Trolley Problem/Consistency in Ethics

[RoadRunner79]

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Hey folks!

I was recently musing over two different thought experiments whose purpose is to test the value of ethical consequentialism. For those who aren't familiar, consequentialism is a type of normative ethical theory which emphasizes the results (or consequences) of a given action.

In this paper, Judith Thompson analyzes the famous trolley problem alongside another thought experiment: the transplant problem.

Anyone who is unfamiliar with the trolley problem can find a description of it by clicking below:

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You find yourself standing next to a trolley track when, to your horror, you notice a runaway trolley which is set to hit five hapless individuals who are in the trolleys path. But there is hope! A few feet away from you stands a lever that, if pulled, will divert the trolley from its default course, thus saving the lives of five people. There is only one problem. If you pull the lever, and switch it off its track, it will be on course to hit one person who is on the other track.

So what do you do? Do you kill one person to save five? Or do you do nothing? (I should add that, even though the picture has people tied to the tracks, the original example uses railway workers who are unaware of the oncoming trolley.)

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The transplant problem is a different variation on the same ethical dilemma. In this example you are a world class surgeon whose area of expertise is organ transplants. You currently have five patients under your care who will die by the end of the day if they don't receive organ transplants. The window for any last-minute organ donations to show up has closed, and you are basically watching the clock waiting for them to die.

A patient shows up to your office complaining of mild gastric discomfort. This gives you an idea   .

If you were to subdue this patient and harvest her organs, you could save the lives of all five of your patients. But if you do this, there is no chance that the "donor" will survive. So what do you do? Do you kill one person to save five? Or do you do nothing?



The question here is: are you a consistent consequentialist? If you saved five lives at the cost of one in the trolley example, did you do so in the doctor example? If there is inconsistency, how do you justify it? Keep in mind, both examples are essentially the same: you can either ACT and save five lives (at the cost of one) or NOT ACT and let five people die. I'd like to hear people's reasoning for deciding differently or remaining consistent concerning both thought experiments.

(Even if you don't reply, please answer the attached poll. I'd like to get some raw numbers. I set it up to be anonymous.)
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Wow.... this is about the best version of the problem, that I have seen. I think someone mentioned, that in a common form of the dilemma, one is pushing some fat guy onto the tracks. And at this point, I was fairly confident in my answer... No you can't do that. Changing it to a switch somehow makes it different. But why? The addition of the similar scenario of the doctor and the organ transplants highlights the issue well. Here, I think it is natural to have more difficulty.

It's a good thought exercise. I think that if you don't have difficulty with it, then I think that there is something wrong. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, I look at it from another angle, and end up back with no good answer. There was a couple, that said that the trolley is different, in that you are saving, rather than actively killing someone. This sounds reasonable. But then you look at it from another angle.... if you remove the five people on the active track, and still throw the switch, it's difficult to say that you are not guilty of killing the one person. The difference that was mentioned in that their is an obligation of the doctor to the individual is interesting. A little more practical than moral; I think. But what if someone else offers to do the killing, what if it's out of the doctors hands, or they simiply get another doctor? What if this is not a one time event, but standard practice? We test everyone, and when their are a certain number of people desperate for a transplant, there is a lottery of those who are compatible. What if it is a loved one who is the individual does that effect your choice in either case.

Also I had seen a couple of answers that where extreme in concrete (literal) thinking. You need to work on your abstract though and thinking through the ideas. However for a very real world situation.... terrorist have hijacked an airplane, and are redirecting the airplane towards a large city/population group. Do you shoot down the plane, along with the innocent people on board before it gets there? Here you are actively killing some to save more. Why would this be any different from the organ transplant scenario? Does an unspoken social obligation outweigh any ethical or moral underpinnings.... I have trouble saying that it does. I think that there is something else.... I've tried coming at this from multiple angles, and to me, it is one of those things that the more you think about it; the more difficult it is.