Could There Be A Solution To The Trolley Problem?

[Philosophy Now]

Omid Panahi finds that finding a solution is not the problem.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/116/Co ... ey_Problem

[Hobbes' Choice]

yeah the solution is not to pose the problem

OR

Use this 2 year old's BRILLIANT solution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_RZJUAQY4

[Justintruth]

The non-trolly problem is the real one:

If I will be killed by an oncomming trolly unless I throw this person in front of it is it ethical to do so?

If I will be killed if I prevent someone from being run over by a trolly must I prevent him from being killed.

If you have a room with some people in it and give them each the same amount of money, no one will be rich and no one will be poor. To be rich there must be someone poor. Same with countries. The situation is justified by comparing two possible rooms one with everyone equally poor and the other with a difference but with the poorest being richer than all the others in the equal room room.

But whether that will happen is a matter of fact. It must be determined as a fact.

In a world where many babies die at their mother's breast, do you really believe that the would be poorer if things were a little more equal?

The real trolly problem involves how I can ignore the fact that I throw a switch to kill many in order to drive a nice car.

The standard trolly problem is just one to justify doing something in philosophy without examining the unethical nature of our behavior - because we know where it will lead and no one - student, faculty, administrator, financer wants to go there.

If you line the number of people up that have been killed in military operations in my lifetime, with 2-3 feet allocated in the line its amazing how much gasoline it woud take just to drive by everyone on a freeway.

There is something deeply disturbing about hearing discussions about the problem conducted in our culture. Its like watching everyone fiddle while Rome burns.

The non-trolly problem is the real one. What do we do about this situation we have.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If it came down to it, in the unbelievably unlikely chance that anyone would ever be in this position, I suppose you could always toss a coin. Besides, isn't one decent person worth more than five arseholes?

[Conde Lucanor]

It cannot have a "solution", if we mean by that an answer that meets logical conditions that would allow such assertion to be an objective truth. The Trolley Problem is a moral dilemma, not a logical or mathematical problem.

[Necromancer]

To enter a Kantian response is to kill as few people as possible by the original problem by Foot.
- To be the driver of the runaway tram is to say that it's better to be a driver who kills 1 person than 5 persons. That is, by "an idea in the Kingdom of ideas, one chooses the idea in such a manner that ...", paraphrased.

However, it's not obvious that one should (actively) kill to save people. Therefore, in the 2nd example of the article, the Kantian way would be to "cry out a warning as loud as it gets" or other, that is, to do your best so that people do not get killed despite the example says that 5 people are going to die. Well, well, in this example, I let them die.
- Because, if there is a screwed up idea that killing 5 people of a corrupt regime with your bomb to your body is going to save 1000 people the connection isn't that evident and that there are ways in the world where these 1000 people may fend for themselves in a better way, say.
- So there is this rather natural way for events to flow in order to either save people in one way or another or to prevent people falling prone to killings, whatever the reason, natural or man-made.

You work for train-safety in order to prevent train (or tram for the others) deaths or you become a political activist to prevent corrupt people from wielding power. This is the natural vein for being a truly good, Kantian person!

Thank you!

[TSBU]

I'm more worried about the trolls problem.

[advaithupadhya]

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE. THIS IS MY ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM
The trolley problem is a famous ethical problem which is considered to be the clash of two schools of moral thought, utilitarianism, and deontological ethics. Before diving into the answers, let us first look at what the problem is, and how important it is to arrive at a consensus as soon as possible. The problem goes as follows:

There is a runaway trolley in motion on whose path lies five people tied up and not able to move. You, the observer, are standing at a distance in the train yard, and next to you is a lever which when pulled will divert the trolley to another track. On the other side is one person who is tied up. You can either allow the trolley to continue its path and let the five people die or pull the lever and save the five people killing one person on the way. It has puzzled thinkers for a long time. We have not been able to arrive at the answer to the question, ' Which is the more ethical option? ' We simply have not figured out what the right thing to do is.

Now that we all know what the problem is, let us look at its implications. A problem does not necessarily need to be solved unless it affects us in any way. Moreover, if it does not affect us, we do not tend to look at it as a problem. If we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, we can see that, in the problem, the observer is analogous to God. The observer has to decide a course of action for a given scenario, which can hugely impact other lives. The greater good is the deciding factor while choosing between the two options. It is almost how we view God to be. So, in trying to find the answer to this, we are figuring out how to become God. To get better clarity, let us now analyze the same problem with the help of a few scenarios:

The first one is a 'soon to be real' situation. We now have driverless cars. It is just a matter of time before it becomes a common practice. While on a highway, the car might face the same situation and it is up to the manufacturers, who are the observers in this case to decide the fate of these people.
The second one is something that doctors have been thinking about a lot over the years. What if five people are dying, each who could survive if they could get one organ transplanted and one person is standing outside whose organs could be used to save these five people. As if this was not confusing enough, there are more variations to this problem where the person standing outside is a close relative of the doctor.

So now, I think that we are on the same page that we need to solve this as soon as possible. On that note, let me take you through my perspective of the problem and what I think is the answer which most of you will agree on. I would first like to take your attention to the writings of Albert Camus, an early 20th Century philosopher, who proposed the widely accepted theory of absurdism. The universe craves chaos while we strive for order. A forest can live on for generations whereas a garden, which is technically an ordered forest, dies without proper care. Nature wants completely different things from what humans do but we still co-exist in an absurd relationship. This can be seen more clearly if we look closely at how all our actions that meddled with the universe has resulted in something bad. Human intervention with nature has been a major factor for world problems like starvation, global warming, overexploitation of resources to name a few. Moreover, we are not ready to accept the fact that it is us, humans, who are responsible for all the damages and it will come back to bite us in the back a few generations down the line. To put an end to all this, we must stop intervening with nature and just enjoy things as they come, just like a tree. We must embrace the fact that some things are beyond our control and many others even beyond our understanding and logic. Let me qualify my statement. When I say that we must be like a tree, all I am trying to say is that we must make the decision that involves no assumptions, or the least assumptions amongst the possible options. In this particular problem, the decision to change the path of the track involves assumptions about the men on both the tracks and hence should not be made.

There might be a group of people who think that the lever should not be pulled who change their mind when they find out that the person on the other track is a villain. Then again, we are assuming that killing him would result in a good place. While realizing his objective of killing millions of people, who is to say that Hitler did not kill someone who might have caused even more havoc and destruction. To assume that a world without Adolf Hitler would have been better is wrong. Similarly, one might change their mind to kill five instead of one, when they realize that it is Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. who might die if the trolley is diverted. The choice is again made with the assumption that saving them would be the best possible result. Without disrespecting the two who have changed the world for the good, we must consider the possibility that we might have been better off without them. Someone else might have risen to power and given India the much-needed independence far earlier, resulting in way fewer deaths. Hence, assuming a better or a bad future is not the best thing to do.

If we look at the two schools of thought that are prevalent right now, one is that we must consider which action will result in more value, and the other being that while we talk about the good, we must do so with qualification. If we look at human actions, it has always been to reduce the bloodshed. One might argue quite rightly that history, especially with the stories of Hitler and Stalin, suggests otherwise. But, when we see what the more natural and common behavior is, we can see that it is to reduce deaths. That is why the majority see killing one person better than killing five. People who decide to kill five instead of one are reducing blood from their hands. If they do not pull the lever, they are not directly related to any of the deaths and it is human tendency to feel that having lesser deaths on our hands is always the moral thing to do. Similarly, the ones who deem the notion of killing only person right, might not be willing to push a fat man who is standing on a bridge above the railway track if it would save the five people. But, in the search for the truth, if we ignore what we think is more moral, and see how our supposedly good deeds, right from the invention of electricity to that of smartphones, have been causes of harm, even if they were meant to do good. Human intervention is what got us into the mess. We must let what was going to happen to occur and not let our projections of the future or even the present act as a resistance to nature's plans. This may or may not be the moral thing to do, but this is something that will lead to less damage in the long run. We must always try to make the decision that involves the least amount of assumptions.

[dorothea]

ADVAITH
Your discussion is interesting and reminds me of the article on genocide in the last issue but one (138) which made use of research interviews with volunteer death squads in Poland (not the professional military einzatsgruppen). Some of the men distanced themselves from the bloodshed by arguing that they were saving German, non-Jewish lives in the future (utilitarianism) but one at least considered himself acting out of compassion. He killed only the children because they had no future happiness without parents that his comrades had killed. Some of the Huto killers of Tutsis in the Rwanda massacres said exactly the same thing.
You've raised an interesting aspect of human psychology I think in which we try to persuade ourselves that we are uninvolved.

[commonsense]

If it came down to it, in the unbelievably unlikely chance that anyone would ever be in this position, I suppose you could always toss a coin. Besides, isn't one decent person worth more than five arseholes?

When a decision must be made, and there isn’t a logical choice, the coin toss maneuver frees you from paralysis.

[mariarobertasl]

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE. THIS IS MY ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM
The trolley problem is a famous ethical problem which is considered to be the clash of two schools of moral thought, utilitarianism, and deontological ethics. Before diving into the answers, let us first look at what the problem is, and how important it is to arrive at a consensus as soon as possible. The problem goes as follows:

There is a runaway trolley in motion on whose path lies five people tied up and not able to move. You, the observer, are standing at a distance in the train yard, and next to you is a lever which when pulled will divert the trolley to another track. On the other side is one person who is tied up. You can either allow the trolley to continue its path and let the five people die or pull the lever and save the five people killing one person on the way. It has puzzled thinkers for a long time. We have not been able to arrive at the answer to the question, ' Which is the more ethical option? ' We simply have not figured out what the right thing to do is.

Now that we all know what the problem is, let us look at its implications. A problem does not necessarily need to be solved unless it affects us in any way. Moreover, if it does not affect us, we do not tend to look at it as a problem. If we take a step back and look at the bigger picture, we can see that, in the problem, the observer is analogous to God. The observer has to decide a course of action for a given scenario, which can hugely impact other lives. The greater good is the deciding factor while choosing between the two options. It is almost how we view God to be. So, in trying to find the answer to this, we are figuring out how to become God. To get better clarity, let us now analyze the same problem with the help of a few scenarios:

The first one is a 'soon to be real' situation. We now have driverless cars. It is just a matter of time before it becomes a common practice. While on a highway, the car might face the same situation and it is up to the manufacturers, who are the observers in this case to decide the fate of these people.
The second one is something that doctors have been thinking about a lot over the years. What if five people are dying, each who could survive if they could get one organ transplanted and one person is standing outside whose organs could be used to save these five people. As if this was not confusing enough, there are more variations to this problem where the person standing outside is a close relative of the doctor.

So now, I think that we are on the same page that we need to solve this as soon as possible. On that note, let me take you through my perspective of the problem and what I think is the answer which most of you will agree on. I would first like to take your attention to the writings of Albert Camus, an early 20th Century philosopher, who proposed the widely accepted theory of absurdism. The universe craves chaos while we strive for order. A forest can live on for generations whereas a garden, which is technically an ordered forest, dies without proper care. Nature wants completely different things from what humans do but we still co-exist in an absurd relationship. This can be seen more clearly if we look closely at how all our actions that meddled with the universe has resulted in something bad. Human intervention with nature has been a major factor for world problems like starvation, global warming, overexploitation of resources to name a few. Moreover, we are not ready to accept the fact that it is us, humans, who are responsible for all the damages and it will come back to bite us in the back a few generations down the line. To put an end to all this, we must stop intervening with nature and just enjoy things as they come, just like a tree. We must embrace the fact that some things are beyond our control and many others even beyond our understanding and logic. Let me qualify my statement. When I say that we must be like a tree, all I am trying to say is that we must make the decision that involves no assumptions, or the least assumptions amongst the possible options. In this particular problem, the decision to change the path of the track involves assumptions about the men on both the tracks and hence should not be made.

There might be a group of people who think that the lever should not be pulled who change their mind when they find out that the person on the other track is a villain. Then again, we are assuming that killing him would result in a good place. While realizing his objective of killing millions of people, who is to say that Hitler did not kill someone who might have caused even more havoc and destruction. To assume that a world without Adolf Hitler would have been better is wrong. Similarly, one might change their mind to kill five instead of one, when they realize that it is Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. who might die if the trolley is diverted. The choice is again made with the assumption that saving them would be the best possible result. Without disrespecting the two who have changed the world for the good, we must consider the possibility that we might have been better off without them. Someone else might have risen to power and given India the much-needed independence far earlier, resulting in way fewer deaths. Hence, assuming a better or a bad future is not the best thing to do.

If we look at the two schools of thought that are prevalent right now, one is that we must consider which action will result in more value, and the other being that while we talk about the good, we must do so with qualification. If we look at human actions, it has always been to reduce the bloodshed. One might argue quite rightly that history, especially with the stories of Hitler and Stalin, suggests otherwise. But, when we see what the more natural and common behavior is, we can see that it is to reduce deaths. That is why the majority see killing one person better than killing five. People who decide to kill five instead of one are reducing blood from their hands. If they do not pull the lever, they are not directly related to any of the deaths and it is human tendency to feel that having lesser deaths on our hands is always the moral thing to do. Similarly, the ones who deem the notion of killing only person right, might not be willing to push a fat man who is standing on a bridge above the railway track if it would save the five people. But, in the search for the truth, if we ignore what we think is more moral, and see how our supposedly good deeds, right from the invention of electricity to that of smartphones, have been causes of harm, even if they were meant to do good. Human intervention is what got us into the mess. We must let what was going to happen to occur and not let our projections of the future or even the present act as a resistance to nature's plans. This may or may not be the moral thing to do, but this is something that will lead to less damage in the long run. We must always try to make the decision that involves the least amount of assumptions.

ok but what would you do?

[Deepsleep_r]

First thought was to rapidly switch between the two and let "god sort em out"

After reviewing the extent to which people have gone to answer this I decided

Modifying the circut with a quartz crystal or a mechanical relay to obtain a perfect ocillation and bluetooth siri/ bixby/bing/Google voice recognition so the employee alerting you of the problem actuates the switching with their voice alleviating you from accountability altogether or at least randomizing with some element of regularity.

Then I realized this is the dumbest question ever posed.

SWITCH TO THE ONE GUY, RUN DOWN THE TRACK AND PUSH HIM OUT OF THE WAY.!!!!