The Trolley Problem [Moral Paradox]

Why not just throw yourself in front of it and try to stop it? That way you have no guilt of taking someone's life, no guilt of doing nothing. You might succeed, you might fail, but you did all you could.

Because it requires a fat person and according to the image, you are not fat.

I don't think I'd do anything...for all I know the 5 people are murderers and the one person on the other track is going to cure cancer (extreme, I know, but it's possible)

Find out that which you value and apply it.
In an ideal world I personally value length of life/how many lives/my relationship with said lifeforms. In the circumstances outlined I would always try to save the most amount of lives provided I am only given that information. If it transpired that the five on the track were all terminally ill and expected to die within the next week I would let the one person with the longer life live on. If they are all roughly equal in terms of life left (obviously so many unknown variables here but 'hypothetically'...) then for me the many outweight the one and the one will die provided that in the situation I am strong enough to do so.

I think the situation can be further complicated if any of the 5 are my family members or loved ones, or worse the 1 is my mum or sister for example. Then I would be inclined to save my family member, this maybe selfish but I cannot see anything which suggests that I have an imperative to do otherwise. I am aware of my own needs as all humans are and my subjective valuation of my family member cannot realistically be questioned. Peter Singer for example paid a lot of money to keep his ill mother alive, despite reasoning prior to this that people in her situation should logically be left to die. Singer being a huge proponent of logic, failing to execute his logical ideologies to me, is just confirming my view that humans are not bound by any form of logic/reasoning (arguably absolute or non-absolute).

You also don't know for sure that throwing the fat guy on the rails will actually stop the train...

My word has this thread become dissipated. Is this not the debate section? If you want to have a chit chat why not do that somewhere else.
Not including you in this comment Holley Hiskey and cormack12.

Ahem? There's no 'chit-chat' here, it's just plenty of people replying to the original questions posed by the O.P.

Am I reading a different thread?

This paradox was first published in a 1967 paper by the philosopher Professor Philippa Foot, and has generated much discussion in the fields of ethics, cognitive science and neuroethics ever since - especially when compared with another similar thought experiment.

The first scenario: The Switch

"A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher. Fortunately, you could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch or do nothing?"



The second scenario: The Fat Man

"As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?"



Now even though the outputs are exactly the same for both from a utilitarian viewpoint, a lot more people answer yes to the first problem than the second.

There has been some neuroscience research on why our moral intuitions differ with each scenario -- and it has to do with different parts of the brain: http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/

I thought this was pretty interesting so I thought I'd share. What are your views on this? Wouldn't you agree that it just seems more difficult to answer yes to the second scenario and not the first?

My solution to both these problems is: do nothing. By letting the people die indirectly (through not acting) is far better than directly killing someone (by flicking the switch or pushing the fat man off the bridge) to save many others. By direct action you have committed murder whereas through indirect action you have merely been negligent. The solution is therefore obvious.