THE TROLLEY DILEMMA

[Natsuu]

The trolley dilemma is a famous dilemma used commonly in psychology classes for a healthy discussion, arguments, and debates. This was also used in our University which takes long hours of discussion and yet we're not finished with it. I would like to have this same discussion in this thread for it was a great topic for a healthy discussion, and also relating to the scenarios of society on how one thinks and acts depending on the situation.

The trolley problem was first introduced by the philosopher Philippa Foot.

"A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Adam is standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to divert the trolley onto another track that only has one worker on it. If Adam diverts the trolley onto the other track, this one worker will die, but the other five workers will be saved."

-This version of trolley problem was copied from https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/dec/12/the-trolley-problem-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-many-others

_______________________________________________________________________________ _________

My take for this dilemma is that I would rather not take an action and let the trolley hit his destination. This way, I would be release from my conscience that I killed a random person with my own hand, and my own action.

[Spendulus]

The trolley dilemma....

Put a rock by the track that switches, such that as it moves it comes to rest half way between the tracks.

Derail the trolley.

Be sure to give the professor two big middle fingers.

[Gyfts]

If you were forced to make a decision, what are the arguments for not intervening and trying to do the least amount of damage? It's easy to say you would do nothing, but why not step in and reduce the loss of life?

[Spendulus]

If you were forced to make a decision, what are the arguments for not intervening and trying to do the least amount of damage? It's easy to say you would do nothing, but why not step in and reduce the loss of life?

Wait...

The five whose lives are at risk, are they lawyers?

If so the "do-nothing" choice is the clear and simple answer.

[Natsuu]

The trolley dilemma....

Put a rock by the track that switches, such that as it moves it comes to rest half way between the tracks.

Derail the trolley.

Be sure to give the professor two big middle fingers.

Yes that would be a good answer, but think about it, derailing the trolley (we can consider in high speed cause if that is in low speed, they can stop it before it hits any workers) can cause a lot of damage thinking that this scenario happens in a city. The damage would be much higher and there's a probability of it hitting one of the two choices while damaging any infrastructure and maybe killing some innocent lives that were not involved in the first place.  

If you were forced to make a decision, what are the arguments for not intervening and trying to do the least amount of damage? It's easy to say you would do nothing, but why not step in and reduce the loss of life?

Do nothing is a decision I'd make to make me less involved in the scenario, yes, the thoughts of saving more lives instead of one will haunt me down, but I can think of it as not my fault cause I didn't much involve in the action. I can put the blame on the operators of the trolley and let them sink into despair.  

If you were forced to make a decision, what are the arguments for not intervening and trying to do the least amount of damage? It's easy to say you would do nothing, but why not step in and reduce the loss of life?

Wait...

The five whose lives are at risk, are they lawyers?

If so the "do-nothing" choice is the clear and simple answer.

This is not a riddle, but you can assume something to prove your point, but just make it feasible 

[Cnut237]

Do nothing is a decision I'd make to make me less involved in the scenario, yes, the thoughts of saving more lives instead of one will haunt me down, but I can think of it as not my fault cause I didn't much involve in the action. I can put the blame on the operators of the trolley and let them sink into despair.  

The trolley problem is a fascinating exploration of morality. It is interesting to consider variants that are morally exactly the same, but where people might make different decisions. One such variant has the participant as a surgeon, who has five transplant patients who are about to die because no suitable donors have been found. Someone healthy comes in for a routine check, and you find that they are a suitable match. Do you murder this healthy person, extract their organs and transplant them into your patients? Because this is a thought experiment, we assume no complications; if you perform the transplants then all five will make a full recovery and live healthy lives. If you don't murder the innocent person, your five patients die.

I would suspect that many of the people who would pull the train lever would refuse to kill the healthy patient... but morally this is the exact same thing, you are killing one to save five.

I think that these simple thought experiments give some huge insights into moral agency, and how easy it is for us to avoid difficult decisions by pretending that we are not involved, and that 'do nothing' is just a passive choice, when in fact, in many situations, you would be actively doing nothing in order to not take responsibility for choosing between two morally bad outcomes.

Me personally? I think I might take action to divert the trolley, but definitely wouldn't take the donor organs. And I say this despite just outlining that this is inconsistent reasoning... which does demonstrate how powerfully our emotions influence our decision-making, even for supposedly rational beings.

As an aside, the theoretical trolley problem did become reality in 2003, when the driver of a runaway freight train heading for central Los Angeles had a choice to divert it into a neighbourhood of lower density housing instead.

[Natsuu]

Do nothing is a decision I'd make to make me less involved in the scenario, yes, the thoughts of saving more lives instead of one will haunt me down, but I can think of it as not my fault cause I didn't much involve in the action. I can put the blame on the operators of the trolley and let them sink into despair.  

The trolley problem is a fascinating exploration of morality. It is interesting to consider variants that are morally exactly the same, but where people might make different decisions. One such variant has the participant as a surgeon, who has five transplant patients who are about to die because no suitable donors have been found. Someone healthy comes in for a routine check, and you find that they are a suitable match. Do you murder this healthy person, extract their organs and transplant them into your patients? Because this is a thought experiment, we assume no complications; if you perform the transplants then all five will make a full recovery and live healthy lives. If you don't murder the innocent person, your five patients die.

I would suspect that many of the people who would pull the train lever would refuse to kill the healthy patient... but morally this is the exact same thing, you are killing one to save five.

I think that these simple thought experiments give some huge insights into moral agency, and how easy it is for us to avoid difficult decisions by pretending that we are not involved, and that 'do nothing' is just a passive choice, when in fact, in many situations, you would be actively doing nothing in order to not take responsibility for choosing between two morally bad outcomes.

Me personally? I think I might take action to divert the trolley, but definitely wouldn't take the donor organs. And I say this despite just outlining that this is inconsistent reasoning... which does demonstrate how powerfully our emotions influence our decision-making, even for supposedly rational beings.

As an aside, the theoretical trolley problem did become reality in 2003, when the driver of a runaway freight train heading for central Los Angeles had a choice to divert it into a neighbourhood of lower density housing instead.

Easy there, lets stick to the question, and continue this discussion.
So why would you divert the trolley?, cause if you pull the lever to save the 5 workers, the other one would die because of your action alone, and that will be your sore responsibility. Don't you think that the 5 workers would think that its okay not for you to intervene just to save their lives and kill one as a sacrifice?

[Cnut237]

Easy there, lets stick to the question, and continue this discussion.

Ha, sorry. There's a joke in there about derailing the thread

So why would you divert the trolley?, cause if you pull the lever to save the 5 workers, the other one would die because of your action alone, and that will be your sore responsibility.

Because not acting is an active choice. You can't simply not act and claim that you weren't involved, so it wasn't your problem. That's not remotely convincing as an argument. You may not like it, but you are an active participant in the situation, because the choices you make can affect the outcome. In fact, you are the only person who controls the outcome. You decide who lives and who dies. It's all down to you.

The three choices below are absolutely morally equivalent:

• standing back and doing nothing
• grabbing the lever and not diverting the trolley
• grabbing the lever, diverting it to the one person and then diverting it back to the five original people

Each of those three choices confers the same level of guilt. The difference is that with some of those choices, it is easier to convince yourself (falsely) that it's not your fault.
So I think that in that situation, I would pull the lever. In practice, faced with that decision, I might try to convince myself through intellectual cowardice that I was not involved... but this would be a self-comforting lie.

[mu_enrico]

I remember reading this in a book about morality, but it's a train, not a trolley (or is it the same?)
I'd pray to God what to do and act based on His answer. So whichever option is performed, I'd say God told me to do this.
His judgment is far better than mine

[franky1]

and if someone has the time to see an aproaching 'trolley' and have time to press a button. and time for that trolley to change tracks. then all the people have time to walk away out its path

the only issue with the trolley dilemma is its binary representation of only allowing 2 choices and only 2 choices are allowed. and if the questioner will have morals and respect to not start a fight is someone offers a better option thats neither of the 2

humans and morals are not binary. so lets not only have 2 options

[Natsuu]

~SNIP~

So why would you divert the trolley?, cause if you pull the lever to save the 5 workers, the other one would die because of your action alone, and that will be your sore responsibility.

Because not acting is an active choice. You can't simply not act and claim that you weren't involved, so it wasn't your problem. That's not remotely convincing as an argument. You may not like it, but you are an active participant in the situation, because the choices you make can affect the outcome. In fact, you are the only person who controls the outcome. You decide who lives and who dies. It's all down to you.

The three choices below are absolutely morally equivalent:

• standing back and doing nothing
• grabbing the lever and not diverting the trolley
• grabbing the lever, diverting it to the one person and then diverting it back to the five original people

Each of those three choices confers the same level of guilt. The difference is that with some of those choices, it is easier to convince yourself (falsely) that it's not your fault.
So I think that in that situation, I would pull the lever. In practice, faced with that decision, I might try to convince myself through intellectual cowardice that I was not involved... but this would be a self-comforting lie.

Choosing someone else's faith is not a choice given to us. By choosing to fall back and play dumb, you can play yourself with reality and convince yourself that you are not involved, and it is others' fault that this situation occurs. Yes, of course, doing nothing is the same as leaving them to die, but it is easier for me/you to forget and move on from the incident if we let the situation occur on its own in which, whenever each action you choose, the result will be someone would die.

the situation for me is 5 or 1, but if we take it in the bigger picture, 5 and 1 is not significant to the population of a country or even the world. So, my thinking would be, choosing the right move which will lessen the effect to me as an individual, mentally and emotionally.

Note: there are no witnesses in the situation, ergo there would be no one who can accuse you for doing something. The dilemma would be personal, and law would not be taken part in this case.

[Natsuu]

and if someone has the time to see an aproaching 'trolley' and have time to press a button. and time for that trolley to change tracks. then all the people have time to walk away out its path

the only issue with the trolley dilemma is its binary representation of only allowing 2 choices and only 2 choices are allowed. and if the questioner will have morals and respect to not start a fight is someone offers a better option thats neither of the 2

humans and morals are not binary. so lets not only have 2 options

Assuming that the trolley is moving at high speed, given the situation, that the only choice is to divert the tracks. This would leave the person with these 2 choices in a small limit of time. So if this is the scenario, which of the 2 choices you would pick? you can also make up a better solution as long as it is feasible, and not a dream like action like stoping the trolley with your bare hands. ENJOY  

_______________________________________________________________________________ ________

I remember reading this in a book about morality, but it's a train, not a trolley (or is it the same?)

It is a different version, but the same kind of dilemma. There's a lot of different version of this problem, but I copied the one which is closer to the original one made by the philosopher Philippa Foot.

I'd pray to God what to do and act based on His answer. So whichever option is performed, I'd say God told me to do this.
His judgment is far better than mine

We can assume that the decision making for this scenario is limited to a minute or two, the adrenaline rush, and panic of choosing whatever choice you would make would be taken into account. So, yes you can say after the incident that it was his judgement, but the action was made by you, alone, given that it was only in limited time. But then again, you didn't state what would be your action, so what would it be ?  

[Cnut237]

Choosing someone else's faith is not a choice given to us. By choosing to fall back and play dumb, you can play yourself with reality and convince yourself that you are not involved, and it is others' fault that this situation occurs. Yes, of course, doing nothing is the same as leaving them to die, but it is easier for me/you to forget and move on from the incident if we let the situation occur on its own

Sure. We can't demand that people think and feel in a certain way. Still, the three options I outlined are all logically equivalent, right? They all amount to having a choice, deciding on an outcome (whether actively or 'passively'), and then that choice resulting in the same outcome (for the people on the track).

the situation for me is 5 or 1, but if we take it in the bigger picture, 5 and 1 is not significant to the population of a country or even the world. So, my thinking would be, choosing the right move which will lessen the effect to me as an individual, mentally and emotionally.

There's no absolute right or wrong, but the easiest route to a clear conscience is to do nothing and say what happened (5 die) would have happened anyway, so I wasn't involved, so it's not my fault. In which case you are effectively saying that if I kill one person I'll feel bad, but if I kill five people I'll feel better... so for the sake of feeling better, I am willing to kill an extra four people. If we pretend this isn't the case, then we are deceiving ourselves and being intellectually dishonest.

humans and morals are not binary. so lets not only have 2 options

It's a thought experiment to enable us to explore the reasoning behind our decisions. If you remove the binary outcome, you make the experiment irrelevant.

[Natsuu]

Choosing someone else's faith is not a choice given to us. By choosing to fall back and play dumb, you can play yourself with reality and convince yourself that you are not involved, and it is others' fault that this situation occurs. Yes, of course, doing nothing is the same as leaving them to die, but it is easier for me/you to forget and move on from the incident if we let the situation occur on its own

Sure. We can't demand that people think and feel in a certain way. Still, the three options I outlined are all logically equivalent, right? They all amount to having a choice, deciding on an outcome (whether actively or 'passively'), and then that choice resulting in the same outcome (for the people on the track).

Yes, they are logically equivalent.

the situation for me is 5 or 1, but if we take it in the bigger picture, 5 and 1 is not significant to the population of a country or even the world. So, my thinking would be, choosing the right move which will lessen the effect to me as an individual, mentally and emotionally.

There's no absolute right or wrong, but the easiest route to a clear conscience is to do nothing and say what happened (5 die) would have happened anyway, so I wasn't involved, so it's not my fault. In which case you are effectively saying that if I kill one person I'll feel bad, but if I kill five people I'll feel better... so for the sake of feeling better, I am willing to kill an extra four people. If we pretend this isn't the case, then we are deceiving ourselves and being intellectually dishonest.

No, I would not say that I kill one person in my scenario but feel better if I kill 5, but instead, I am effectively saying that I would "LET" the five people die to make me less involved, and save the other one who is inderectly involve in the incident in the first place. It is generally making yourself pitiful and yet decisive as there are no witnesses to conclude your actions regarding the situation, thus the decision alone can make up a lie that would release you from the burden of guilt.

[franky1]

Assuming that the trolley is moving at high speed, given the situation, that the only choice is to divert the tracks. This would leave the person with these 2 choices in a small limit of time. So if this is the scenario, which of the 2 choices you would pick? you can also make up a better solution as long as it is feasible, and not a dream like action like stoping the trolley with your bare hands. ENJOY  

again your trying to FORCE a 2 choice option
but assuming we are not robots. and assume laws of physics and reality apply(feasible realism applies after all).
then obviously.. knowing the time it takes for someone to make a decision, then react to physically press a button in enough time for the tracks to change before the trolley reaches the fork.
is multiple seconds..then for the trolley to have changed tracks to only impact one group.. is more seconds
yep sorry but physics and reality apply

then multiple options are at play

maybe pick a dilemma that has no spare variables/time

EG
cars brakes fail. and swerves to avoid an underpass partition and ends up on a sidewalk. theres a group of old people on the right and a kid on its own on the left. do you next try to swerve to the left or right

..
trolley dilemma is a failed dilemma in reality

[Natsuu]

Assuming that the trolley is moving at high speed, given the situation, that the only choice is to divert the tracks. This would leave the person with these 2 choices in a small limit of time. So if this is the scenario, which of the 2 choices you would pick? you can also make up a better solution as long as it is feasible, and not a dream like action like stoping the trolley with your bare hands. ENJOY  

again your trying to FORCE a 2 choice option
but assuming we are not robots. and assume laws of physics and reality apply(feasible realism applies after all).
then obviously.. knowing the time it takes for someone to make a decision, then react to physically press a button in enough time for the tracks to change before the trolley reaches the fork.
is multiple seconds..then for the trolley to have changed tracks to only impact one group.. is more seconds
yep sorry but physics and reality apply

then multiple options are at play

maybe pick a dilemma that has no spare variables/time

EG
cars brakes fail. and swerves to avoid an underpass partition and ends up on a sidewalk. theres a group of old people on the right and a kid on its own on the left. do you next try to swerve to the left or right

..
trolley dilemma is a failed dilemma in reality

 
You could really pick a choice and defend that, but I guess as you pick an answer that suits you maybe defines your reasoning on the situation.
But lets assume that laws of physics and reality apply, just as you wish it may be, GIVEN the problem, that the distance of the trolley from the shifting tracks is long enough to get you to decide (Forcefully) if you would change or not.

This is not a definite reality that you would just wait for a few seconds until the trolley can be derailed as the tracks move from its current direction. It is not that it, don't make it complicated, just assume that this is a game.

[franky1]

in a binary choice the logical answer is
if options are 5 or 1.. the obviously the less damaging option of 1dies

there is no dilemma. in maths thats the best answer
in humanities that is the answer
in morals that is the answer
in common sense that is the answer..
no moral dilemma

the real question is with such an amount of seconds available and with a human available and not a logic robot. why didnt the person have the morals to just shout to both groups of people to just jump/run out the way

so changing the game to a proper option where there is no human variable of multiple options. where there is no time delay offering multiple possibilities.. the answer would be if no age specificity was given again simply 1 vs 5
then yea 1 dies again.

however a better moral dilemma. with no time in scenario to have multiple options. no human ability to have multiple options. but the only variable becomes 1 kid vs 5 old people
then.. that becomes a moral challenge that will change what people decide

yep psychological trials have run different scenarios and tested people
in a choice of 1 or 5 dies.. everyone chooses the 1 dies. no moral debate
in a choice of 1kid or 5old people.. thats where morals pop in and make the results less predictable

again your trolley example has been a bad example to pick
if you are in a psychology class and your tutor used the trolley.. you will find all psychology debaters would say 1 dies. but then debate the scenario as being flawed.

most psychology classes dont use the trolley scenario. they use other examples with a better dilemma in psychology

[Spendulus]

Easy there, lets stick to the question, and continue this discussion.

Ha, sorry. There's a joke in there about derailing the thread

So why would you divert the trolley?, cause if you pull the lever to save the 5 workers, the other one would die because of your action alone, and that will be your sore responsibility.

Because not acting is an active choice. You can't simply not act and claim that you weren't involved, so it wasn't your problem. ....

Actually, yes you certainly can. Consider that people working on and around train tracks, if they want to stay alive, need to keep an eye out for incoming trains. Five pairs of eyes might seem to have more of a chance to see the hazard, but then they could all be thinking the others were keeping a lookout. Meanwhile the lone guy on the other tracks knows he's got to watch out for himself.

[Gyfts]

Easy there, lets stick to the question, and continue this discussion.

Ha, sorry. There's a joke in there about derailing the thread

So why would you divert the trolley?, cause if you pull the lever to save the 5 workers, the other one would die because of your action alone, and that will be your sore responsibility.

Because not acting is an active choice. You can't simply not act and claim that you weren't involved, so it wasn't your problem. That's not remotely convincing as an argument. You may not like it, but you are an active participant in the situation, because the choices you make can affect the outcome. In fact, you are the only person who controls the outcome. You decide who lives and who dies. It's all down to you.

The three choices below are absolutely morally equivalent:

• standing back and doing nothing
• grabbing the lever and not diverting the trolley
• grabbing the lever, diverting it to the one person and then diverting it back to the five original people

Each of those three choices confers the same level of guilt. The difference is that with some of those choices, it is easier to convince yourself (falsely) that it's not your fault.
So I think that in that situation, I would pull the lever. In practice, faced with that decision, I might try to convince myself through intellectual cowardice that I was not involved... but this would be a self-comforting lie.

How do you measure levels of guilt?

Would the guilt of indirectly killing 5 people not weigh more than killing one person? Inaction is the same as action. If you chose not to act, that is a conscious decision to of inaction, meaning you indirectly will have more people killed if the train is on the track leading to 5 people.

More people killed = more of a guilty conscious.

[BADecker]

Select the track that is safest for the trolley.

If 5 people are working on a track, it might mean that, that part of the track needs to be fixed because they all know that the trolley is coming that way. They will have prepared to get out of the way when the trolley comes through. But they need to get the track done to save the trolley.

On the other hand, one worker on a track might mean that, that section of track is not in need of much repair, and would be safer for the trolley in its unrepaired condition.

On another hand, workers might have been pulled off the one-worker track - even though it might be in worse repair - and moved to the five-worker track because that was the way the trolley was scheduled to travel.

Why save the trolley? Because there are 100 people on the trolley. Get them where they paid to go in the safest way possible.

Why not worry about the workers? Workers all know about working on tracks that trolleys ride. They are prepared to jump out of the way.