Hmm...I might take a look at this...

Feel free to discuss the first problem here as well, I'll post my answer when I've completed it.

obi and SY seem like a match made in... I don't even know where. Be sure to post your ideas.

Q: Should the trolley car driver divert the trolley, killing one worker in order to save five?

Some thoughts spring to mind.

Firstly, the word “should” implies that there is a correct thing to do in this situation which I would object to. Socially, we would deem the morally ‘right’ thing to do would be to kill the one person rather than five. Utilitarians would argue that it creates the maximal good to save five people and thus its the correct thing to do. But we don’t know the six people. Perhaps the one is a brilliant scientist and the five are criminals, in which case we are unaware of in fact which group is ‘worth’ saving, making that idea subjective in itself. The man’s moral decision is therefore quite uninformed in this sense and you could argue self-righteous if he believes that killing the one person is the good thing to do.

In real situations, we excuse people of deaths from accidents, and we wouldn’t hold the trolley driver responsible for either set of deaths. We create health and safety legislation to try and minimise these type of situations which we recognise as negative situations. Therefore the only true judge of this situation is the car driver himself. It is his own subjective decision on what to do, and he will be his only judge.

Of course, if you are religious you would say that God would reward you for saving the five, but again the five may be sinners, and the one a righteous man. God’s sanction of the death of one to save five would seem questionable, and it’s easy to argue that God, knowing your personality, would create this situation already knowing how you would act, which creates a certain fatalistic element to the scenario.

In reality the trolley car driver will make his decision on ‘illogical’ factors. He would save a child over five adults, perhaps, or he would save the five people because the one ‘looked like he wasn’t a good man’; I, Robot springs to mind. But we don’t really judge him for doing this, and therefore there is no ‘should’ or ‘correct’ thing to do.

@Krellin – I’d love you to join this with me and see how your ideas stand up to Harvard scrutiny.

Is this actually Harvard? It looks a bit lightweight at first glance. Entertaining, to be sure, but no more rigerous than a thread on this forum.

The answer is steer towards the one chap, by the way. Being on the trolley gives you the choice, and the choice is to save 5 people from the trolly or to save 1 person. It's a really easy choice to make, although under the stress of the situation you could forgive someone for making an error.

@Synapse... that is the oldest thought experiment in the book. There's no correct answer; if you can back up a philosophy, you get it "right." Killing one for the sake of five? No, it's immoral to kill one because he would not be in danger unless you chose to kill him, so kill five. Kill five for the sake of one? No, the numbers don't add up. The best answer is "this is a thought experiment and has no direct implications on whether or not people actually die so let's hope it stays that way." Once you've gotten there, move onto the philosophical zombies...

@ bo_sox

You're not killing anyone. The trolly is killing people. You can save one person or you can save five. There is no immoral option, but there is an obviously better option. I can't see how anyone could have trouble with this.

What relates the problem to this forum is that there can't be a trolley without a troll. And the moral is that the troll always kills someone in the end.

Octavious, that's the point. It's a test of morals, not of "should I kill one or five" people. That's why I can't stand it. People throw in morals. Maybe that just means I have none.

Seriously, philosophical zombies are so much more fun.

I don't see any moral dilemma here. I fail to understand the test.

+1 ulytau

It comes down to simply active or passive plus intent. If someone has to die then the passive is the best choice but if an active action has to be taken, then intent comes into play. You can't throw someone in front of the tram to stop it, but you can steer the plane to crash in the lesser populated area as it is a decision of which action you take.

The question is rather, justify killing the one rather than five in a logical manner

You're not killing anyone. The trolley and whatever set it in motion is killing people. I also don't see how it is an active or passive choice. Both actions are active. Being in a position where you can make the choice means there is no passive option.

It is an extremely easy choice. You actively choose to save the five. Unless, of course, the one happens to be someone you care about, in which case tough titties to the quintet.

"You can't throw someone in front of the tram to stop it,"

On the wikipedia article concerning this mind exercise, many variations of how to save the quintet are described, including the "fat guy" and "fat villain". The implications are clear ;)

Why save the five, Octavious?

who says it's not just 1 guy and 4 multis

People have value, and five people have more value than one. There are exceptions to this but you can only act on the information you have, and that information points very clearly in one direction.

"five people have more value than one"

VERY questionable. Does one white person have more value than five blacks? Does a scientist have more value than five criminals? How do you 'value' people? Would you kill your daughter to save five strangers?

I refer you to my above comment

"it is an extremely easy choice. You actively choose to save the five. Unless, of course, the one happens to be someone you care about, in which case tough titties to the quintet".

There is nothing questionable about it.

Does one white person have more value than five blacks? No. Easy.

Does a scientist have more value than five criminals? There is no way of knowing what any of these people are so speculation is pointless. Easy.

How do you 'value' people? When in doubt, highly and equally. Easy.

Would you kill your daughter to save five strangers? Without a moment's hesitation. Easy.

There is not a difficult choice to be made at any stage.

@SYnapse
Presuming you don't know any of the people on the tracks and don't have time to request a cv, credit report, criminal background check, and three letters of reference, it is only rational to treat them as equivalent in value.

Unless... you have a policy of keeping your hands out of this kind of thing. Here's a different case.

The person who has to make the decision is not actually a person, it's the government. The government has a policy of not negotiating with terrorists, which means not doing business with them at all. The terrorists send a video to the government with this dilemma. They hold six people. If they don't respond to the video they'll kill the five. If they do respond they'll kill the one.

Draugnar's right. The real question has nothing to do with the relative value of five lives versus one. It's about the morality of action vs. inaction. The question is whether culpability by inaction is five times worse than culpability by action.

But Oct, would you shove a fat person in front of a speeding trolley if it saved 5 people from the trolley down the line knowing the fat person would die? And more importantly, would it be the "easy decision" you claim? If yes on boht counts, by most peoples' view (and, as it happens, most courts'/judges' view) you are a sociopath. You have no empathy for the person going to die and just do it. That is the clinical definition of a sociopath: one who has no empathy for others and is purely logical in all decisions. Empathy is what differentiates us form a computer (that and sex and eating and shitting and breathing and dreaming and the fact that powering us down damages our processor cores as well as memory both volatile and non).

@ hecks

I disagree. Once you are in a position where you can make the choice there is no difference between action and supposed inaction. You choose to pull a lever and save five, or you choose not to pull a lever and save one. In both cases you actively choose.

But what if the choice is you throw somebody onto the tracks and save five, or you don't and save one? Could *you* throw someonem anyone, in front of a train if it meant saving people further down the tracks?

@Oct
I can see your argument that they have the same moral value, and I'm not sure I disagree with you. But do you see my point about how that's the root of the question?

@ Draug

No, because instinct would stop me. Also, putting this into the real world, doubts over the effectiveness of the plan, and my ability to carry it out, and selfish thougts about not wanting to see the fat man splattered in front of me would also play a part.

Where do you get this lack of empathy from, by the way? I would have a lot of empathy for the poor single chap. I would have a lot of empathy for the 5 chaps. I don't see how having empathy or not makes the slightest bit of difference.

@Oct,
If we put this in real world terms, I'd start yelling and shouting trying to get these guys to move. I'd also try to stop the train, and probably see if I could find a way to derail it entirely. I'd try all sorts of failing measures, and when they failed and the five people died, I'd say "I did all I could" and mean it.

In other worlds, in the real world, there's almost never a strictly dichotomous choice between doing this one thing and doing nothing.