#1 Thought experiment - "The Trolley Problem"

[bennyboy]

Wow. Utterly fascinating.

Clearly, you deserve a nomination for Hypothetical Citizen of the Month, then.
Good on you, mate! 

And congratulations!

I've risked my own health and safety on several occasions in my life, because I think taking responsibility for the well-being of those around me is one of the most important roles of a good citizen. Not that many years ago, I confronted a Korean gangster (I'm in Korea) who was attacking a woman in a poorly-lit construction site, almost certainly saving her from a beating (I should say, more of a beating, because she was in pretty poor shape already) or worse. I thought I was very likely going to be harmed, but he let her run around behind me and down the street with no shoes, and told me, "No peu-ro-be-lem." I saw at least 3 or 4 people either hanging around watching curiously, or quickly walking past, and I know if I hadn't done anything, nobody else would have. I've also walked into a fairly major fire (whole walls aflame, room filled with smoke, etc.) to check for children in an English school here. My reward was a blackened face, a partly melted shirt (damn poly blends!), and a clean conscience.

So yeah, you can golf-clap all you want, but the choice to serve the greater good, or to take a moral position that lets you slink away in safety with your squeaky-clean hands theoretically blood-free, isn't really about fat men and trains. It's about real life. The problem with your position is that you're not thinking about the 5 people who will die-- you're thinking about what you personally can "live with. And this kind of moral cowardice is the beginning of the end of a moral society.