Railroad. Train coming. Will kill 10 on tracks.
Fat man. Would halt train.
Push him?
10 sick. Needed: 2 kidneys, 2 lungs, 1 liver, 5 misc organs.
Captain fitness McGee. Across the street. Waves.
Cut him up?
Stranded. 11 people. Wisconsin.
No food. Starving.
Eat one of them?
Your answers, and why.
They differ?
EDIT: The full title of this thread was obviously cut short, by about four fifths.
I would’t act in any of those situations. I’d just let whatever was going to happen happen. Unless I was on the train, needed an organ or was stranded and starving. Then I would do whatever to ensure my own safety. I think that’s what you should do too.
Why not save lives when it’s no sweat off your balls?
Carve a child’s eyes out with a fork?
Because I could make a mistake that made things worse.
Not the eyeballs, but some nice part that would cook up nicely.
Is that likely, given the examples as they are? Look at them, again.
Look at you. Why is your safety worth anything above someone else’s?
I could push him, we could both fall then we both die and everyone on the train. That’s a decrease in utility.
My safety isn’t worth more than someone else’s in and of itself, just from my perspective. It’s all about perspective when it comes to beliefs, especially beliefs about actions.
Answer the question based on what is stipulated to happen in the thought experiment. It’s in the realm of possibility for aliens to land, but that’s not stipulated in the thought experiment.
So let me get this straight: you think that your safety isn’t worth more than someone else’s, but you also just think that your safety is worth more than someone else’s. Well done. Remember the line from the hit movie Dumb And Dumber, where he trades his van for a scooter. And the guy is like, “You have just TOTALLY REDEEMED YOURSELF”. Well done.
I think I’d say no to all. Allowing any of those things to happen contributes to a moral landscape wherein life or death decisions can be made for you without your knowledge or consent. Also, none of the victims in any of those scenarios were at all responsible for the events that lead up to the disaster. Allowing nature to take it’s course, so to speak, in any of those scenarios isn’t the same as making the choice to intentionally kill another person.
I’m curious Von, how would you answer?
A $10 bill in my pocket has exactly the same absolute value as a $10 bill in another person’s pocket. However, it is of no use to me when in the other person’s pocket. Therefore, I value it more when it is in my pocket. Is that hard to understand?
10 hungry hedgehogs. Only 8 biscuits.
Do you portion them out equally or eat all the hedgehogs yourself?
Yes. Tee. Hee. Tee. Hee. Big up yourself. 'Nough respect. Well done.
Why not just answer the questions? They are not my questions; they are some of the deepest in the history of philosophical ethics.
Is it hard to understand that in none of the questions is your own life—or your own $10 bill—in jeopardy? Do you have a problem with answering the questions?
At first glance:
Will have to mull over your answers for a bit.
Von, me falling down and aliens landing fall into completely separate categories when it comes to the probability of them actually happening. Come on man, you’re supposed to be a philosopher…split a few hairs.
My safety is most important to me, to others, it’s not as important as theirs. Remember the part of my simple, 3 line post, where I mentioned perspective comes into play?
Answer the questions as thought I already know the thought experiment? Dude…thought experiments are boring when people treat them that way. You know where I first heard the trolley example? In my very first philosophy class, in 2002. PHL 101. I mean…what are you expecting here?
Posted in a slapdash way in the Mundane Babble forum. Tell me, when are you going to get round to actually doing some philosophy rather than piss-anting around with thought experiments?
It’s called a thought experiment. You stipulate the variables, so that you can investigate your answers. The variables have been stipulated. It’s not open to you to make shit up to avoid answering the question.
Philosophy: You say why you think/answer what you do. Simple enough, isn’t it?
Spoken like someone who isn’t familiar with what actually goes on in philosophy. A thought experiment is when you imagine a situation that doesn’t exist, in order to explore why you think/respond the way you would. It’s a tool for analyzing—in this case, your ethical beliefs.
Oh, yeah. Then you bump into folks who say why they think/answer what they do. Then you notice it is not what you think/answer. Then you conclude that what they think/answer is wrong. Not objective, in other words.
Some even insist that’s the way it works in the philosophy forum too. Kids though, mostly. 
I was writing about your ‘Dumb and Dumber’ reply to Smears… That should have been fairly obvious.
No, I don’t have a problem answering.
No. Anyone who thinks that a fat man will stop a train is out of his mind.
No. I don’t want to live in a society where people feel free to sacrifice someone for ‘the greater good’.
No. If someone died of natural causes, then I would grab a seat at the table but I wouldn’t kill someone in order to eat him. On the other hand, talk is cheap and who really knows what he would do in the circumstances. It’s easy to be an armchair hero.
You asked what we’d do and why. I said what I’d do and why. There’s not a stretch, or an implausible premise, or anything improbably happening in my response. To counter it, you had to bring in space aliens. I mean…
Your reason was that any life is as valuable as yours, but you would only act to save yourself. If you think that other lives are valuable, why wouldn’t you also act to save them when—as I’ve already stipulated—it’s no sweat off your balls.