in the original thought experiment not pulling the lever results in the death of the 5 people on tracks, that’s the choice of an attempt to avoid responsibility as you technically had no involvement in their deaths. Pulling the lever means you take direct responsibility for the death of one person, saving 5
Woah. Never once in my life have I heard that reasoning for not pulling the lever. I have always thought that since I was actively choosing not to pull it, that it was still a direct effect of my choice. I fully believe that people think the way you just described and now I have to reevaluate humanity.
Actions vs outcomes right? Like “I didn’t murder someone” vs “I did what would cause the least harm”.
I may be wrong but it seems like focusing on my own actions as the basis of morality is self-centered in nature. Whereas thinking about the outcome—how the people in the track are affected—is other-centered. Doing nothing seems to seek to avoid judgement of self at the cost of 5 lives. The other seeks to save 5 lives at the cost of actively killing one person.
Though, I suppose, one could wonder what terrible things the latter might choose to do to save many more.
I dunno’, I’d MUCH rather have someone in charge that knowingly saves five than cowardly allowing them to die… The person who can dismiss five deaths is FAR more likely to be a horrible piece of shit.
From that standpoint, you can ask interesting questions by tweaking the numbers.
Would you want someone in charge who’s willing to actively kill 5000 people to save 5200?
What about killing 1 person for a 50% chance of saving 5?
As soon as you accept that killing people is morally OK, you open yourself up to math and the decision of how to measure the value of a person’s life.
They’re saying if you are okay to pull the lever in ANY case, then you’re going to be trying to do math in EVERY case.
Some cases will be easy, but others will be hard. Which is fine - public safety isn’t easy, neither is hostage negotiation or combat or wherever this comes into play in real life.
Huh, every time I hear about the trolley problem it’s always “now imagine that instead of pulling the lever, you need to push someone onto the track so the trolley stops after that first collision.” Some people would pull the lever but not push someone onto the tracks, and that’s where it gets interesting.
And if you can push someone, you could use your own body too. Maybe the scenarios word around that (you have to push somebody and hold the lever, for example).
I imagine the nightmares from pushing a person would be worse than those from pulling a lever.
It perhaps shows how successful the trolly experiment has been, playing its part in changing our cultural attitudes as a whole, since its’ purpose (lately, I dunno about originally) was to get people to realize exactly what you just said: that choosing to do nothing is still a choice. Sort of a “wake up, sheeple!” message.
Older generations like Boomers and especially Great before that were ignoring climate change and so much else - not having access to the internet, knowledge was more difficult to come by back then.
Today’s era involves different struggles, mainly against misinformation, but at least people more often have their eyes open.
in the original thought experiment not pulling the lever results in the death of the 5 people on tracks, that’s the choice of an attempt to avoid responsibility as you technically had no involvement in their deaths. Pulling the lever means you take direct responsibility for the death of one person, saving 5
Woah. Never once in my life have I heard that reasoning for not pulling the lever. I have always thought that since I was actively choosing not to pull it, that it was still a direct effect of my choice. I fully believe that people think the way you just described and now I have to reevaluate humanity.
Actions vs outcomes right? Like “I didn’t murder someone” vs “I did what would cause the least harm”.
I may be wrong but it seems like focusing on my own actions as the basis of morality is self-centered in nature. Whereas thinking about the outcome—how the people in the track are affected—is other-centered. Doing nothing seems to seek to avoid judgement of self at the cost of 5 lives. The other seeks to save 5 lives at the cost of actively killing one person.
Though, I suppose, one could wonder what terrible things the latter might choose to do to save many more.
I dunno’, I’d MUCH rather have someone in charge that knowingly saves five than cowardly allowing them to die… The person who can dismiss five deaths is FAR more likely to be a horrible piece of shit.
Yeah I totally agree, well said.
From that standpoint, you can ask interesting questions by tweaking the numbers.
Would you want someone in charge who’s willing to actively kill 5000 people to save 5200?
What about killing 1 person for a 50% chance of saving 5?
As soon as you accept that killing people is morally OK, you open yourself up to math and the decision of how to measure the value of a person’s life.
Not really, because that is quite directly changing the question. Not all questions SHOULD have the same answer. That’s just extremist stupidity.
Oh I don’t think you disagree with them!
They’re saying if you are okay to pull the lever in ANY case, then you’re going to be trying to do math in EVERY case.
Some cases will be easy, but others will be hard. Which is fine - public safety isn’t easy, neither is hostage negotiation or combat or wherever this comes into play in real life.
Huh, every time I hear about the trolley problem it’s always “now imagine that instead of pulling the lever, you need to push someone onto the track so the trolley stops after that first collision.” Some people would pull the lever but not push someone onto the tracks, and that’s where it gets interesting.
The difference is that in the lever example someone else tied the person to the track.
Easier to assign all blame to them, then.
And if you can push someone, you could use your own body too. Maybe the scenarios word around that (you have to push somebody and hold the lever, for example).
I imagine the nightmares from pushing a person would be worse than those from pulling a lever.
It perhaps shows how successful the trolly experiment has been, playing its part in changing our cultural attitudes as a whole, since its’ purpose (lately, I dunno about originally) was to get people to realize exactly what you just said: that choosing to do nothing is still a choice. Sort of a “wake up, sheeple!” message.
Older generations like Boomers and especially Great before that were ignoring climate change and so much else - not having access to the internet, knowledge was more difficult to come by back then.
Today’s era involves different struggles, mainly against misinformation, but at least people more often have their eyes open.
Edit: NSFW video version from the TV show The Good Place that adds some new dimensions to the problem: https://youtu.be/DtRhrfhP5b4?si=zI6lV0G_VRhzjz97.:-)