DieCommie said:

Doesn't work that way.  No man is an island and you are always responsible for your actions which includes inaction.  In the words of Rush, "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice"

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Icelander said:

I didn't say anything about not making a choice. I just told you what my choice would be and why.  

Quote:

Seriously. I'd let them all die.

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  And that's my choice.

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Good answer.  As long as you dont insist you can separate yourself from your situation and the consequences, I have no complaint. 

Icelander said:

I've been letting people die all over the place lately.

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SneezingPenis said:

1) imagine that there are 5 workers, working on some train tracks and a train is coming. the only thing you can do to save them is pull a lever to make the train switch tracks, but there is 1 person working over there. Basically, your choice is to pull the lever, kill 1 guy and save 5, or do nothing and 5 people will die.

9 out of 10 people said they would pull the lever as I am sure most of you would.

2) same scenario, except this time you are on a bridge overlooking the train tracks and the 1 person is standing next to you. the only way to save those 5 people is to push the guy onto the tracks to stop the train.

9 out of 10 people said they would not push the guy.


now that is odd, because ultimately they are the exact same things, with the exact same outcome.

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Are they really the exact same scenarios, though?  Even though the same outcome is guaranteed in the setup, I feel like most people are visualizing the scenario in their mind and asking themselves what they would do before they know any kind of certain outcome.  With the lever, you at least know with pretty good certainty that the train WILL switch to the second track, saving lives overall.  With the pushing a man over the bridge, I don't see that as being able to stop the train with any great certainty at all.  I'm pretty sure a train wouldn't stop from one person being dropped in front of it, anyway.    So when asked to judge what they would do by visualization and common sense, only the first course of action seems like it would with high certainty save lives.  The second only provides certain death for the single individual, and low probability of stopping the train.  So despite the fact the researchers told the participants the outcome would be the same, I don't think the participants really took that into consideration when visualizing themselves having to make that decision. 

SneezingPenis said:

recently NPR had a pretty nice piece where they polled a bunch of people the following questions.

1) imagine that there are 5 workers, working on some train tracks and a train is coming. the only thing you can do to save them is pull a lever to make the train switch tracks, but there is 1 person working over there. Basically, your choice is to pull the lever, kill 1 guy and save 5, or do nothing and 5 people will die.

9 out of 10 people said they would pull the lever as I am sure most of you would.

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Vaipen said:

I don't think I would.

First of all, it is a strange situation and I am much aware that to answer to this is to accept this strange predicament occurring.

So why would I not? Is it up to me to decide who lives or dies. To pull the lever means I intervene in what is to come. What is to come could mean that one of these five people looks up in time to warn the others. All will survive. But if you insist that this can never occur, that the situation you set up cannot be altered, amended or changed in anyway, you are doing something impossible. You are forcing an impossible situation because reality does not work that way. And morality is a function of reality and how we deal with that. So the starting point can never be.

You are forcing reality to behave differently than what it is based on. You are asking me choose between a wave and a particle, but the situation you describe is forcing me to see two particles. A situation where one particle dies or where 5 particles die. That is to say, if to be a particle means death, that is what you are saying, then the single person and the five must all be particles.

What you want to describe is a situation of indeterminism. And that the lever represents the choice to create a wave or a particle. And the group or the individual can be particle or wave.

If that is the case, anything can happen. So I would not pull any lever. The universe unfolds as it may. The track is set to bring the train into that group of five. They might notice and jump to safety, but if I pull the lever, I killed a person. And I still would not know 100% certainty that in doing so the train would not crash over 6 others behind the one, that I didn't see, or that a car holds toxins, that would spread and kill many more. Your situation suggest there won't be consequences along with the choice.

What if that one person will do much good in the world.

If you think that intervention in the natural flow of things will bring optimal results, you go on a path of constant having to question everything because to have the optimal outcome means you have to keep intervening. And in doing so you cause what you want to avoid.

So I have no moral problem with letting the train drive into the group. And it matters little if someone stands next to me that I have to push to save others.

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very true, exactly the right points !

Icyus said:

Well.. if I were to push someoneto thekr death I would like to know them first..

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I'd kill em all, but leave one to tell the tale. 

SneezingPenis said:

eh, that wasn't really directed at you. just the overall nature of this forum. everything descends into arguing semantics. People treat hypothetical situations like they are loophole riddles rather than get into actual discussion about what it presents.

its ok though. I did that shit the entire time i was here posting regularly.

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CosmicJoke said:

I would not act.  The sole man was never in any danger - you're the only danger to him.  Perhaps people don't fully realize this when they're pulling a lever, and are able to focus on the utilitarian action of saving five people, because they're not getting their hands dirty.  When you have to push the guy onto the tracks, that's gritty and visceral.  It shifts their focus from being the hero who pulled the lever to the uglier truth, that they're sentencing somebody to death that had nothing to do with this.

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hmmn said:

I notice a lot of this as well.  This forum would be a far more fruitful philosophy / debate forum if the culture shifted toward genuine consideration of ideas on their merits and away from egotism.

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Mr Person said:

hmmn said:

I notice a lot of this as well.  This forum would be a far more fruitful philosophy / debate forum if the culture shifted toward genuine consideration of ideas on their merits and away from egotism.

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I think this is definitely the wrong attitude.  People who think this way seem to believe that PS&P is a tool for them to hear what they want to hear about their own niche ideas.  The painful truth is that not every hypothetical scenario is worthy of pages of good faith debating.  I like that the bar is kept so high here.   

Keep in mind also that this forum has been around for over a decade (along with some of it's members), and the ideas brought forth for discussion are rarely fresh or novel. If you use the search function, or the related threads feature at the bottom of each thread, you'll see that most topics have been discussed many times.  So it's humorous when new members walk into the tail end of a 12 year conversation and expect everyone to get solemn and sincere for their pet topic.

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It's not about my topics (I haven't made any, haha); rather, I've given my observation of how people generally treat each others' and their own topics here.  People commonly miss others' points and prefer clever one-liners and fallacious arguments aimed at confirming their existing views to a genuine examination of ideas on the basis of their merits.

I have no interest in a forum whose purpose is to confirm what I already believe.  What a waste time that would be!

I do love good debate, though.  Hope to see more of it...

SneezingPenis said:

recently NPR had a pretty nice piece where they polled a bunch of people the following questions.

1) imagine that there are 5 workers, working on some train tracks and a train is coming. the only thing you can do to save them is pull a lever to make the train switch tracks, but there is 1 person working over there. Basically, your choice is to pull the lever, kill 1 guy and save 5, or do nothing and 5 people will die.

9 out of 10 people said they would pull the lever as I am sure most of you would.

2) same scenario, except this time you are on a bridge overlooking the train tracks and the 1 person is standing next to you. the only way to save those 5 people is to push the guy onto the tracks to stop the train.

9 out of 10 people said they would not push the guy.


now that is odd, because ultimately they are the exact same things, with the exact same outcome. why do the majority of people, regardless of background, ethnicity, even culture overwhelmingly choose the same answers to those questions?

why would we choose to drastically change the outcome of two almost identical situations? the act of pushing someone is somehow worse than pulling a lever.

it works like that in many situations... I am sure it would be considered inhumane if instead of the "throwing of the switch" in electric chair death row situations was replaced with a person directly electrocuting them with some overpowered cattle prod.

I wish they would have delved deeper into the concept of "the lever" rather than focusing on why, when and how the moral centers of our brain become more active in these situations.

i wish that they would keep polling variations of the same question with slightly different minutia to pinpoint the very exact point at which a "lever" no longer has us making a moral distinction.

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