruthless to push a man to the track even to save people’s lives. I believe that it’s not my place to sacrifice the man’s life to save these five people. If the tram was meant to be stopped, it should be the man’s decision to end his life to be heroic, even though it is nearly impossible.
ReplyDeleteIt is a difficult dilemma! It’s actually hard making a decision regarding someone else’s life. However, in that case I would choose to pull the lever. While the other thinks that it is better to save 5 people than the man, I tried to think to save all of them. As I pull the lever, I will scream as loud as I can, warning the man that he is standing in the sandpit. I am sure that I guess the man will jump or move from the sandpit as he realizes that there is a trolley moving at a fast speed towards him. And yes, the people inside the trolley will be safe and also the man.
ReplyDeleteWhile for the second dilemma, I think my reflect will directly pull the man from the track because at that time the only action I can think is saving the man from the trolley. While pushing him towards the track and killing him will make me feel much more guilty tho…
In a conditioned and incomplete case like in this article, I wouldn't pull the lever. Pulling the lever immediately is the sign of a panic mind in which can be a real danger for our life. In this case, we don't understand about the situation clearly. The situation might be different if we don't pull the lever because we don't surely know what is happening.
ReplyDeleteNow, lets consider what will happen if we pull the lever. We certainly sacrifice one life because of our recklessness. We are too ignorant to think further. If we are right, we are right. If we are wrong, we are not just wrong. We might take a larger opportunity cost.
This point of view might seem better to consider. These are the outcomes of not pulling the lever. If we are right, we are right. If we are wrong, it is not a real problem for us because we don't understand the situation.
Based on two possibilities of wrong decisions, not pulling the lever is the safest one. Right or not fully wrong.
In both of these cases, I got the option to sacrifice one’s life in exchange for five people’s safety or do nothing and these five people will most likely die. Logically the option will be for sure saving these five person’s life, as it means saving extra lives. In the first case, we get the option to simply pull a lever which means we kill one people indirectly. Some might assumes that this is an easier decision compared to the second case which the only option we got is to push the man to a rail to stop the trolley. Without considering the risk of the man failing to stop the trolley I would say that there’s no big difference in the outcome of our decision in these two cases. If I were put in that situation I don’t think I will pull the lever or push the man to save the lives of five people. To me that’s just simply wrong, I don’t think I have the rights to choose who to live and who doesn’t. If the man that is going to sacrificed were changed into someone that is precious to me the decisions became more certain to me that I won’t sacrifice him/her. So even though I didn’t even know this “random” man, I’m sure he also has someone dear to him that will feel great loss without him.
ReplyDeleteI remember discussing this Trolley Dilemma during my Theory of Knowledge class back in High School. This Trolley Dilemma leaves us to decide whether to save five people or just one. The utilitarianism point of view argues that an action is considered “moral” when the benefits of the outcome outweighs the negative consequences (maximum utility for the majority). With this being said, a utilitarian would say that it is acceptable and moral to actively hurt someone if it means that more people will benefit from the action. The problem with this dilemma is that it involves consciousness in the decision making. The person expected to make decision in the scenario is fully aware of the situation and is expected to actively and consciously decide as if the lives of those people are in his hand.
ReplyDeleteConsider a variation to this dilemma: Imagine you are standing on a footbridge above the tram tracks. You can see the runaway trolley hurtling towards the five unsuspecting workers, but there’s no lever to divert it. However, you saw a large man standing next to you on the footbridge. You’re confident that his bulk would stop the tram in his track. Would you push the man to save 5 people?
The presence of a lever can be argued to be the game-changer in this dilemma. This is so because pushing a lever can be argued to be an indirect killing, though still killing. On the other hand, the variation to the dilemma present us with a choice to directly kill a man by pushing him in order to save 5 people. Our decision might differ from the first and the second dilemma because it leaves us to question our “intention” within our decision. Moreover, objectively evaluating and rationalizing ethical dilemma will always be tricky because there is no clear consensus on what it means to be moral.
It is really difficult to decide the best choice based on these two dilemmas. For the first case, considering the panic I have on the situation, without thinking, I would pull the hand lever to switch the tracks and save the five people on board. It is stated that the five people on board are shouting for help, in the most possible situation, I would be unaware of the man in the sandpit because of the fast-moving trolley and the shouting passengers. For the second case, it will be impossible for me to actually push a man to stop the trolley as it is an act of murder. It seems that there is nothing I can do in this case as I don’t intend to push the man and kill him unintentionally to save the passengers. In my opinion, we can’t trade lives, so there are no right answers for these two dilemmas because either choices will sacrifice people.
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