I keep pushing these fat men under trollies and it’s not saving any of these ill people, what am I doing wrong?
Seriously though, yeah, it’s like the first example in the first lecture of the first year of studying ethics, right? It’s sort of useful in that you can compare other ethical situations to it…
I guess its real purpose is to get people talking about ethics. Which it still does wonderfully.
As a former premature baby, I resemble that remark 
Is that an African or a European trolley?
Here’s an updated question for those who want to argue about the validity of the hypothetical situation instead of discussing the OP’s point:
You can see a full tram going down a hill, out of control. You happen to be in front of the handle that changes the points. If you leave it alone the tram will crash into the end of the platform, likely killing everyone on board. If you pull the handle and open the points the tram will move to a non-terminating line where it will have plenty of time to come to a stop. You can see there is one workman on that section of line who will likely die if you pull the handle. What do you do?
Can we discuss the topic now?
If it were GTA i’d likely just kill everyone including the attending paramedic and fire crew - just to be sure.
i love you, more than ice cream…i really really do…
At least I love your reply…the scenario in your comment is the one I first encountered…quite a while ago. But yeah…if it were GTA…I’d just kill 'em all…yo.
Please help me understand how this could identify autism.
Are you referring to empathy ?
If you are – people with autism do have the same levels of empathy as us so-called normals – the literature regarding autism that uses the word empathy is quite stupid…fckued-up really. Instead of lack of empathy – lack of perception of self and others is a better description.
Anyway…if your post is a troll post - duuuude - well done – I like your style – very short, not overdone. I’m surprised you haven’t received…like…a million angry all-caps responses – oh well…I’ll keep checking the thread - might give us a laugh,
Cheers!!!
btw…I’m not being sarcastic - I really love a well-crafted troll-post.
If your post was not a troll post - well please consider the distinction I make between the word empathy and the lack of perspective thing…
This being said – jerk is as jerk does - and I’ve seen a lot of intentional douche-bag behavior be perpetrated with the excuse ‘I can’t help it…I’m an aspie(ergers)’ – much like how a kid with verbal Tourettes tics will intentionally call his or her teacher a fckuing bitch then say it was a tic when it sure as fcku wasn’t.
Actually, it was a reference to the tendency of certain folks here to deconstruct the parameters of the story problem, how it made no sense because what is the mass of the fat man, etc. rather than actually deal with the content of the problem. Basically, losing the forest because you’re busy measuring the trees and complaining about their arrangement.
I would look at it the other way. Someone who can make a choice between those two options without questioning the question may lack empathy and may miss other options that aren’t immediately obvious. Even if it was potentially beneficial, what kind of person would shove another person in front of a vehicle, or even consider that person as a potential obstruction? You probably can’t stop the trolley, thinking like that will make things worse and make you an active agent in what was a mindless accident. It’s like the VK test: the only options you are given beg the question that you have no empathy and see human life as a commodity, so the human response would be to find another option. While you’re pushing the guy in the path of the trolley or passively observing its collision with the school bus, you could be running down the path to warn the schoolbus to get out of the way.
The value of the test is if it gets you to think about more complex ethical questions, rather than merely getting the answer right.
Wasn’t Utilitarianism the argument of the Sanford community leaders to justify their wilful acts of homicide in the excellent film Hot Fuzz? It was all for the greater good.
Crusty Jugglers - if ever there was an argument to justify psychopathy…
Not really. It is a simple ethical question.
On the article, there’s a variant, where the fat man is standing on a second track, and you can push a lever that will divert the trolley to the second track, killing only one man instead of the kids.
Yarf.
however the greater good was pretty banal according to their definition of good.
When playing “would you rather” with my friends we had a rule: Death is not an option.
If for example faced with the challenge of drinking a cup of your own urine or licking the handle of a public restroom you couldn’t say: I’d rather just kill myself.
Seems appropriate here.
Which I believe, is the point of the thought experiment.
Rules lawyering won’t get you out of actually thinking about whats the best course of actions given the constraints.
…with a choice between a psychopathic, futile option and the inevitable non-option of inaction, unless you ignore science or bend the rules to the question. Given those two options, I have to chose the second, because the only other option is fantastical, evil and doomed to failure. So, constrained by the rules, I’m forced to sit by and watch the runaway trolley go past, only slightly comforted by the knowledge that there’s really nothing I could have done (unless I ignore the rules and warn the bus). If anything, the ethical revulsion against both options, causing you to reach for another solution that would save as many people as possible, would be more likely to translate to ethical behaviour in real life.
So you think the question of whether to kill a bunch of people or one person is “psychopathic?” I don’t think that is what the word means. That’s the scenario of the question unless you refuse to answer the question as given.
If you are a bystander, you are not directly responsible for the deaths of anyone on the trolley or bus, so it’s a choice between doing nothing and killing one person. The psychopathic part is violently treating the guy as a tool in your attempt to do the greater good - most normal people would not consider this as an option at all. In the alternate version with a choice to change the points and redirect a train onto a line with one workman, the ethical choice is slightly different: you are in charge of the lever, so you are responsible for the safety of the train. The person on the line is still going to die, but they don’t strictly have to die and their death is not a tool. You’re not murdering them, you’re directing the train away from the path of many people. You would do that if he wasn’t there, and unfortunately his presence isn’t enough to outweigh the moral benefit of that action. Flip the switch and do what you can to warn the workman (and the train, if it’s manned). In either case, you’ll have to live with having killed someone due to your action or inaction.
The better question is who to save instead: A fat wealthy man, or a pack of poor starving children. The question that the article provide is poor when it tries to establish the “Need of the many, outweigh the need of the few” mentality.
By inaction, yes you are. Don’t you feel anything for your fellow human beings? (I guess not?)
Again, the way these problems work is that you work with the problem as given, not try to weasel out of it by making up new ways of getting out of it. The whole point of the problem is to illustrate an ethical quandary about the many versus the few, not to get all bogged down in “How red is the apple” or “What model of airplane is it?”
So far, your answer seems to be “Other people are not my problem.”
