The Trolley Dilemma: Would You Kill One Person To Save Five?

[Num7]

Imagine you are standing beside some tram tracks. In the distance, you spot a runaway trolley hurtling down the tracks towards five workers who cannot hear it coming. Even if they do spot it, they won’t be able to move out of the way in time.

As this disaster looms, you glance down and see a lever connected to the tracks. You realise that if you pull the lever, the tram will be diverted down a second set of tracks away from the five unsuspecting workers.

However, down this side track is one lone worker, just as oblivious as his colleagues.

So, would you pull the lever, leading to one death but saving five?

This is the crux of the classic thought experiment known as the trolley dilemma, developed by philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 and adapted by Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1985.

The trolley dilemma allows us to think through the consequences of an action and consider whether its moral value is determined solely by its outcome.

The trolley dilemma has since proven itself to be a remarkably flexible tool for probing our moral intuitions, and has been adapted to apply to various other scenarios, such as war, torture, drones, abortion and euthanasia.

Read more:

 

[TimeFlipper]

I wouldnt do anything, because its obviously a Supermarket trolley

 

[Japrim]

Either way, to act is to make judgement on the value of people's lives. Inaction avoids this, but allows people to die. Thus it is to allow people to die or not.

If you act, you are taking responsibility for the lives of others as well as the management of the operation. If you do not act, you allow people to die when you know you can make a difference. It becomes a question of whether or not to take responsibility.

Their lives and the railway management are not your responsibility. As soon as you take responsibility, you are accountable for whoever dies. So it becomes a question of if you want to be responsible for someone's death or not.

If you do not act, you are not responsible for anything you weren't already responsible for. So the smart thing to do is to allow them to die. But that is not exactly the ethical thing to do.

I am thinking that I would try my best to signal the engineer so that they may blow the horn and brake, warning the workers and allowing them adequate time to get out of danger.