A train is about to run over three people tied to a railroad track.
A fourth person is tied to a parallel railroad track.
You know nothing about the 4 people.
It is within your ability and time to switch the railroad track from the track with three people to the track with only one person.
All other possible options are not within your ability or time.
The switch will work 100%.
Do you:
1) do nothing
2) switch the track
Last edited by MplsBison; 25th March 2008 at 08:05 PM.
If I had no immediate knowledge of the type of character each of these four persons embody, I would move the train to run over the lone individual, since, on basis of the knowledge available to me at the time, I made the best decision possible. Quality usually trumps quantity, but in life-or-death situations where quality is uncertain, quantity is a suitable estimation of who deserves to live more.
Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
- Immanuel Kant
Given that the variables of the situation are infinite even as presented (start spinning them in your mind now - 1) switch is faulty, makes train jump track and everyone on train dies 2) single man is brilliant research scientist who would have found cure for cancer 3)one of three men on other side was Hitler like character that goes on to murder millions because you save him) and no human could ever be expected to calculate or anticipate every possible outcome, I go with throwing the switch and hoping to minimize the pain and suffering of the day. All you can do is the best you can with the options given. Save the three.
All I see when I look down, something jumpin' on the ground, Scratchin' dirt, cluckin' in the barnyard -
Tell me, could that be you?
John Kay
Ok I edited it to consider both of your excellent points.
So, since this is supposedly an "ethics test," who gets to decide which answer makes a person more ethical or less ethical?
Neither answer means you're more or less ethical than anyone else.
I would let the train run over the three people, then I would flip the switch, radio the train engineer, and ask him to back up.
I don't like to play favorites.
I would probably go for the greatest good for the greatest number approach and save the three, but that doesn’t mean I would always support that ethical doctrine.
I've done this one before. My decision was to throw the switch, and kill one person vs. three, for the reasons stated herein. I don't know any of them, and I'm just as likely to be saving Hitler as I am to be killing him. It's a quantitative decision entirely since I have no other information to go on.
The best argument against this decision was that by throwing the switch, you are no longer passive in the situation, and you are taking action to kill one person. If you did nothing, you could better argue that you aren't responsible for their deaths because you didn't take an action against them.
My view, though, is that using that argument is a cop out. In that scenario, you are *choosing* to take no action -- thus, you've actually taken an active role in making the choice, while trying to justify the outcome.
So, I'd throw the switch, and close my eyes.
What if it was a choice between three strangers on the default track and your beloved family dog tied to the alternate track?
The question when it is taken to the core level is, should lives be weighed on a number scale? Is three lives worth more than one? Does that one person have any less of a right to live than the other three people combined? The other core question is is it ethical to kill one to save many, because it is arguable that by making a decision to flip the switch to save the three, you also make the decision to kill the one. This hypothetical ethical riddle has been around for ages, but there is also a second part to it that further delves into the core question. Please don't linger on the the ridiculous situation proposed: There are three people tied to the tracks, and one man walking beside the tracks. If for a fact that if you pushed that man onto the tracks, it would stop the train before killing the three would you do so? Once again an even more ridiculous scenario, but it just boils down to the basic question should you kill one to save more than one.
I would pick the 3 people to save and 1 person to die. I think of it more as would I save the 1 person and make him/her burden the fact that 3 people died because of him/her? It WOULD be better in my perspective to carry a burden of 1 person death on 3 serperate people rather than 3 people's death on 1 person.
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