04-16-2022, 07:47 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/...the-world/
The trolley problem is a staple of discussions about ethics. The basic version is very simple: A trolley is barreling down a track toward a group of five people who remain blissfully unaware of their impending doom. You stand next to a switch that could redirect the trolley to another track, where it will kill a smaller number of people. Do you throw the switch?
Most people take a very utilitarian view of things and say they'd throw the switch. But there are plenty of variations on the trolley problem that suggest there's more than pure utilitarianism involved in the decision-making. Changing the number of people on the alternate track or changing how directly involved you have to be in killing someone will both shift the frequency of different answers—at least in industrialized societies.
In another version used in the study, there was no switch; instead, participants had to throw someone off a bridge and in front of the trolley to get it to derail and save others.
This does surprise me a bit: I thought some of the answers might be more culturally dependent.
Myself, in the classical version of the 'trolley problem' (where a tram is running down a track with five people tied to it, and you can switch it onto a track with one person tied to it), I would flick the switch. To me, this is a straight-forward application of the Doctrine of Double Effect: the act of flicking the switch is morally neutral; the death of the one person on the other track is not intended as a means to any end; and five people are saved (versus one life lost), so the proportionality condition is satisfied.
However, in the variant where you push a person into the tram's path (in order to derail the tram and thus save the five people tied to the track)... I would not do that. Here, the "Doctrine of Double Effect" argument doesn't work: the act of pushing a person into the tram's path is itself evil, and the death of that person is intended as the means to save the five people tied to the track.
Of course, there are plenty of variants other than these two (and I wonder whether the responses to those might see more variation from one culture to another!)
The trolley problem is a staple of discussions about ethics. The basic version is very simple: A trolley is barreling down a track toward a group of five people who remain blissfully unaware of their impending doom. You stand next to a switch that could redirect the trolley to another track, where it will kill a smaller number of people. Do you throw the switch?
Most people take a very utilitarian view of things and say they'd throw the switch. But there are plenty of variations on the trolley problem that suggest there's more than pure utilitarianism involved in the decision-making. Changing the number of people on the alternate track or changing how directly involved you have to be in killing someone will both shift the frequency of different answers—at least in industrialized societies.
In another version used in the study, there was no switch; instead, participants had to throw someone off a bridge and in front of the trolley to get it to derail and save others.
This does surprise me a bit: I thought some of the answers might be more culturally dependent.
Myself, in the classical version of the 'trolley problem' (where a tram is running down a track with five people tied to it, and you can switch it onto a track with one person tied to it), I would flick the switch. To me, this is a straight-forward application of the Doctrine of Double Effect: the act of flicking the switch is morally neutral; the death of the one person on the other track is not intended as a means to any end; and five people are saved (versus one life lost), so the proportionality condition is satisfied.
However, in the variant where you push a person into the tram's path (in order to derail the tram and thus save the five people tied to the track)... I would not do that. Here, the "Doctrine of Double Effect" argument doesn't work: the act of pushing a person into the tram's path is itself evil, and the death of that person is intended as the means to save the five people tied to the track.
Of course, there are plenty of variants other than these two (and I wonder whether the responses to those might see more variation from one culture to another!)
![[Image: Train_lover_userbar.png]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/441447382056697867/805553547861164092/Train_lover_userbar.png)
Board Information and Policies
Affiliation | Coffee Credits | Ranks and Awards | Name Changes
Account Deletion | BBCode Reference
Moonface (in 'Woman runs 49 red lights in ex's car')' Wrote: If only she had ran another 20 lights.
(Thanks to Nilla for the avatar, and Detective Osprey for the sig!)
My Items