The Trolley Problem

by Simon 9 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Simon

  So you've probably heard of the ethical dilemma question which is a thought-experiment where you imagine there is a runaway train-trolley, a junction with a lever that you can pull and two tracks - one with 5 workers on it and another with just 1, but no way to warn them.

  All you can do is pull the lever, or not, thus allowing 5 people to die or through your direct action sacrificing 1 to save them.

  What should you do?

  This sort of thing may seem silly but it comes up in real life. Should a self-driving car for instance, faced with a certain collision, chose which pedestrians to run over? Or should it put preference on the vehicles occupants? Should it count people and aim for the smallest group or aim for the oldest?

  Most people prefer to sacrifice the 1 person to save the 5. But if the wording is changed so that instead of you pulling the lever, you have to throw someone into the lever where they will be killed by the train, it seems less clear-cut even though the deaths are the same.

  But I just love this kids solution:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4
  
• 

  TD

  ROFL

  Not sure where that was going....
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  https://youtu.be/vfIdNV22LQM
  
• 

  MeanMrMustard

  Today trolley = COVID, switch = lockdowns. Except the problem is a bit different. The track forks, and if the switch is activated (no lockdown) the trolley moves to a track with one person on it, often referred to as “grandma”, destined for death. But on the other track, there seems to be nobody. The track is clear. The choice seems obvious. But if you look a few miles down the track, out of the current view, there’s several million lined up ready for slaughter, just out of the view at the moment.
• 

  waton

  my solution would be to jam the switch half open, the lever ( as I remember them from the 1930s, , were heavily weighted. you would have to hold them in the up, half open position, otherwise they would fall to either left or right).

  that way, the rails jammed, , the trolley would derail, missing the six, letting all live.
• 

  Pete Zahut

  This reminds me of the JW "trolley" illustration that was meant to show God's mercy in sacrificing his son Jesus for mankind?

  A bridge has collapsed and a train full of people (cursed mankind) is heading toward it. The railroad switch operator (God) can throw the switch and send the train down another set of tracks and save all the passengers but he knows that his son (Jesus) brings him his lunch every day and is walking on those tracks at that very moment. What should he do?

  The solution of course is that since he's Almighty God, he could easily stop the train or miraculously fix the bridge but once again the JW's created a false narrative and weren't comparing apples to apples. The switch operator in this scenario wasn't the one who collapsed the bridge the way god cursed mankind and unlike the little boy, Jesus was aware of what was taking place.
• 

  joey jojo

  Haha- the kid decided to leave no witnesses.
• 

  Rocketman123

  Is there the option to derail the Trolley before it hits any people ?

  Well that's what I would try and do..
  
• 

  waton

  Rm 123. Yes in a case like that it not time for philosophizing, hand wringing. open the gap in the rails. better yet if the trolley was full of women and children on the way to Auschwitz, letting them disperse into the woods.

  I wonder why it was called a -----witz,

  The french resistance was very good at that procedure bsw.
• 

  Anna Marina

  So long as there's no real intention for 5 to actually mean 5 or 1 to actually mean 1, I think we can address this problem as adults and learn lessons, then do the right thing. Or do the right thing and then learn lessons.