The trolley problem: would you kill one person to save many others?

In the 2015 British thriller Eye in the Sky, a military team locates a terrorist cell preparing an attack expected to kill hundreds. They command a drone that can drop a bomb on the terrorists, preventing their attack. As the team readies the bomb, their cameras spy a little girl selling bread within the blast radius. Should they go through with their mission – killing the girl in order to prevent the deaths of many others?

This modern-day moral dilemma has its roots in a classic philosophical thought experiment known as the trolley problem. Introduced in 1967 by Philippa Foot, the trolley problem illuminates the landscape of moral intuitions – the peculiar and sometimes surprising patterns of how we divide right from wrong.

Try it at home

Consider one version of the trolley problem:

A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Adam is standing next to a large switch that can divert the trolley onto a different track. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to divert the trolley onto another track that only has one worker on it. If Adam diverts the trolley onto the other track, this one worker will die, but the other five workers will be saved.

Should Adam flip the switch, killing the one worker but saving the other five? Write down your answer.

Now consider a slightly different version:

A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Adam is on a footbridge over the tracks, in between the approaching trolley and the five workers. Next to him on this footbridge is a stranger who happens to be very large. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to push this stranger off the footbridge and onto the tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if Adam does this, but the five workers will be saved.

Should Adam push the stranger off the footbridge, killing him but saving the five workers?

Did you give the same answer to the first and second versions – or different ones?

What’s going on?

The trolley problem highlights a fundamental tension between two schools of moral thought. The utilitarian perspective dictates that most appropriate action is the one that achieves the greatest good for the greatest number. Meanwhile, the deontological perspective asserts that certain actions – like killing an innocent person – are just wrong, even if they have good consequences. In both versions of the trolley problem above, utilitarians say you should sacrifice one to save five, while deontologists say you should not.

Psychological research shows that in the first version of the problem, most people agree with utilitarians, deeming it morally acceptable to flip the switch, killing one to save five.  

Read more https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/dec/12/the-trolley-problem-would-you-kill-one-person-to-save-many-others

Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd