It’s the first question in a battery of questions designed to force you to be aware of inconsistencies in your ethical framework. The first answer is supposed to be obvious: Yes, you throw the switch, but most people’s reason for that creates a very messy precedent that the distinction between action and inaction doesn’t matter, only the outcome, which later questions can exploit.
The idea itself can be a rather interesting thing to explore as a thought experiment. Obviously the premise of the trolley problem is ridiculous, especially today since trains and especially trolleys are becoming much more rare for most people (with the exceptions for railroad tracks across roads, and passenger rail lines like subways and surface passenger services like we see in bullet trains). There are still railcars, like light rail transit in cities sometimes, but again, it’s fairly rare overall for the general public as a whole.
The idea of trolleys is a fairly outdated one and most of the safety systems in modern allegories are so robust that dangers are generally minimized.
Nevertheless, the moral quandary of whether you are responsible for injury or death as a result of your action (or inaction) is a fascinating mental exercise and has resulted in more than one discussion of adjacent morality concerns with the friend I mentioned. It’s fascinating to study overall, even in a casual context like we do.
I understand there’s a lot more to the picture when dealing with it in a more formal study, and that this question is only one piece of the puzzle when performing such studies.
The part that frustrates me more than anything is that people stop at whether or not to pull the lever, and run with it in memes and alternative solutions, rather than grappling with the moralities that are the root of the original question as part of the study. This is supposed to invoke a deep consideration about your actions and the responsibilities you may or may not be accepting when getting involved in a situation, and how your specific world view and moral “code” (so to speak) factors in. All of the memes and reposts of it, to me, always feel like it cheapens the meaning behind the initial problem as stated. However I understand that highly involved analytical thinking that forces you to consider all of those deep underlying concepts, requires significant mental work; system 2 work, of you will. Where you have to engage with your analytical “slow” thinking mind to really grasp, and our default reaction, as a species is that such thinking is usually something that will put us in danger, since our fast thinking system 1, can easily just blurt out an answer without considering it any further, saving significant mental effort.
I understand why people reduce this dilemma to the mechanical components of throwing a switch, but I always feel like they’re missing the entire point of the exercise.
It’s the first question in a battery of questions designed to force you to be aware of inconsistencies in your ethical framework. The first answer is supposed to be obvious: Yes, you throw the switch, but most people’s reason for that creates a very messy precedent that the distinction between action and inaction doesn’t matter, only the outcome, which later questions can exploit.
The idea itself can be a rather interesting thing to explore as a thought experiment. Obviously the premise of the trolley problem is ridiculous, especially today since trains and especially trolleys are becoming much more rare for most people (with the exceptions for railroad tracks across roads, and passenger rail lines like subways and surface passenger services like we see in bullet trains). There are still railcars, like light rail transit in cities sometimes, but again, it’s fairly rare overall for the general public as a whole.
The idea of trolleys is a fairly outdated one and most of the safety systems in modern allegories are so robust that dangers are generally minimized.
Nevertheless, the moral quandary of whether you are responsible for injury or death as a result of your action (or inaction) is a fascinating mental exercise and has resulted in more than one discussion of adjacent morality concerns with the friend I mentioned. It’s fascinating to study overall, even in a casual context like we do.
I understand there’s a lot more to the picture when dealing with it in a more formal study, and that this question is only one piece of the puzzle when performing such studies.
The part that frustrates me more than anything is that people stop at whether or not to pull the lever, and run with it in memes and alternative solutions, rather than grappling with the moralities that are the root of the original question as part of the study. This is supposed to invoke a deep consideration about your actions and the responsibilities you may or may not be accepting when getting involved in a situation, and how your specific world view and moral “code” (so to speak) factors in. All of the memes and reposts of it, to me, always feel like it cheapens the meaning behind the initial problem as stated. However I understand that highly involved analytical thinking that forces you to consider all of those deep underlying concepts, requires significant mental work; system 2 work, of you will. Where you have to engage with your analytical “slow” thinking mind to really grasp, and our default reaction, as a species is that such thinking is usually something that will put us in danger, since our fast thinking system 1, can easily just blurt out an answer without considering it any further, saving significant mental effort.
I understand why people reduce this dilemma to the mechanical components of throwing a switch, but I always feel like they’re missing the entire point of the exercise.