#1 Thought experiment - "The Trolley Problem"

[Edwardo Piet]

One person dying is bad enough. I know 5 dying is worse but I don't know if I could act.

[I_am_not_mafia]

I would try to save the five people by shouting out to them rather than murder a single person.

The problem with the scenario is that you are told beforehand that the only two options are killing someone or letting five people die. You are effectively also told what the future will be in that nothing else will succeed. Life does not work that way. You don't know what the future holds. Yes I know it's a hypothetical situation and that you could contrive another scenario where you really do not have any choice, but in reality, there is always something else that you can attempt. It may fail but you also have to live with yourself and you avoid being punished.

[Edwardo Piet]

Very true this is the problem with thought experiments like this... all the options chosen sound counter-intuitive and weird because the thought experiments are so very different to reality.

[The Grand Nudger]

Actually, this inaction in a group setting is a well-studied phenomenon in psychology. It is especially common in large groups where there is no clear leader-- everyone kind of looks around for direction, and nobody takes the lead. This happens all the time with things like heart attack or seizures: someone will clearly be in serious trouble, and passers-by will literally walk right past them, pretending not to notice. However, if ONE, just one person, takes action, a dozen more will immediately jump in to help.

Women, by the way, are told to shout "fire" if they are being raped, because the chance of being saved if they shout "rape," even in an alley off a busy city street with many passers-by, are very poor indeed.

Well aware, still not onboard with your assessment, but no reason to bicker. Weigh that against the beatings of dissidents and undesirables, civilian casualties of war, and honor killings. Good people, doing the right thing. Acting on their moral intuitions...to deleterious effect. I can't help but suspect that if more of us did less, there might be more of us left, and that some portion of the remainder is due to those who wouldn't raise the billy club, the rifle, or the throwing stone.

You and I might be willing to do some envelope math with human lives based upon how it gives us the feels, but I'm not at all certain that the outcomes of that willingness are desirable played out in the aggregate, or that we have room to condemn those who either wouldn't, or could't. Lets not forget that, in the end..particularly in this thought experiment, we would be condemning someone for refusing or being unable to commit a murder.

[bennyboy]

You and I might be willing to do some envelope math with human lives based upon how it gives us the feels, but I'm not at all certain that the outcomes of that willingness are desirable played out in the aggregate, or that we have room to condemn those who either wouldn't, or could't.  Lets not forget that, in the end..particularly in this thought experiment, we would be condemning someone for refusing or being unable to commit a murder.

I'd say if you are at the controls of the train, you are already going to be a murderer. The question is only how many you will murder. I don't see any important difference between the choice to flip a track or the choice not to-- they are both decisions, and a decision is an active process already.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's an awfully loose definition of a murderer, but I can see why, if you think that, the rest could follow.

[robvalue]

I don't know if I'd freeze up or not. I'm happy to say I've never been in a position where I've been required to quickly make decisions of such magnitude. I hope I never will.

In this case, I wouldn't consider anything to be murder. I wouldn't even call it manslaughter. I'd call it attempting to save lives through damage control. But if you did want to term it manslaughter, then letting 5 people die would be manslaughter by neglect.

I don't consider the lever to be relevant. It would only be relevant if there was a really good reason why it was set the way it was, rather than how it happened to be when this weird scenario started. But imagining why it would be set up that way is difficult.

Rob, would you rather kill one of your children and save 5 or "save" one(by not killing the child ) and get the rest of the 5 killed?

Well I don't have any, but rationally I'd reason to still save the five. If I had to guess, I would do the opposite in a real situation though.

[The Grand Nudger]

You'd end up in the hall of epic parenting fails if you didn't, lol. Try explaining -that shit- to your daughter as she bleeds out. "Well, Daddy was just trying to be rational about all of this." hehehe.

[robvalue]

Yeah. I'm never going to have any, so it's hard to properly answer. I don't like kids in general, which is one of the main reasons. I'll just kill all of them.

It would easier for me to answer if you replaced the children with dogs. I'd want to rationally avoid as much death as possible, but I also highly doubt my ability to go through with it and see my dog die.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, you could replace "daughter" with "the fat man you pushed into the tracks" and I think it would be about the same - maybe a little less emotionally compelling but no different in context. I doubt you'd have any more success justifying your actions to him than you would to your own child.