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So you are the switch operator. When the train approaches you check your tracks and find that on the track the train is already heading for there are 5 people who will be killed.

You can switch it to another track and save those 5 people, but you look and see there's one person on the switched track who will die if you switch it.

Do you switch it, or not?

This is the first of three polls in this series.

-Adam

Nope! (Some will argue that by hitting the switch, you're willfully commiting murder and that's why they don't. I think either way is murder, since you have the capacity to save the five. I just like the bigger body count.)

Btw there's no poll to click.

I also thought that the "one person" is supposed to be a loved one or something like that.

I wouldn't do anything. Sorry, but if you're dumb enough to stand on the track as a train approaches, you deserve to die. Scientists have a term for that: Darwinism.

by switching the tracks I save the lives of 4 people. Was this supposed to be a hard moral choice?

I just went through this on Richard Wiseman's blog. (Not an "old news is old" comment, just interesting that this keeps cropping up.)

Shegokigo said:

Nope!

Btw there's no poll to click.

I also thought that the "one person" is supposed to be a loved one or something like that.

Click to expand...

Nope. It is a now classic psychology study aimed at understanding the interplay between making decisions and acting on those decisions. In one alternative a person must use a lever to save five people at the cost of one (which most will do) while in another people are forced to push a person to save five others (which most will not). The dilemma is essentially the same but the answer changes based exclusively (it is argued) upon what the person must do.

Sorry if I ruined future polls...

Wasn't there a thread with this within the last month here?

Are any of the 5 in any way responsible for polls like this?!

@Li3n said:

Are any of the 5 in any way responsible for polls like this?!

Click to expand...

-

HowDroll said:

I wouldn't do anything. Sorry, but if you're dumb enough to stand on the track as a train approaches, you deserve to die. Scientists have a term for that: Darwinism.

Click to expand...

This right here.

@Shego...

If it's carnage you want then switch is halfway and crash the train... if it crashes right you might even get the 6 people on the tracks...

MindDetective;262525][quote=Shegokigo said:

Nope!

Btw there's no poll to click.

I also thought that the "one person" is supposed to be a loved one or something like that.

Click to expand...

Nope. It is a now classic psychology study aimed at understanding the interplay between making decisions and acting on those decisions. In one alternative a person must use a lever to save five people at the cost of one (which most will do) while in another people are forced to push a person to save five others (which most will not). The dilemma is essentially the same but the answer changes based exclusively (it is argued) upon what the person must do.

Sorry if I ruined future polls...[/QUOTE]

Not at all - I think the poll results will come out largely the same way that they would have even if people know the direction this is heading.

-Adam

---------- Post added at 03:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 PM ----------

@Li3n said:

@Shego...

If it's carnage you want then switch is halfway and crash the train... if it crashes right you might even get the 6 people on the tracks...

Click to expand...

Actually, if you switch the train once the engine and a few cars has passed, I think you'll succeed in killing everyone, crashing the train, and causing not a small amount of damage everywhere else.

-Adam

Trust me, I thought about it.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a poll option.

you always take the 3rd, hidden option...

@stienman

i don't know... what if the thing that connects the carts just breaks... someone call the myth busters

Didn't we do this poll over in the previous forum?

Regardless, my answer is the same: Let the 5 die. Hitting the switch is murder... not hitting it wouldn't even be considered negligent homicide because of the circumstances. This is assuming I didn't just walk away from the whole thing the second I saw what is going on. It's not my responsibility to decide who lives and who dies and "The Needs of the Many" thing is crap.

MindDetective said:

In one alternative a person must use a lever to save five people at the cost of one (which most will do) while in another people are forced to push a person to save five others (which most will not).

Click to expand...

Yes, actually this was the situation Wiseman posited. And I think I answered that way, although it might have been "no" and "no."

AshburnerX said:

Didn't we do this poll over in the previous forum?

Regardless, my answer is the same: Let the 5 die. Hitting the switch is murder... not hitting it wouldn't even be considered negligent homicide because of the circumstances. This is assuming I didn't just walk away from the whole thing the second I saw what is going on. It's not my responsibility to decide who lives and who dies and "The Needs of the Many" thing is crap.

Click to expand...

They're both murder.

why isn't there a third option? push the guy off the track.

Shego: well they are both murder, but in U.S. there are different type of murder and some are allow due to circumstances (like killing a robber that is in YOUR home) it is still murder (you kill someone) but you don't pay for the crime.

Chibibar said:

why isn't there a third option? push the guy off the track.

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It's just a constraint to the question. The root is, do you deliberately kill one to save 5, or do you let life take its natural course so you can avoid becoming involved?

There's a reason why the question is set up so you have to take action to serve the greater good.

A variant is that your job is to switch the track, but you find that there are 5 people on the track you are supposed to switch to, and one person on hte track already connected. Do you do your job and kill the 5, or do you ignore your orders and kill the 1 by inaction?

-Adam

stienman;262559][quote=Chibibar said:

why isn't there a third option? push the guy off the track.

Click to expand...

It's just a constraint to the question. The root is, do you deliberately kill one to save 5, or do you let life take its natural course so you can avoid becoming involved?

There's a reason why the question is set up so you have to take action to serve the greater good.

A variant is that your job is to switch the track, but you find that there are 5 people on the track you are supposed to switch to, and one person on hte track already connected. Do you do your job and kill the 5, or do you ignore your orders and kill the 1 by inaction?

-Adam[/QUOTE]

That would be a different situation wouldn't it?

What type of laws are there in that situation? Are you the sole provider of your family? what if you have a family of 5 that you are sole support and by killing (action or inaction) would result in your death due to the nature of the crime. This could in turn in long run ruin YOUR family (if they have no other means of self support) PLUS killing strangers in the process.

Who is bogarting my old topic?

Just kidding, its fun to see it again. This American Life (It think...) did a story on it about a year back or so. It was great.

This question is alot simpler than people are making it out to be.

MindDetective;262525][quote=Shegokigo said:

Nope!

Btw there's no poll to click.

I also thought that the "one person" is supposed to be a loved one or something like that.

Click to expand...

Nope. It is a now classic psychology study aimed at understanding the interplay between making decisions and acting on those decisions. In one alternative a person must use a lever to save five people at the cost of one (which most will do) while in another people are forced to push a person to save five others (which most will not). The dilemma is essentially the same but the answer changes based exclusively (it is argued) upon what the person must do.

Sorry if I ruined future polls...[/quote]


Yeah, I'm one of the one whose answer changes.
Here's my justification: The TRAIN is going to kill those people. Not me. If I can make a choice that saves more people, that's the choice I'm going to make. I'm saving people, not killing them.

However, I won't purposefully become an agent of death and kill someone just to save 5 others. I won't choose to become the train, metaphorically speaking.

It's a thin line, but I think the ethically correct one.

Shegokigo said:

They're both murder.

Click to expand...

Murder is defined by intent to kill, not by the act of killing. My intent would be to walk away or simply let events unfold as they were originally were intended to, not to save any of them. Therefore it's not murder.

If anything, I'm guilty of being apathetic.

They're both homicide, not murder.

I'd yell for all 6 to get the hell off the tracks, and do nothing else. If they don't move, it's their fault.

In this case I would rather kill the 1 man rather than the 5. Because i did not put any of the people where they are and so I would simply be making the best of a bad situation.

Amorous Wench said:

Why does stienman never answer his own polls?

Did I miss it?

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I almost always answer my own polls, but often I will answer them some time after a few other votes have come in - I don't want to bias the results, or tip my hand (some people check the results before voting - hooey on them!)

-Adam

Here's my justification: The TRAIN is going to kill those people. Not me. If I can make a choice that saves more people, that's the choice I'm going to make. I'm saving people, not killing them.

Click to expand...

Bullshit. I don't know what the legal logistics are. But either way, you are making a choice to allow some people to die and some people to live. Given the situation (you know nothing about any of the people in question, they are equally strangers to you and it takes approximately as much effort to pull the switch as to walk away) both options make you equally involved and equally guilty (or innocent) of whatever you want to call the act.

I would organize it where many trains converge onto those two tracks and kill everyone in and outside of the trains.

I would then walk out and check to make sure everyone was dead.

Finish off the ones still alive.

Raemon777 said:

Here's my justification: The TRAIN is going to kill those people. Not me. If I can make a choice that saves more people, that's the choice I'm going to make. I'm saving people, not killing them.

Click to expand...

Bullshit. I don't know what the legal logistics are. But either way, you are making a choice to allow some people to die and some people to live. Given the situation (you know nothing about any of the people in question, they are equally strangers to you and it takes approximately as much effort to pull the switch as to walk away) both options make you equally involved and equally guilty (or innocent) of whatever you want to call the act.

Click to expand...

I think you completely missed my point. I'm not talking about the difference between pulling a switch and not pulling.

I'm talking about the difference between the two polls.

In one poll, a train is going to kill some people. You cause it to kill less people if you pull a switch.

In the other poll, some people are going to die of disease. You can save them by killing an innocent man.

It's not the same choice at all.

Tinwhistler;262657][quote=Raemon777 said:

Here's my justification: The TRAIN is going to kill those people. Not me. If I can make a choice that saves more people, that's the choice I'm going to make. I'm saving people, not killing them.

Click to expand...

Bullshit. I don't know what the legal logistics are. But either way, you are making a choice to allow some people to die and some people to live. Given the situation (you know nothing about any of the people in question, they are equally strangers to you and it takes approximately as much effort to pull the switch as to walk away) both options make you equally involved and equally guilty (or innocent) of whatever you want to call the act.

Click to expand...

I think you completely missed my point. I'm not talking about the difference between pulling a switch and not pulling.

I'm talking about the difference between the two polls.

In one poll, a train is going to kill some people. You cause it to kill less people if you pull a switch.

In the other poll, some people are going to die of disease. You can save them by killing an innocent man.

It's not the same choice at all.[/quote]

Are you sure?

If you remove all feelings of subjectivity then at the end of the day you are choosing to let one person die vs 5 people die, and it is in your power to decide which way it goes.

The person on the track is innocent, and until you pulled the switch they too were going to live.

The only difference is that instead of a switch, you pulled a switch blade on the patient.

If you had 5 generating stations that were at the end of their life, and one good working generating station that you could gut for the other five power plants, you would probably make the logical, economic choice.

The ONLY difference between that and all three situations is that the one plant you're going to sacrifice is self aware.

There are other minor differences as posed, but those are unavoidable differences in wording, the essential question is the same.

-Adam

Oh, I did miss the point. Sorry about that. My answer doesn't change in the confines off this narrow thought experiment but it does change (for slightly different reasons) in the context of what issues the thought experiment is really addressing.

I'm sure for me, and gave the justification as to why. You don't have to buy my justification..I admit that my rationalization is personal and others may see it differently.

But me, I see a huge difference in the two scenarios, and hopefully, the way I described it will allow others to see why I think it is different, even if they don't agree that the difference is there. But to me, there's a big difference. And it's not with the 'lever' (as you posit earlier) but with the train. The train is the killer in one scenario, and you can direct it to kill more or less people. In the other scenario, you directly become the killer yourself, and that is where I would draw the line and let nature take its course.

You can dehumanize the situation, by calling them 'power plants'. Bt the situation is inherently human in nature. It wouldn't be an ethical discussion at all if we were discussing cars instead of people.

Tinwhistler said:

Bt the situation is inherently human in nature. It wouldn't be an ethical discussion at all if we were discussing cars instead of people.

Click to expand...

You hit the nail on the head - these questions cause a disconnect where one MUST place a value on life other than infinity. 1 * infinity != 5 * infinity, so people must evaluate a human life as something other than infinitely valuable.

-Adam

Wait, now I'm confused as to where you're drawing the line and whether I was interpreting you correctly when I made my response.

In both situations, the train is not a "killer" as it does not have intent. In both cases it is effectively a weapon you are wielding. I think that wielding that weapon by inaction is approximately as bad as wielding that weapon through direct action.

In neither case would I consider any of the options "murder" because it's a difficult situation you were thrown into without consent. Legally, in both cases its probably manslaughter. I DO think there are good reasons not to push the man in Question B, but it's not because you're killing him any more than you're killing the guy in Question A.

Given that this is a lab experiment, the scientist placing you in this position is guilty of 1st degree murder (either 5 counts or 1 depending on your choice), since he set up this whole fucking scenario, and you're just another victim. Hell, I think he'd probably get a kidnapping charge for abducting you, and there's probably some weird Wild West era law prohibiting the use of railroads in experiments that would have the scientist swinging from a tree even if you find a way to save everyone.

Don't throw the switch, 5 die.

I might feel the urge to do something, but honestly I wouldn't be able to decide in time. At most I'd call for them to move, but other than that it's not my place to decide that kind of thing.

Also like Droll said, if you're dumb enough to be standing on train tracks anyway...