Originally posted by ballyboneman: Given that there are no alternatives I would pull the lever.
I've seen this scenario somewhere else: so my answer for the next example would be 'no I wouldn't push the fat bloke off the bridge'
Catholic BTW
(That is one of the following questions, but not, as memory serves, the next one; I'll check tonight.)
What I was also intrigued by (& S&M has already mentioned this), is that one of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill", by pulling the lever aren't you directly responsible for killing someone? Wouldn't it be better to allow events to take their course so you're not directly responsible for someone's death?
I think miz'd's position can be summarised as it is better to do nothing than end up having blood on your hands (even if in doing nothing you end up with more blood being spilt, the blood is on event's/nature's hands, not your own). (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) This seems to me to be closer to the commandment than pulling the lever.
--------------- "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be" D Adams
What I was also intrigued by (& S&M has already mentioned this), is that one of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill", by pulling the lever aren't you directly responsible for killing someone? Wouldn't it be better to allow events to take their course so you're not directly responsible for someone's death?
But by not pulling the lever you are directly responsible (because you can act but chose not to) for the deaths of 5 people. Doing nothing, to me at least, is not an option. I don't think pulling the lever which leads to the death of one person is in contradiction to the 5th commandment (or 6th if you are Protestant, Jewish or Christian Orthodox). Of course there is always the hope that the one person may escape.
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I think miz'd's position can be summarised as it is better to do nothing than end up having blood on your hands (even if in doing nothing you end up with more blood being spilt, the blood is on event's/nature's hands, not your own). (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.) This seems to me to be closer to the commandment than pulling the lever.
I don't agree. As I said above I think I would be compelled to act as a failure to do so would make me complicit in the deaths of the 5.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Origonally posted by miz’d: i think it is a less complex dilemma if the choice is: dont act / act to affect yourself, because in acting you would not be making decisons about any life other than your own.
But any choice in any of the situations will affect your life...TheCarpenter suggests that it might be better to do nothing than to end up with blood on your hands but who is the judge of this…a court of law…the families of the deceased…or your own conscience which you live your life by…?
To me this has nothing to do religious dogma as I am not a Christian…to me this is about the reality of being a sentient life form and how we need to better understand the reality of our our emotional makeup…
This topic is very intriguing to me at the moment not least of all because I am 1\3 of the way through Carl Jung's book "Man & his Symbols"...
Originally posted by TheCarpenter: I think miz'd's position can be summarised as it is better to do nothing than end up having blood on your hands (even if in doing nothing you end up with more blood being spilt, the blood is on event's/nature's hands, not your own). (Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
well i suppose this is essentially correct, but its not so much the issue of having blood on my hands (i can think of scenarios in which i would act differently) more the difficulty of acting (as 'god) to decide who should die.
Originally posted by ballyboneman: I don't agree. As I said above I think I would be compelled to act as a failure to do so would make me complicit in the deaths of the 5.
whereas in acting, you place yourself as arbiter of who should die. this is not something i feel i could do in the circumstances described. a simple 'numbers' argument doesn't seem to me sufficient to make such a choice, and you have to ask how one might devalue us all in making decisions in such a way. for example, maybe a terrorist outrage can be prevented by torturing a suspect to confess, but what is the cost to us all of torture becoming part of our society?
there are all sorts of occasions in which we don't intervene - if we were obliged to (morally or legally) then i imagine it would be difficult to get through the day - all those jay walkers, and speeding drivers, and people smoking / drinking/ eating unhealthily etc etc etc.
incidentally, doesn't france have a 'good samaritan' law which expects people to intervene?
Originally posted by ballyboneman: I don't agree. As I said above I think I would be compelled to act as a failure to do so would make me complicit in the deaths of the 5.
whereas in acting, you place yourself as arbiter of who should die. this is not something i feel i could do in the circumstances described. a simple 'numbers' argument doesn't seem to me sufficient to make such a choice, and you have to ask how one might devalue us all in making decisions in such a way. for example, maybe a terrorist outrage can be prevented by torturing a suspect to confess, but what is the cost to us all of torture becoming part of our society?
there are all sorts of occasions in which we don't intervene - if we were obliged to (morally or legally) then i imagine it would be difficult to get through the day - all those jay walkers, and speeding drivers, and people smoking / drinking/ eating unhealthily etc etc etc.
incidentally, doesn't france have a 'good samaritan' law which expects people to intervene?
This explains very well some of what is going wrong in the world today. In your scenario EVERYBODY dies, but your conscience remains instact, as you have not acted in any way!
Originally posted by Sheik Yahbouti: This explains very well some of what is going wrong in the world today. In your scenario EVERYBODY dies, but your conscience remains instact, as you have not acted in any way!
thanks sheik. i'm glad that in your simple mind its all so easy as to have me epitomise all that is wrong in the world today.
you also had a very vitriolic go at me on the news forum a few weeks ago. i'm not quite sure why i attract such, er, strong emotions from you, but i suggest you go examine your own conscience before you start flinging mud at others.
Originally posted by miz'd: whereas in acting, you place yourself as arbiter of who should die. this is not something i feel i could do in the circumstances described. a simple 'numbers' argument doesn't seem to me sufficient to make such a choice, and you have to ask how one might devalue us all in making decisions in such a way.
If you take it to an extreme where you say "I would alway press the button & therefore I must always do something that will cause the least harm/ most good." then you're quite right it would devalue many of the other rights we hold dear.
For example (& this is one of the follow up questions) would it be right to kill a perfectly healthy person and harvest their organs to transplant into other people (lets say 5 other people, who will die shortly without a transplant). The 'net good' would be five perfectly healthy people and only one dead person. Numerically very similar to the starting question, but I'd be very surprised if we got the same number of people prepared to push that particular button.
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there are all sorts of occasions in which we don't intervene - if we were obliged to (morally or legally) then i imagine it would be difficult to get through the day
Legally, I imagine it's more likley you could end up on trial for pushing the button than for not, but I'm not a legal expert...
As a couple of alternative scenarios; if you were the person stood in the siding, would you push the button? if you were one of the five people stood on the line, would you push the button? (Or what sorts of scenarios would you push the button in?)
--------------- "The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas-covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be" D Adams
I essentially agree with Miz'd here. I'd let the train run its course and leave the result to destiny (inviting all manner of further discussion on the nature of destiny/free will). After all, I believe this scenario forms the basis of an interesting paradox.
By pressing the button/pulling the lever I'm complicit in the future destiny of those five people who survive at the expense of one. All of them may be upstanding members of society. One, or more, of them, however, may later become a serial killer/rapist/child molester/investment banker.
Are the needs of the many outweighed by the needs of the few in such an instance?
I would feel utterly responsible if I read the following in my copy of the Sun one morning:
"John Smith was yesterday found guilty of the murders of five teenage girls at the Royal Courts of Justice after an eight month trial. Having cheated death in 2008 when a runaway train was at the last minute diverted from his path, killing instead William Brown, an aspiring young author, Mr Smith went on to murder and bury his five female victims under the patio at his Slough home."
Originally posted by ballyboneman: I don't agree. As I said above I think I would be compelled to act as a failure to do so would make me complicit in the deaths of the 5.
whereas in acting, you place yourself as arbiter of who should die. this is not something i feel i could do in the circumstances described. a simple 'numbers' argument doesn't seem to me sufficient to make such a choice,
I've a lot of sympathy for your position but I can't agree. I think the point of this exercise (which I think is called the 'Trolly Problem') is to highlight the disparity between logic and an innate moral sense. If memory serves, most people when asked say they would pull the lever. The problem then goes on (sorry TheCarpenter if I'm preempting your followup); suppose you are standing on a bridge overlooking a railway track on which 5 people are standing; a carriage is heading towards them and they will be killed if the carriage is not stopped; leaning over the bridge is a large fat man; your experience of railways tells you that if you push the fat man off the bridge in front of the carriage it will definitely stop it before it reaches and kills the five innocent people but the fall and impact will also definitely kill the innocent fat man - do you push him and save the 5 or do you do nothing and allow the 5 to die?
My answer is no I do not push the fat man off the bridge. Logically there is ultimately no difference between the two scenarios but my innate moral sense tells me there is.
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and you have to ask how one might devalue us all in making decisions in such a way. for example, maybe a terrorist outrage can be prevented by torturing a suspect to confess, but what is the cost to us all of torture becoming part of our society?
Yes I've seen this argument put forward by Sam Harris to 'justify' torture under certain circumstances. 'Logically' or 'rationally' it may be justified but I certainly do not think it is morally justified. I would suspect and certainly hope that you wouldn't either.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Originally posted by TheCarpenter: As a couple of alternative scenarios; if you were the person stood in the siding, would you push the button? if you were one of the five people stood on the line, would you push the button? (Or what sorts of scenarios would you push the button in?)
well, if i were one of the 5 i still think i wouldn't push the button - same principle: its not for me to actively choose someone else to die in place of the 5 (even if it included me).
if i were the one, the dilemma seems less complex, but not easier, if you see what i mean. the decision becomes should *i* die in place of the 5. i still think (as 'me') i wouldn't push it, but maybe if i was old or some other circumstance were in play i would choose differently, but then i would still only be making a choice about actively ending my own life, not someone else's.
i'd like to think i wouldn't push little children out the way to get into a life raft, and that i'd definitely put my own children ahead of myself etc, but who can really say.
Originally posted by ballyboneman: My answer is no I do not push the fat man off the bridge. Logically there is ultimately no difference between the two scenarios but my innate moral sense tells me there is.
well, i suppose pushing a button to cause someone's death is less 'dirty' than pushing the person in person.... but it is essentially the same, and thats how it would seem to me. how can it be morally ok to cause a death as long as its not by direct action?
although, if i *had* to kill someone, i'd sure rather do it by indirect action (pulling a trigger say) than by hands on contact (stabbing say). it only makes it easier i think, not better.
Originally posted by ballyboneman: My answer is no I do not push the fat man off the bridge. Logically there is ultimately no difference between the two scenarios but my innate moral sense tells me there is.
well, i suppose pushing a button to cause someone's death is less 'dirty' than pushing the person in person.... but it is essentially the same, and thats how it would seem to me. how can it be morally ok to cause a death as long as its not by direct action?
Yes it's tricky. It really comes down to a moral balancing act I guess. Would it make any difference if say the 5 people in the first scenario were replace by 50 toddlers? Would you feel the same or do you think you would be more inclined to pull the lever?
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although, if i *had* to kill someone, i'd sure rather do it by indirect action (pulling a trigger say) than by hands on contact (stabbing say). it only makes it easier i think, not better.
Hmm I'm not so sure myself. For example if in the second scenario I didn't have to physically push the guy but was able to somehow do it by remote without being seen and with no legal repercussions I still think I wouldn't be able to do it.
Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)
Hope everyone is feeling well after the festivities.
Just to get everyone back in the swing of things here's a simple question.
You see a train careering down the track obviously out of control. On the track, there are 5 people who will be killed by the train.
You realise that you are stood by a lever controlling the tracks and can divert the train into a siding where only 1 person will be killed.
Do you pull the lever? (& if you are approaching this question from a particular religious or moral viewpoint please could you state (briefly) what it is? Thanks)
Am I right in thinking that this question throws up the same results whatever culture and/or religion?
Originally posted by durrie: Hmm…lets change it even further…
i think it is a less complex dilemma if the choice is: dont act / act to affect yourself, because in acting you wouldnot be making decisons about any life other than your own.
Hi Miz'd,
The more I think about this the more I think that yours is probably the only honest answer. While I answered 'pull the lever', that is what is 'right', not in all honesty what I would actually do. I think we would all be paralysed with indecision and would err on the side of inaction. I completely agree that it is far easier to live with the death of five through in-action than the death of one through action.
Originally posted by ballyboneman: My answer is no I do not push the fat man off the bridge. Logically there is ultimately no difference between the two scenarios but my innate moral sense tells me there is.
That's because there is. In the first scenario, either 5 people or 1 person is going to get mashed. You get to choose which. Either way the people have already put themselves in harm's way and your dilemma is to choose how many of those die. In the second scenario 5 people are going to get mashed. The fat bloke on the bridge is kind of a red herring because he isn't going to die unless you push him in front of the train (or he keeps eating too many chips). So in the first scenario the "right" thing to do is switch the points to save 4 people (net). In the second scenario you let them get run over. Pushing the fat man off the bridge means you enter the dangerous, swampy, tyrannical world where everyone continually gets to decide whether everyone else gets to live.
I too think I would be paralysed into inaction in the first scenario, mainly because life is always more complicated than it first appears and many a catastrophe is caused with the noblest of intentions.
