1.4 A Challenging Case—The Trolley Problem
Imagine that you are standing next to a railway track and notice a runaway trolley coming down the tracks. There are five workers further down the track who are too far away to hear you. There is also a switch in front of you, that would divert the trolley to another track. Unfortunately there is also a single worker on this other track, who is himself too far away to hear you.
Philippa Foot, Trolley Driver and Transplant Problems (6:02)
If you are experiencing issues viewing the video above, please use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99wc1C_yDIM.
Ponder if you will…
Put yourself in the Trolley Dilemma. Would you throw the switch and cause the one worker to die in order to prevent the runaway trolley from hitting the five workers?
In the next video, consider how some philosophers have tried to work through this thorny issue. The video offers a parallel case called the Transplant problem. See if you can see the important similarities and differences in the two cases.
This classic case of an ethical dilemma has been extensively studied by philosophers and moral psychologists. It presents us with a situation in which we most likely feel torn between two alternatives, neither of which seems to be acceptable or desirable, but in which we also may feel unable to refuse to pick either. Cases like this are good at bringing to the surface the intuitions and assumptions we make about what the right thing to do might be, and that is why they are often studied by philosophers and others interested in looking more closely at moral decision making. One significant result of the study of this case is that a large majority of people say that if they were in that situation they would throw the switch. Many of us feel compelled to follow a common moral idea: all else being equal, do whatever saves the most lives. However, doesn’t the same logic apply to the transplant scenario? Now the following variation on the Trolley Problem.
Imagine this time that you again are standing on a bridge with a low railing over a railway track and notice a runaway trolley coming down the tracks. There are still five people further down the track who are too far away to hear you. There is also a very large man standing next to you, and if you gave him a slight push, he would fall in front of the trolley car causing it to derail, thus saving the five workers.
JJ Thomson, “Fat Man” Trolley Problem (5:15)
If you are experiencing issues viewing the video above, please use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMKZ6OHVE0g .
Ponder if you will…
Would you push the person off the bridge to prevent the runaway trolley from hitting the five workers?
The outcome is still the same—one dies that five may live. What, if anything, has changed. Was the decision different for you this time? How do you explain the difference?
In this case a large majority of people say they would not push the person off the bridge even if it would save the five. Given that the result is the same in either case, the question then becomes why it is that in this version of this scenario, as in the transplant scenario, we no longer look at it in terms of gut feeling that it is better to do what leads to more lives being saved.
Whatever the explanation for this discrepancy may be (and there is an entire academic industry that has developed around research into the trolley dilemma) the important point here is that philosophers are interested in both examining cases like this directly and in studying how it is that we all tend to respond. Cases like this help us to see and hence to start examining the deeper assumptions we rely on in our thinking about right and wrong. In general this is what philosophy as a discipline is all about – exposing to view and carefully examining the assumptions we make about how the world works, what we can know about it, and what matters. Note, too, most ethical thinking hopes to come to clear answers about what to do, but that these can only come, if they come at all, after looking thoroughly at our assumptions.
This is exactly what Socrates meant by leading “an examined life.” He insisted that if we never bothered to reflect on our own deepest assumptions about reality, knowledge and values we would be missing out on what may truly make life worth living. You may disagree with him that this kind of examination is something that we should all devote our entire lives to as he did, but he does have a point worth considering. If we never take the time to deeply reflect on our assumptions, are really ever living our own lives?
Taking it to the Streets…
Share the following video with several friends, asking them how they would recommend programming driverless vehicles.
Driverless Car Ethics (5:32)
If you are experiencing issues viewing the video above, please use this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R983d2zNo-g
As you engage them in conversation, try to play devil’s advocate and offer them “what if” responses to their suggestions.
Do you begin to understand how difficult moral choice-making can be?
