The Trolley Problem, kill 1 to save 5?

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Socreta93 said:
There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person tied up on the side track. You have two options:

  1. Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track.
  2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person

Here is something to note, you can kill that one person to save 1 but your're deliberately pulling the lever. You can do nothing and maybe your conscious would be clean since there was nothing you can do.
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Are the 5 people liberal democrats ? :cool:
 
I understand this to be a true story. (I think it was in the 30's.) A railroad drawbridge operator brought his young child to work with him one day. He told the child to stay away from the big gears. After a while, a train came along and he had to lower the bridge. He noticed that his child had gotten into the gears and that if he lowered the bridge the child would be killed. But if he didn't lower the bridge everyone on the train would be killed.

What would you do? He lowered the bridge.

None of those people on the train knew what had happened to save their lives.

I pray I never have to make a decision like that.
 
To answer your question Socreta, I would not pull the lever because I'm closer to Kantian than utilitarian. This probably isn't the forum for a philosophy debate though lol.
 
The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five?

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this is such a 'nutter' post, ask yourself why someone would make a thread about
such a thing as this??? - and WHY you would respond to it???
 
EarnestQ: The drawbridge keeper is actually a retelling of an older story from the 1800's. At least that is as far back as anybody has been able to trace it. Nobody knows if it is true, but I have heard many versions of it and even seen a video (drama, with a religious motif about Jesus dying for us.)
 
maxwel said:
People still take trolleys?

Maybe somebody needs to take an introductory ethics class from a school with newer books.
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Only one I know who uses a trolley is Mr. Roger's. If he is talking about pulling the lever to save 5 and kill Mr. Rodger's then I'm not moving that lever, not in my neighborhood.
 
I pulled that dumb lever only half way because I got tired of hearing about it. Everybody was saved.
 
tourist said:
Only one I know who uses a trolley is Mr. Roger's. If he is talking about pulling the lever to save 5 and kill Mr. Rodger's then I'm not moving that lever, not in my neighborhood.
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We still have them.

Hard to tell the difference between them and our buses, but trolleys need the electricity of the wire above it to move.

Phila%20trackless%20trolley%20813%20Greene%20St%20onto%20Windrim%20Ave%20October%201%202011%20ZMS%20photo.jpg
 
tourist said:
Only one I know who uses a trolley is Mr. Roger's. If he is talking about pulling the lever to save 5 and kill Mr. Rodger's then I'm not moving that lever, not in my neighborhood.
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Have you forgotten?
Mr.Roger's Trolley "moves on it's own" it would "stop itself" before any harm would befall anyone,think about it!
 
I actually LOVE questions like this. I had a few of my own; Some made up some retold but I would like it to be better received than this scenario so I am trepidatious about sharing them.

I would leave the lever alone. It isn't legal for me to mess with it. And I would think it may be a trick from some evil mastermind to pull it anyway. Maybe the one person is real and the other 5 are fake. The villain just wanted me to kill someone. Better safe than sorry.
 
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