Trolley Problem Thread?
The Goal, is to find the most ethical solution to the problem, given your personal ethical system
If you push the man off the bridge at the right time, you may stop/slow the trolley enough to prevent the people at the end from dying.
What Do?
There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards four workers. Three of them are cannibalistic serial killers. One of them is a brilliant cancer researcher. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits just one person. She is a brilliant cannibalistic serial killing cancer researcher who only kills lesser cancer researchers. 14% of these researchers are Nazi-sympathizers, and 25% don’t use turning signals when they drive. Speaking of which, in this world, Hitler is still alive, but he’s dying of cancer.
What do?
Throw myself off.
Can I kill them all instead?
You don't weigh enough to stop it.
I jump off the bridge myself.
[spoiler]Not to stop the train but because [spoiler]RADICAL FREEDOM![/spoiler][/spoiler]
He might weigh enough. Let's say 300 pounds is enough to stop the trolley. If less than that, you don't even slow it.
After the train goes by, you may kill who you wish before untying them.
You, and the four people, all die
...
RADICAL FREEDOM
pull the lever, plug my ears and turn around
Yes
I let the man on the bridge live, then I watch the five on the track die. Afterwards, I push the man off the bridge.
How exactly is that ethical?
If there are no witnesses, the ethics are whatever you want them to be.
I don't think he'll die if there isn't a train coming.
Just walk away.
The effort you would need to expend to push that man outweighs the ramifications of just letting the trolley roll over the people. Thus it would be less ethical to expose yourself to such strenuous activity in order to kill someone, that in would to hear 5 people die.
I find out where you live, and fuck you in the ass.
He'll be crippled. Which is almost as bad
That's a valid philosophy
But those 5 people, if saved, would be inclined to aid you in the future. (They could give you money with which to buy food which could more than restore the energy reserves you used to kill the fat guy)
After that, you get aids and die and begin to die. Anyone you fuck gets aids and starts to die. (You'll like at least a few of them) Then after watching them slowly fade into a state of incredible physical weakness. They won't be able to so much as get out of bed unassisted. Then you'll die.
What do?
...
I would probably ask the fat guy if he something more than a pleb. If so, I would spare him. Otherwise bye fatso.
I jump down onto the trolley as it passes and ride it while it runs the 5 people over.
It depends on how the paths are chosen. If we can decompose the trolley into eigenstates of paths |A> and |B> then we can find out the probabilities of the paths that the trolley will take, namely suppose x = 0 is the point where the trolley hits the people tied to the track, ||^2 is the probability that the trolley will hit them on path A and ||^2 is that of the trolley going onto path B. Of course we have ||^2 + ||^2 = 1 so we pull the lever when ||^2 < 0.5 and not touch it when ||^2 > 0.5.
What is the correct order for these trolleys to approach the intersection?
Trolley A, traveling 40 mph, leaves West Street heading toward East Street, 130 miles away. At the same time Trolley B, traveling 25 mph, leaves East Street heading toward West Street. The intersection is 50 miles from East Street. What do?