What would you do?

<sad geek alert>

reminds me of the Star Trek: Voyager episode 'Latent Image' where the hologram doctor makes a decision on which of two critically ill patients to save in the time he has to do so, both in mortal danger, both of equal importance to the ship. And he chooses the one he likes most. As the Doc began tries to figure out why he made the choice that allowed the other to die, a conflict arises between his independent thought process and his pre-programmed "first duty" of treating patients with total impartiality. The conflict grew and consumed him. Twice, cuz he found out a year and a half later after they erased his memory of the event and it all happened again!

I therefore urge you all not to answer this post! Consider yourself warned.

</sad geek alert>

To give a serious answer, I agree with Ursa. I'd probably yell and try and get the idiots to jump out of the way, but that's all I could do. If my taking direct action would result in someone's death, even if that death saves several other lives, I couldn't do it.

I have to wonder if pushing the fat man on the track to save the five stuck on the track would also derail the train, thus killing the fat man, the train driver and whomever happened to be on the train and/or in the path of a possible train derailment?

I would try to yell at the people down the track, and anyone standing closer to them to hopefully stop it from happening, but sometimes fate just has to happen the way it's happening.

It's like when you're late for work, and you're driving the kids to school first, and one of them left their homework on the kitchen table so you have to turn around, drive all the way back home, get the homework (grumbling all the while), then take them to school again...only to find that had you not turned around to do this annoying but necessary thing you would have been involved in the five car pileup that occurred on the freeway at approximately the same time you would have reached that exact spot on the freeway. (longest sentence ever? lol)

I would call the Train Dispatcher and have him activate the Automatic Braking System and stop the train. Duh!

haha everyone is thinking into it too much to avoid making the decision It's a runaway empty carriage with no people on it.

yeah, Hiro, I posed your question to the guys at work (all intelligent enough to understand the point of the question) and got the same response - all discussing the technicalities of switch points and how heavy a man it would take to stop a carriage - and not a one willing to give a straight answer.

I believe my reactions would be the expected "yes, switch" and "no, don't throw" respectively - but exactly why the second case is that much different to the first is something that will give me much thought over the next few days.

Thanks for being a gadfly

These problems are not logically equivalent. In one you save multiple lives without a counter cost, in the other you save multiple lives with a counter cost of one.

From a purely moral perspective, multiple lives outway one or none. However if that sounds too cut and dry of course it is. What if you were the large man. However if you put your self in the shoes of the large man and find he doesn't want to die, then you also have to put yourself in the shoes of the about to be run over group and find that they equally don't wan to die.

Furthermore, you cannot and cannot be expected to factor in the contributions past and present of each life, so individual life value qualifications are irrelevant and each life has to be considered equal.

So final conclusion, assuming all impacting factors not mentioned in the posed situations are null conditions, then flip the switch and throw the man over because in each case you come out with a positive life balance.

Its a bit like, if you could, would you go back and kill Hitler? And if he was a child?

In both cases your action would save 5 lives at the expense of another.


So from a purely moral perspective it's cool to murder?

Hiro,

Oops, I forgot about the single person standing on the other track so they are equivalent.

Cool has nothing to do with it. If you see pushing one to save five as murdering one, then if you do nothing, you are murdering the other 5. Albiet it's by innaction so it's physically less strenous.

So the train is going towards the split in the tracks, and currently the switch is set so that it will kill 500 people. You could flip the switch so it goes down the other way, and kills 1 person. And you don't do it?

I don't understand, you don't see yourself as killing 5 people by not doing anything? action vs inaction seems irrelevant to me. It's still making a choice, to kill one or five. or if you want a positive spin, save one or five.

To answer the original post:

No, the two situations are not identical, at least in how people think about the situation. There are a number of factors in play here, and part of the art of these examples is isolating exactly the factor you want to emphasise.

Here are a few factors:

1. The number of lives saved or lost.
2. If one commits murder.
3. If one is likely to have been seen committing murder (and therefore might go to jail).
4. Squeamishness at physical violence.
5. How likely your actions are to acheive the desired outcome.

The two cases ("switch" and "push" are apparently identical in factor 1, although the switch case is far better in factor 5 than the push case. It isn't clear at all, as the push case is stated, that pushing the man will definitely stop the train. People will rightfully pick on this point, it matters a lot. If you don't want that issue to be a factor then you need to change the example so that the two cases agree better on this point.

The two cases do not differ in factor 2, it is murder in both. This matters a lot to some people. They differ hugely in factors 3 and 4.

I think what the two cases are trying to get at is that 4 shouldn't matter but it does to many people. Or perhaps that it really is murder, even though it feels less like it in the switch case than in the push case, and that perhaps this means that whether or not it is murder should be less important than the number of lives saved.

But in any case, things are blurred too much (in the current cases) by factors 3 and 5 to really get at the guts of what they are trying to show.

I have spoken at length with people who would hold this view. The difference for people I've spoken to has been religious in nature. Murder is a sin. Standing by and watching the larger number of people die is not.

Oh to answer just the original question in all seriousness, I would kill one to save five without hesitation.

To expand slightly, I'd be guilty of murder in each case. Being caught performing or not performing an action and the trouble I may get into because of it does not have an effect on my choice. If I were the one person who had to die to save 5 I would not blame the person who killed me. In fact, if me dying were required, who needs help, I'm perfectly capable of stepping in front of a train. , cheerful aint I.

Is the large man one of my exes? If so, the answer would be EASY >

Can't agree with you, Rickard. If you take it upon yourself to force someone to sacrifice their life in order to save the lives of others, that makes you a murderer. That man has the right to make the choice for himself. You have no right to make it for him, even if you believe the outcome would be preferable.

Easy, I'd kill the 5 people - more exp points, more corpses to loot, and perhaps one of them would have a juicy weapon or amulet

but then I'd have murdered the other 5 just as surely.

Life and death are but a transition, I believe. Death comes to us each in turn. If the people in the carriage are meant to die, they will, and if the fat man is meant to save them with his own death he will. But I cannot put, on the burden of my soul, that I caused someons direct death. Thus while each situation is sad. A life without having committed murder is a better one.