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The Problem of the Fat Man and the Trolley

Started by curiosityandthecat, December 09, 2008, 05:30:33 PM

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Tom62

I think I'll avoid bridges now for the rest of my life  ;) , since I would be that large person that most people want to throw off the bridge in order to save some other people. Thanks, but no thanks. The next time you guys ends up in such a situation, take a knife with you.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

bowmore

Quote from: "Tom62"I think I'll avoid bridges now for the rest of my life  :D
"Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people."

House M.D.

Tom62

Quote from: "bowmore"
Quote from: "Tom62"I think I'll avoid bridges now for the rest of my life  :D
Yep, drinking a good glass of Islay whisky and trying to forget all those nasty people who are out there to get us.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Wechtlein Uns

I don't care what you people say, an innocent should never be dragged into a problem that they were not originally a part of. What if you were the fat man, and you were just waddling your way home to spend an evening play GTA4 with your fat little midget son? What THEN? HUH?!? HUH!?!

That's my principle. No innocents involved. Can any say that is bad logic?
"What I mean when I use the term "god" represents nothing more than an interactionist view of the universe, a particularite view of time, and an ever expansive view of myself." -- Jose Luis Nunez.

Martian

Quote from: "Wechtlein Uns"I don't care what you people say, an innocent should never be dragged into a problem that they were not originally a part of. What if you were the fat man, and you were just waddling your way home to spend an evening play GTA4 with your fat little midget son? What THEN? HUH?!? HUH!?!

That's my principle. No innocents involved. Can any say that is bad logic?
How would you feel about saving one innocent person if we changed the hypothetical? I know that this is absurd, but what if instead of there being 5 people that would die if you don't sacrifice one, let's say there is a hundred, or maybe a thousand, or even a million. What then? Would you let a million innocent people die to let one innocent person live, or would you kill one innocent person to save a million innocent people?
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

(I DON'T BELIEVE GOD EXISTS)

Wechtlein Uns

Innocents are not part of the problem. Victims are. Normally, as human beings, we evolved our morality. Problem with that is that it's not consistent all the way through. I would like to say that if there was a mad scientist threatening to kill a million people if I didn't kill one person, that I should kill the mad scientist. I can't think of any other ways that the scenario might apply. Still, I do know that I would never want to be killed to save others if I wasn't somehow responsible or involved. In the same way, I would not kill an innocent to save people that might be responsible for their own predicament.
"What I mean when I use the term "god" represents nothing more than an interactionist view of the universe, a particularite view of time, and an ever expansive view of myself." -- Jose Luis Nunez.

joy_landlocked

i think the whole thing comes down to whether you're willing to reduce a human being to an object, a means to an end, and USE him.  i'm not.  to push the fat man would be to USE him.  whether he's healthy or unhealthy, worth more or less than the people tied to the track, he's still a human being, not something to be used like a heavy, lifeless weight.

so i wouldn't use the fat man as a brake to save the five.

i've also heard this with a second part added: what if you had the option to divert the trolley onto a second track, where the same fat man happened to be standing?  you can either take no action, or divert the trolley to kill one instead of five.  does that change things?
[size=85]what happens in the meadow at dusk?[/size]

DennisK

If the guy is big enough to stop a trolley, I doubt I could get him over the rail.  "Excuse me sir, judging by your enormous size, you look to, in my estimation, just the perfect size to stop that oncoming trolley.  What do you say?  Great!  The trolley looks to be about two or three minutes away, so we have just enough time to get your big butt over the side."

Seriously, who can decide logic or morality under a panic situation.  I have difficulty making my mind when ordering from a lunch menu when the waitress comes by the second time.  In a hypothetical situation, given a few seconds to answer under no stress you could give an answer that might make sense.  What does that mean, though?
"If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality." -Halton Arp

chuff

Questions like these cannot be answered when they are this vague.
Applied ethics and rational thinking together must form situational ethics.

The fact that who the fat man is or who the five people are changes things makes it a question impossible to answer in an all-encompassing and certain manner, at least for me. (Others who are so "sure of themselves" as to believe their answer is correct because it is their answer [i.e., Rand] would be happy to shout their answer at you.)

It is like attempting to answer the question, "Would you rather eat ice cream?" You don't know the other option, you don't know the specifics, therefore you have differing answers for the specific situation involved, i.e., whether the alternative to eating ice cream is to do something you thoroughly enjoy or whether it is death.

You can guess that ice cream would probably be better than some things, but you have no context to go on. The best method you have in such an instance is guesswork.

So I don't think it is really a "problem," as it stands.

Assuming the fat man and the five people are all complete strangers to me, and all of them are of the same objective value as individuals, I would probably push the man over. As someone mentioned earlier, when you get right down to it, given the right parameters, it's simple math: -1 is better than -5.

Oh, and hello, HAF. This is my first post.  :lol:
"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

-Stephen Crane

A Toad

Doubting Thomas29

I would panick, run away and spend years in therapy allowing the five people to die, then have a drink with the fat guy as we look back on the good old days. roflol

PipeBox

Hi, again, everyone.

The situation varies based on your relationship to the people and involved, and your knowledge.  If the 5 people are a team of agriculturists who were going to end world hunger, and the guy standing next to me raping a woman in broad daylight, two birds with one stone, I say.  If the five are thugs who are tied there as a crude form of public execution by the totalitarian police state, then me and the fat guy and the rest of the proles and party members are just gonna watch and probably have a good time to boot.  If the 5 are my best friends, or my family, and I don't know the fat guy, then I deem their lives worth my life in prison + 1 fat guy.  If I don't know the 5 and the fat guy is my friend, then we're going to be talking about it later at the bar.  If I thought I was heavy enough to stop the trolley (though I'm not fat), then I might jump down myself, but I'm not sure I have the massive, clanking, 6 pound iron balls needed to do it for just 5 people.

And I prefer the switch, Curio, because then you are in close proximity to the switch and you don't kill anyone, they just die as a result of your choice.  Pushing a person over a bridge is liable to land you in prison, throwing the switch to save the 5 probably won't, just how the human mind works.  I wouldn't be surprised if even Wechtlein Uns would feel negligently responsible for not throwing the switch to save the 5.  It still requires a choice on your part, but the train does all of the more-impersonal killing.

Another variant is where a terrorist has taken 6 people hostage, and called you over the phone, randomly.  You can see on the nearby TV that the situation is legit.  They demand you select one person, based on their voice, to die, and then they will surrender and the other 5 will be unharmed, but that if you select no one, all 6 will be shot.  Other variants place you in the room, but I prefer being distant because then there is no other choice but to cooperate.  If we want to make this airtight, we can say that even if the police manage to get in, he will still succeed in killing all six, so there's no point stalling.  This has the beauty of placing the weight of the selection on you, the murder and situation on the terrorist, and your negligence will kill all of them so you can't afford to sit it out.  I'd pick one, it's that simple.

 :pop:
If sin may be committed through inaction, God never stopped.

My soul, do not seek eternal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.
-- Pindar

bowmore

Quote from: "PipeBox"Another variant is where a terrorist has taken 6 people hostage, and called you over the phone, randomly.  You can see on the nearby TV that the situation is legit.  They demand you select one person, based on their voice, to die, and then they will surrender and the other 5 will be unharmed, but that if you select no one, all 6 will be shot.  Other variants place you in the room, but I prefer being distant because then there is no other choice but to cooperate.  If we want to make this airtight, we can say that even if the police manage to get in, he will still succeed in killing all six, so there's no point stalling.  This has the beauty of placing the weight of the selection on you, the murder and situation on the terrorist, and your negligence will kill all of them so you can't afford to sit it out.  I'd pick one, it's that simple.

You're still left with the possibility that the terrorist is lying.

I'd probably ask him why he just doesn't roll a die.  :idea:
"Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people."

House M.D.

Asmodean

I'd tell myself that it's not my problem and watch the carnage.  :borg:
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

PipeBox

Quote from: "bowmore"You're still left with the possibility that the terrorist is lying.

I'd probably ask him why he just doesn't roll a die.  :idea:

If the terrorist is lying, then everyone dies anyway, or no one dies, and it was never your call, and you're absolved of any possible guilt.  It would, however, be very irresponsible not to choose holding out hope that he was lying.

As to the rolling the die, I dunno, you can ask.  Maybe he didn't have one handy, or maybe he goes "Oh yeah, thanks," and hangs up the phone to assign numbers to each person before rolling the die he had on him.  Maybe he figured a random phone call was just as good as, and that's just how it is.  If he does invoke a die, you still effectively told him to single out one person, you just removed the choice of who from resting in your hands.
If sin may be committed through inaction, God never stopped.

My soul, do not seek eternal life, but exhaust the realm of the possible.
-- Pindar