Haven’t we talked about this problem not too long ago around here?
I’ve always felt this though experiment to be so dissociated from perceived human experience that it can’t really work for gauging anything serious.
Even glossing over the “certain outcomes” part that a lot of people seem to reject outright as impossible, what really annoys me is the extreme cultural vacuum that’s assumed. In this universe we all know murdering one person for whatever reasons (“I’m very certain the others would have died if I didn’t do it, your honor”) has dire consequences to one’s prospects, while failing to save other people with a crazy gambit by simply doing nothing might make you feel guilty but that’s about it.
The way the problem seems to ask us to ignore all that pesky human society stuff feels to me like going too far into “consider a spherical, inelastic, frictionless cow” abstract-puzzle-land to be any real use apart from starting internet arguments. For that at least, it’s ever so excellent.
I wonder how the balance would change if it was your child on the other line or your close friend was the fat guy.
In reality though, events like these often don’t leave you with much of a moral dilemma. The best you can do is try to avoid the most probable concentrations of people and try to improve safety standards in the future. In the more recent example, the driver made the right decision to stay in the truck and potentially sacrifice his own life, while doing what he could so save others. In this case, the logic is easy; the difficult part is doing it. Without training, I would probably default to the ‘do nothing’ option out of shock, rather than any conscious decision. What’s more, often we do make these sorts of value decisions on a more regular basis. How much value does a stranger’s life or wellbeing have, if we have the opportunity to help them in some way? Are we willing to harm some people for the greater good, as we define it? What is our attitude towards direct, personal responsibility and general, social responsibility?
The fat guy is not your tool. When you think of this as a mathematical problem where you could replace people with apples or investments, you’re probably thinking of it wrong. If I were a specialist doctor and a father, I wouldn’t have the right to let my child die while I save ten more people. I have to accept my human limitations and focus on my immediate responsibilities: looking after those who are in my direct responsibility and not doing wrong while doing what I can to fulfil my more general responsibilities. I will obviously ask myself if there’s anything I could have done in the main example, but if the only answer was, “I could have shoved the fat guy in the way”, I can probably sleep at night.
You’re still trying to argue your way around a straightforward ethical problem. So your decision, in the case of this hypothetical problem is “do nothing,” right?
May the gods help us all if you’re a pilot or a boat captain and forced to make a lose-lose decision but minimize losses.
The two versions are really two problems. I’ve normally heard the switch one before. In that case, I think the answer is much more straight forward than the one as presented, where you are expected to act (if you do) in a way that makes you the instigator of the loss of someone’s life in a direct way.
Only if my choices are artificially reduced to those two.
May the gods help us all if you’re a pilot or a boat captain and forced to make a lose-lose decision but minimize losses.
In those cases I wouldn’t be a bystander, so the ethical issues would be different and there is no “do nothing” option. If I’m controlling a vehicle that’s going to crash, I’ll try to limit the potential loss of life (even if that action leads to the loss of life to someone who would otherwise survive).
If I’m flying a plane that’s going to crash into a city, I’ll try to steer it away, even if the only other option is still populated (but much less so). My action is to avoid the worst possible scenario, but it’s still not an ideal solution. I think changing the points is like this decision. I will not throw any fat people out of the plane to save weight, even if the ethicist and physicist who are somehow standing next to me guarantee that this action will allow the plane to reach the nearest airport.
What I’m saying is that a driver or signalman has a more direct responsibility for a runaway train than a bystander does, and they are also more likely to know the consequences of their actions. If you see a runaway trolley and think that throwing a fat guy in its path is likely to stop it, the ‘greater good’ points are vastly outweighed by the ‘ignorance of physics’ and ‘actively killing a person’ deductions. You are less responsible for what you fail to do right than what you do wrong. This option can only make things worse. If, as a bystander, you think you can jump onto the unmanned runaway trolley and stop it, go ahead - greater good, etc. If you think that you can stop the train by jumping in front of it, you’re wrong - but your willingness to sacrifice yourself for the greater good is appreciated.
Ehics can’t be divorced from real life. Ethical puzzles that beg the question should themselves be questioned, and we don’t have to accept their artificial parameters.
Maybe it’s the puzzle itself that’s more than a bit psychopathic?
Here are the rules: You are a God.
Your omniscience shows every possible outcome to the minutest changes of factors. Your omnipotence allows you to affect these outcomes with perfect infallibility.
You are so far above human customs, laws and morality that you can consider every action to be entirely free of consequence.
Mere mortals are but puppets in your hands, but still somehow you consider every life to be valuable (even fat people) and a greater amount of lives saved pleases you better than a lesser amount.
