A run-away train is hurtling down the tracks. Further down the line, too far away to reach, forty men are working in a tunnel. If the train reaches them, it is certain to kill many of them.
You can't stop the train, but you can pull the lever that will divert it down another track. Further down this line, in another tunnel, only five men are working. The death toll is bound to be smaller.
But if you pull the lever, you are deliberately choosing to bring death to this gang of five. If you leave it alone, it will not be you who caused death among the forty. You must either bring about the deaths of a few people, or allow even more to die. But is it worse to kill people than it is simply to let them die?
This is not a question of finding some loop-hole to save everyone. It is a question of whether it is ethically right to lessen the death toll by choosing who to kill or to let more die by not choosing to kill.
2006-10-05
18:31:18
·
15 answers
·
asked by
haiku_katie
4
in
Philosophy