Thread: Maemo Morality
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CrashandDie is offline CrashandDie
2010-04-16 , 02:10
Posts: 336 | Thanked: 610 times | Joined on Apr 2008 @ France
#79
Originally Posted by dkwatts View Post
from mylot.com

I was taking a philosophy class and our teacher asked us these three scenarios.

1: You are standing by the switch near a train track. The train is coming and the brakes are broken. The train is headed on a path where it will run over five people who are tied to the tracks, killing them. If you pull the switch, the train will switch direction and go on a track where it will kill 1 person who is tied to the tracks, but if you don't pull it he will be safe. You have no time to untie anyone. What do you do?

2: You are standing on a bridge over a train track. The train is coming, the brakes are broken, and there are 5 people tied to the tracks. There is a fat man on the bridge. This man is fat enough that if you pushed him, he would stop the train from running over the 5 people, but he would be killed. Do you push him?

3: Same situation as #2, but the fat man is standing on a trapdoor. You are standing by a lever that will open the trapdoor, he will fall onto the tracks, stop the train from running over the five people, and be killed. Do you pull it?

What would you do?
Except that you don't have enough information to make that decision. Based on the very limited information, one would have to assume that 5 people is worth more than 1 person, every single time. This is not necessarily the case.

What should also be taken into account, is who will have the greatest potential after survival.

Scenario 1, if the lone victim has a couple of doctorates, and is about to cure cancer, and the 5 people are babies/elderly people, it is logical to kill the 5 people and save the important person. These kind of games are fun, but they really aren't contextual enough to make a good decision.

Regardless, it has been proven time and time again, that most people would not do anything. When faced with a difficult situation, most people would not react, and stay frozen. They may have their hand on the lever, or just about to push the subject, but in reality, very few (less than than 1% of the population) would have the courage to make a decision. Even so, no matter what decision they make, they would feel guilt, as their action, or inaction, regardless of the outcome, killed at least a person. Not many can cope with that, and if anyone stands up and say "I could do it, and not feel any remorse", then I'm afraid you quite underestimate the power of your subconscious mind.

The obvious solution, in any case, is to make other people aware of the situation, as many as you can, and as competent as you can get them. In many cases, this involves calling emergency services. Who knows, they could stop the train through other means?

Source: Anyone who took a psychology class for a month knows this.