Having to choose between killing one or five people: am I missing something?

[Coriolis]

So what you got with marriage is running the train over the five people. Every. Time.

And before anyone does the typical saying that the marriage question is done and why does Lark always mention it, it does not stop there, if you honestly believe that social institutions are just whimsy, fables agreed upon, as easily changed without consequences as they are recognised by sociologists then why wouldnt you think you could tear up any institution.

Tradition, that's institutions which have emerged spontaneously, an existence matching a human essence, has served mankind, easily, as well as innovation has and innovation should be handled carefully, like applying the trolly problem to the issue, for those that any innovation is aimed at assisting as much as anyone else or any abstract principle of goodness, rightness etc. The idea isnt to be in favour of change for change's sake, that's a lot of bullshit and what's lead to the discreditable and sobering history of some of the greater reform, revolution, ie change, orientated movements in human history.

There's other examples, the train running over the one versus the five is an analogy after all, john rawl's theory of justice, comparing the society in which inequality results in the least well off being better off than those in the egalitarian alternative, for instance, the treatment of disability is a very good one too, if some people need aids to walk I would believe its just to provide them with aids, it wouldnt be right to give the rest of the population injuries in the name of social inclusiveness rendering everyone similarly impaired, ie the same.

(you may all commence the routine stupidity of accusing me of being a bigot and hater now if you like)

I don't need to claim you are bigoted, just illogical. Traditional marriage hasn't gone away. No one is stopping men and women from marrying each other. We are just allowing additional (not replacement) cases of marriage. To compare with the morality problem posed in the OP: here we really can allow both the five people and the one to "live". Not every situation is a zero sum game.

To the OP: I maintain that such morality problems are so divorced from any real situation, that how one answers tells very little about them. I simply cannot take such questions seriously. They are more of a "parlor game" than MBTI.

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

I support the philosophy of this kid;

Short answer is; no.
I don't see why the lives of five people would be worth more than the life of one person. If it would be your best friend, laying on the rails, and five strangers on the other side, you wouldn't sacrifice your best friend (I hope) in order to save five people you don't even know. If those five people were laying on the 'save' track and my friend was on the wrong side I would (probably) pull the lever. It's all about personal worth. But if both parties are strangers to me then well... May the odds be ever in your favor? Since they both don't have any meaning to me, it doesn't really 'matter' who dies or lives.

Sucks for those five people and the people who care about them. But it's not because there are more people suffering/dying, that it's worse. That one person has the right to live too, and they happened to lay on the 'right' track, who am I to intervene with their life.

Also; it's getting crowded here on Earth... Not insisting anything here, nope...

 

[Yuurei]

I support the philosophy of this kid;

Short answer is; no.
I don't see why the lives of five people would be worth more than the life of one person. If it would be your best friend, laying on the rails, and five strangers on the other side, you wouldn't sacrifice your best friend (I hope) in order to save five people you don't even know. If those five people were laying on the 'save' track and my friend was on the wrong side I would (probably) pull the lever. It's all about personal worth. But if both parties are strangers to me then well... May the odds be ever in your favor? Since they both don't have any meaning to me, it doesn't really 'matter' who dies or lives.

Sucks for those five people and the people who care about them. But it's not because there are more people suffering/dying, that it's worse. That one person has the right to live too, and they happened to lay on the 'right' track, who am I to intervene with their life.

Also; it's getting crowded here on Earth... Not insisting anything here, nope...

Five people can lead to an infinite number more. And the world is already greatly overpopulated. The best a single person can do on their own is maybe adopt a kid/dog/highway. Which is a win-win.

 

[Lexicon]

Simplest solution:

 

[Firebird 8118]

Simplest solution:

I would’ve done that, except I would then push the train to the side that was empty

 

[Virtual ghost]

The classic Sacrificing the few for the majority.

Not doing anything: 5 people die accidentally.
Pulling the lever : 1 person is murdered.

Since when tied up people at a railway are an "accident" ?

There's a runaway train, and further down the tracks there are five people tied up who can't free themselves. You can pull a lever which will make the train take an alternate path, but there is someone on the alternate path. Do you pull the lever or not?

This is trivial.
Since there is no info that the person on second path is tied as well you simply divert the train in that direction.


:smartass:

 

[The Cat]

Imo its less about the six people tied to the tracks and more about the one person at the lever.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Why not kill all? Pull the lever, then go hunt the other five down.

 

[Earl Grey]

It's interesting how people say again and again that human life is equal, but in practice, it is not.

5 strangers VS 1 known loved one
5 criminals VS 1 well-known charity figure
5 terminally ill VS 1 infant

The answer is suddenly clear(er), whether you admit it out loud or not, because a certain kind of 'value' has been assigned to each group, whether or not you pull the lever.

I think people will choose whatever answer they can rationalize the guilt out of best (and additionally, is aligned with their values), which has the least dent on your conscience. There are always reasons for pulling the lever or not in any kind of scenario. Everything is also situational. If you do not pull the lever and avoid a lawsuit for intentional manslaughter, you are saving yourself, your dependents, sparing your safe, still-living, waiting loved ones from pain. Ultimately it always comes back to weighing which lives are most precious- at least to you, no matter how dark the answer and the rationale may be.

Interesting thought, if you were the one on the train tracks, between the 5 people strapped down- and you could yell out at the person on the lever to make a choice, what would it be?

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

Interesting thought, if you were the one on the train tracks, between the 5 people strapped down- and you could yell out at the person on the lever to make a choice, what would it be?

Finally, put me out of my misery!

@ The rest of your post. We could say that everyone is 'equal' (or could be seen as such) but there's of course this thing called social relationships. It's okay for your friend to walk into your room, to take something out of your fridge without asking, to call you an idiot (jokingly) but you wouldn't expect a stranger to do this. Nor would you like it if a stranger walked into your room and started to plunder your fridge. That doesn't mean that this stranger is less equal, you just have a different relationship with them.
If they were your friend, they would have the same 'rights' as your other friends.

What could be interesting is; your best friend is laying on the left track and five family members (or five other people who are also important to you) are stuck on the right track.
I think this makes it more difficult, since they all mean something to you.

 

[Earl Grey]

Finally, put me out of my misery!

@ The rest of your post. We could say that everyone is 'equal' (or could be seen as such) but there's of course this thing called social relationships. It's okay for your friend to walk into your room, to take something out of your fridge without asking, to call you an idiot (jokingly) but you wouldn't expect a stranger to do this. Nor would you like it if a stranger walked into your room and started to plunder your fridge. That doesn't mean that this stranger is less equal, you just have a different relationship with them.
If they were your friend, they would have the same 'rights' as your other friends.

What could be interesting is; your best friend is laying on the left track and five family members (or five other people who are also important to you) are stuck on the right track.
I think this makes it more difficult, since they all mean something to you.

That certainly makes things more difficult. To assess not from a quantitative, but a subjective, qualitative assessment- just like my examples above, it suddenly does place 'value' to the people- and their lives, or continued living.

It does make it sound very grim when it is read as a statement of "I consider this group to have better rights to life than the other does."

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

That certainly makes things more difficult. To assess not from a quantitative, but a subjective, qualitative assessment- just like my examples above, it suddenly does place 'value' to the people- and their lives, or continued living.

It does make it sound very grim when it is read as a statement of "I consider this group to have better rights to life than the other does."

It is kinda grim. But I also think it's grim to let your decision depend on the 'quantity'. Because why would five people have more rights to live than one person?
I like to see it as this; you can't add up a + b + c. Every person is a different letter, you can't add people up and say that their value is now increased. We're all individuals.
I think you can say that everyone has value, and in your day to day live you can acknowledge that. But it's not about their personal value, but about how valuable they are to you when you have to make this decision.
Yes, you destroy the lives of five other families. Extra sadness you could say. But why would their sadness be worse than the sadness of only one person?

That's also why I wouldn't make a decision if both groups were strangers to me. Because I don't think that it's worse when there are five families who get heartbroken instead of 'only' one. It's not as if their sadness increases because their daughter died together with four other people, they only care about their daughter, an individual. Because of that, I don't think that quantity really matters (in this case), it doesn't make it worse for the individual that four other people died too.

If my friends were laying on the tracks (both sides), I wouldn't make a decision (I think). Even if it meant that five of my friends would die and that only one would survive (yes yes, I know, as if I really have more than two friends :')). Because that feels wrong to me. As the example above, they are all equally valuable to me. And if it's equal, then faith may decide again.

For the '5 terminally ill VS 1 infant' example. I don't think that I would make a decision. I could see why other people would do this tho.

 

[Earl Grey]

It is kinda grim. But I also think it's grim to let your decision depend on the 'quantity'. Because why would five people have more rights to live than one person?

Exactly- what I meant with by the grimness of "I consider this group to have better rights to life than the other does."- to make any decision is a silent statement of an attribution of value towards either group- positive, negative, and as you have shown, another option of something closer to neutral.

I like to see it as this; you can't add up a + b + c. Every person is a different letter, you can't add people up and say that their value is now increased. We're all individuals.
I think you can say that everyone has value, and in your day to day live you can acknowledge that. But it's not about their personal value, but about how valuable they are to you when you have to make this decision.
Yes, you destroy the lives of five other families. Extra sadness you could say. But why would their sadness be worse than the sadness of only one person?

Subjective. We cannot tell. Or rather- we cannot presume to know. It cannot be measured. Exactly why this would be difficult, and why people have varying kinds of answers, with various kinds of reasons.

That's also why I wouldn't make a decision if both groups were strangers to me. Because I don't think that it's worse when there are five families who get heartbroken instead of 'only' one. It's not as if their sadness increases because their daughter died together with four other people, they only care about their daughter, an individual. Because of that, I don't think that quantity really matters (in this case), it doesn't make it worse for the individual that four other people died too.

If my friends were laying on the tracks (both sides), I wouldn't make a decision (I think). Even if it meant that five of my friends would die and that only one would survive (yes yes, I know, as if I really have more than two friends :')). Because that feels wrong to me. As the example above, they are all equally valuable to me. And if it's equal, then faith may decide again.

For the '5 terminally ill VS 1 infant' example. I don't think that I would make a decision. I could see why other people would do this tho.

Interesting. I have never seen a response like this before- with this reasoning.
In the end, this question is an interesting way to see how people sees human life, and their stance on it, and this is yours.

 

[Totenkindly]

Why not kill all? Pull the lever, then go hunt the other five down.

Or, if you want to conserve more energy, run over the five, then you just have one to track down?

 

[The Cat]

Radio the train to stop. Free six people from tracks with knife I carry. Get them to safety. Befriend them. Accept their gratitude. Impress train people. Get Reward. Get job with the railroad going ahead of trains freeing people from being tied to railroad tracks and tracking down ethics professors in their homes. Since its usually ethics professors who like tying people to railroad tracks. Snidely Whiplash liked it too, but that guys like pushing 400 at this point? he's more a delicious jerky than a threat. So college professors it is. The greatest villains of our age.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Or, if you want to conserve more energy, run over the five, then you just have one to track down?

I thought there would be more sport and fun in having to hunt down 5 people.

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

People, they are tied down! You wouldn't even have to run or hunt them. Pffffrt.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought there would be more sport and fun in having to hunt down 5 people.

I'm lazy. Plus if you have one really exquisite kill, maybe it's just a matter of quality over quantity.

 

[Maou]

Its simple, blow up the train to save the 6 people.
Or the only legitimate answer according to the internet.

 

[Tellenbach]

Don't pull the lever; obviously, if you got yourself tied up on the tracks, you probably suck at life and if someone did save your life, you'd just get tied up again.