Conceive of a situation where a run away trolley is running down the tracks. There is a bystander who is the only witness.
What he sees is that the trolley is heading forward where 5 people are tied to the track.
The bystander also sees that there is a switch nearby, and he could switch the trolley to another track, where there is only one unaware person crossing the track that minute.
The bystander knows, that if he switches the gear, the train will kill the unaware man.
If he doesn’t know anything about any of the people and there’s no alternative but to let 5 die or 1 die, the straightforward, intuitive answer is to let 1 die. Anybody who says otherwise is thinking about it too much.
He may not know anything about the people, that may be true, but he sees them, he is the bystander, and he acts in accordance to what he sees, not necessarily what he knows. He may stipulate knowledge, but not preception.
Well once he gets information about the two different groups of people, there might be reasonable reasons to choose the 5 to die, I don’t know. Maybe the 5 are Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Lady Gaga, in which case it’s an easy choice.
But he has to make a moral decision and then go through with it. When he makes up his mind, he will be killing the one regardless of who the one is. Only he will base his decision on what he sees, not who the people are. Wouldn’t the killing of an innoscent child be justified by the fact that the other 5 may be parents upon whom other children may depend on?
obe, you forget 1 aspect, in pressed situations we get stressed and lose focus, extremely few of us has enough focus to think clear. We would usually irrationally and illogically.
In life we are always choosing the lesser of two or more evils.
I think it is clear that most people would kill the one person instead of the five. Now if it was 1 child five adults, maybe that would be different, but maybe not.
If it were a choice between saving yourself or a stranger, the christian thing to do is to save the stranger.
We are part ways out of christian morality and into this mass of modernism. But since that is democratic, the masses will usually be favored.
Dan: the question is not how most people would choose what to do, but what You would do and why? Why would you let the one man die in order to save the five tied to the railoroad tracks? What are the options regardless who is on the tracks and not necessarily because of sentiments?
Is there a justification for what you would be doing?
I’d quickly decide to save the five at the price of the one. I would guess that odds are over 50% he would want the same thing. So in doing so, I respect his last wishes as well as my own sense of life-protection. My justification is that people sort of deserve what they want. Want is like part of all values and life. So it would be hypocracy to deny the self completely while claiming also to be the good that the self provided.
Well in that case I would favor the friend or son.
This I would not call selfish. You see: I think both death and life are good things. Not death of the soul, but transition from the body to a higher place, by breaking the body’s slavish life-bonds. I would probably feel some regret also about my choice, as I wanted to save both groups, but I wouldn’t feel really guilty.
But what if You had a very exceptional Son, who would say, “Yes dad, I know all about it, but I must insist, if you would not void my respect for You, You must choose the 5 over me.”. Then what could You do then Dan?
Let’s update it a bit, if we can. Let’s say someone you love has an incurable disease. S/he knows it, and you know it. S/he decides that death is better than prolonged suffering. You agree. No extraordinary means will be used to prolong that life–since extraordinary means would only prolong death.
What’s your choice? Without extraordinary means, as medically and legally defined, your loved one will die. Given ‘extraordinary’ intervention, your loved one die–it just might take longer. Given common care, your loved one may die in relative comfort, but common care could prolong death.
That’s not an updated version of the OP, that’s an entirely different question. It’s like looking at someone’s car, saying ‘That car is so old, let’s update it a bit,’ and then bringing them to the apple store to ‘update their car’ with a new ipad. An ipad is not an updated car.
That’s great. I’m not really interesting in talking about everything an update might be. This thread is about one question, lizbeth is trying to change the subject to an entirely different question, and with no contextual justification it’s just silly. No, let’s not ‘update’ this thread to an entirely different topic. Start a new thread if you want to talk about that.
The thing is, that in the son corollary, the son is saying, dad, I am a man of principles. I can not be hoodwinked. I grew up by the practice of principles, oh yes with a lot of confusing overlay of pathetic stuff which life doles out, but I know your predicament dad, about the five people. Life ain’t worth a beans as I am concerned anyway, and I would rather die by my principles.
If those five people get killed and you yourself told me you don’t know who they are, then I myself also will have to carry the burden of knowing the price of my existence. Do you know me well enough dad, that I could not ever live with a burden like that?
So please switch the trolley, and let’s get on with it.
There was a thread like this sometime back. Lots of ifs, buts, thens and ands were used then too. Kobiashi Maru.
scream at the one guy and hope he hears you, save the five. But, since he cant hear a loud ass trolley, throw rocks at the deaf fool walking on tracks. I mean seriously what deaf person with a lick of sense walks on tracks? Save the five, they might be worth it. I have my doubts though.