How would you deal with this hypothetical moral dilemma?

Question

Here are two moral dilemas posed by a philosopher whose name I have forgotten. I'm interested in hearing what your choices would be and why.

a) 5 people are on a railway track. There is a trolley speeding toward them and they will surely be killed. You are near a lever that can divert the trolley onto another track, but there is one person on it, who will die if you pull the lever. Inaction will result in 5 deaths. What do you do? Do you sacrifice 1 to save 5? Ponder a moment then try the next one.

b) 5 people are on a railway track. There is a trolley speeding toward them and they will surely be killed. You are standing on a bridge above the track, and next to you is a person who is heavy enough to stop the trolley. Do you push them onto the track, sacrificing 1 to save 5? Inaction will result in 5 deaths.

* Extra consideration for providing your reasoning and also for the name of the philosopher with a referenced source

Answer 1

The trolley problem was first proposed by Philippa Foot. (She's also Grover Cleveland's granddaughter, for you trivia buffs)

I'm a rule utilitarian, and therefore I cannot act in either case. I cannot sacrifice another without that person's consent.

Inaction is not immoral in this case. I am choosing not to kill an innocent, and other methods of stopping this course of events are not within my scope.

Answer 2

On either one, to pull the lever or push the person over, is wrong. To do so would be murder. Now, if you were going to sacrifice yourself, that is ok. And no, that is not the same thing as murdering yourself. In sacrificing yourself for others, it is a selfless act or love.
Commiting suicide is a selfish act, one where you seek the quickest path to end whatever suffering you maybe enduring w/o regard for the consequences. Now, i don't think that commiting suicide if your dying anyway to neccesarily be wrong. For example, you have a gun in your hand, you were just smashed by a car into a wall, and now your bleeding to death, and to move the car means that you would die becuase they crushed some internal oragan. So, there is no possible way to live and all you have is suffering, then it is ok to commit suicide. Some may say that life is slow death, but death is merely the next phase of life. You don't ceast to be, but are merely put into a different state of being. Even science testifies that energy can't be destroyed, but merely changed into a different state.
You may also say that sacrificing one is better than letting 5 die. But, again, that is not a choice you have the right to make. Some may disagree, but doing wrong in hopes of accomplishing something good is wrong. Look at Judas Iscariot. He betrayed Jesus, his best friend, to try to force him to become the king that all the Jews had been waiting for. One that would rid them of the Romans by establishing his kingdom. But instead Jesus died. And, so, Judas commited suicide, becuase the overwhelming guilt of the sin he commited crushed him.
Just to set the record straight, Jesus' death was a sacrifice, becuase at any point he could have prayed that the angels come and save him, but he didn't. He died so that we may live.
Also, there maybe other factors to this not given in the question. Why were they on the tracks? Unless they were suppose to be fixing it or something, then they should know that there are consequences to our actions. If they were fixing it, then why was the trolley sent down the tracks anyway? The fualt does not fall on you, the bystander, whatever the circumstance.

I hope this has enough reasoning and logic behind it for you xD.

Ryan

Answer 3

In the first dilemma presented, I would pull the lever. This would be in accordance with the philosophical writings of Bentham and J.S. Mill, utilitarians that stated that the good is determined by the action that provides the greatest pleasure to the greatest number.

In the second dilemma, I would not throw the fatso in front of the train, for I am in reality not a Utilitarian, but as a deontologist, who believes that there are certain principals that one must live by in order to be a good person. These principals would include not murdering an innocent (the fatso) to save others.

I realize that there is on the surface a logical inconsistency between my two answers, however if one considers that pulling the lever is an act of diverting the train from harming the five, while throwing the fatso is an act of murdering the fatso, I believe that the validity of my answers is clear.

Answer 4

Hmm...ok..morbid time. I would chose to not react. Here is one thing we can not be certain of that one person could be a father of 5, while the 5 are transient. Here is the reasoning for allowing the 5 to go down. I see the attention given would be greater of the 5. This would resonate to more awareness of walking along the track that could save an exponential amount of lives. If I allowed the one person to die, it is likely less attention is paid to the incident. Thus, there is less awareness brought about dangers of walking on tracks and more lives lost.

Answer 5

well, its murder, if you move the lever or push the person, to cause that one persons death,,,,, whereas your not causing the 5 peoples death,,, their being on the track with the train coming is,,,,,, so no,,,, i would yell, scream,, do whatever,,,, to get them off,,,, plus its really a kind of ridiculous question,,,,,, why would you even have access to the lever? sounds like its time to get out of Dodge, so to speak, if people are standing on train tracks while a train is coming, the conductor cant blow the horn to get them off, and they leave their train track levers out in the open,,,,,,,, why get the poor one person involved in that mess???? and yes i know, one is suppose to think deep thoughts about these two scenarios but any seriously thinking person would have problems with the whole set up ,,,,,,,

Answer 6

I'm not much help because I couldn't kill anyone to save anyone
the most I could do would be to flick the lever & then chuck a big rock on the track to stop the trolly reaching the one guy
there is no way i could push a guy to his death to save anyone

Answer 7

the guys so fat he can stop a trolley?? anyways, id cause the trains to derail and then jump off them causing no one to die

Answer 8

To act would be to commit murder, not acting would allow fate to be played out as it was intended.
Yes by my not acting is actually fate at work.

Answer 9

I hate to quote from star trek but " the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few....or the one"