Would You Kill? - A Morality Question
My new favorite podcast is WNYC’s Radio Lab. It’s like when This American Life does something science-y. The sound editing is more aggressive with sound effects and what might be called jump cuts. I know “sound effects” could make it sound overwrought and cheesy, but it’s not. It’s just highly produced in a self-aware sort of way.
You should go check it out. And then you can answer these morality questions and hear the sound of five workmen being hit by a speeding trolley.
There are five men working on a trolley track unaware that a trolley is heading straight for them. You can’t warn them, but you do see a lever to switch the trolley to another track. The other track has also has someone working on the track, but just one. Do you switch the trolley, killing the one man, to save the five?
Okay, same question on a similar theme.
This time you’re above the track. There are five men working on it unaware that a trolley is heading straight for them. You can’t warn them, but you are standing next to a rather large man. If you give him a little push of the balcony, he’ll land on the track stopping the trolley. Do you push the one man over, killing him, to save the five?
And if you’re answers are different, tell us why.
-Dave says:
December 17th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I’ve heard this before, and it’s a tough question. I have to say, I think I’d pull the lever, but not shove the fat man.
And I think the reason why is that the people working on the track are (or should be) aware of the hazardous environment they are in. But shoving a guy onto the track puts him in a hazardous position without any form of consent.
That’s an after-the-fact justification. But it’s the best answer I have from looking at my gut feelings about the situations, and trying to find a rational justification for them.
jos' says:
December 17th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
On the podcast (which you can listen to online without a iPod) most people couldn’t really articulate why. And this among other questions they explore.
smlwoman says:
December 17th, 2007 at 9:55 pm
These questions bite. Mostly because we have time to think about them. We can’t really say what we would do because we wouldn’t have time to think about it. As a matter of fact, you might be in such shock that you just stand there dazed,and do nothing. Not because that is what you wanted to do, but because you can’t get your body to connect with your brain.
Here is another question, why don’t the people on the trolly start yelling at the men on the track so they look up and get off the track? Why can’t you warn them? Why can’t others warn them? Too many variables. I had a book filled with these kind of questions and though they were fun to ask, I hated thinking about them.
The one that stood out the most to me was
If you knew ahead of time that you could have one year of complete happiness, but would remember none of it after that year was over, would you still want it?
-Dave says:
December 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am
There was a movie that played on the theme of “if you could do X and then wipe your memory, would you?” In the movie (the title for which I can’t recall, ironically) a scientist would get a product, lock himself in a lab for 8 months or so, reverse engineer it, build a better model, and sell it to another company for a handsome profit, then get his memory of the whole time wiped to remove the evidence.
My answer for the second question is no. All I would gain (by I, I mean the enduring “who am I” me) is a lost year.
jose says:
December 18th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Paycheck with Ben Affleck.
The point of the question isn’t so much to talk about what you would truly do. The question is what would be the right thing to do.
kenny says:
December 18th, 2007 at 8:56 am
It depends on my role in the whole operation. If I am a passer-by who is unrelated to the train trolly operation project, I don’t pull the lever or push the man over. Why? Because I believe, generally, that ends don’t justify means–so I see each action as taking an unjustified measure (killing one man).
However, if I were the supervisor of the train trolley, I would pull the lever, but probably not push the man onto the tracks. Why? Because if I’m the supervisor, I’ve been put in charge of the lives of all the men, and at some level been given authority to make such a decision. I’d analogize it to a military situation, where I’m the lieutenant, and I have to send one man to defuse a bomb, knowing he’ll die but that the rest of the men will live. Here, the means of sacrificing the one man’s life has been authorized either explicitly or implicitly by the man who gives his life. (The authorization comes when he takes the job, knowing the risks, and knowing that I’ll be the supervisor who makes the decision).
But, I don’t think you push the big guy in front of the trolley because it appears he hasn’t implicitly agreed to the whole trolley project and its risks, nor has he implicitly agreed to my authority to make certain decisions that might cost him his life.
However, I’d qualify this by saying that I think Christian ethics is such that it can never be reduced to a simple rule. The general pattern seems to be scrupulous moral uprightness, and probably a ‘means don’t justify the ends’ position; however, there are notable instances in Scripture where a rigid rule like this is repudiated (for example, Jesus when explaining why he eats on the Sabbath cites David’s taking of the bread that only the priests were supposed to eat…so here’s Jesus breaking a rule, and justifiying it by citing David breaking a rule…and I think He then says ‘man was made for the Sabbath, not the Sabbath for man’).
kenny says:
December 18th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
Also, another distinction to note between the various options is the distinction between and “act” and an “omission.” I think people generally recognize that we are more responsible for our acts than for our omissions. This isn’t to say that we can’t be held responsible for omissions too - or that there’s a totally solid distinction between acts and omissions - but, as a matter of analyzing your options here, I think the difference between acting to kill the one man and “omitting” to save the five is somewhat meaningful.
jose says:
December 19th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Role is an excellent way to look at this, not just yours as the actor, but the men as willing participants.
According to the show, I’m like most people in that I tended to pull the lever in the first instance, but not push the man over. I think I know why though. There’s more distance between me and the actual death of the single man in the first instance. Later I could comfort myself by saying that I didn’t so much kill the man as pull a lever and divert a trolley. In the second instance I’m more intimately involved in his death.
This same sense of distance explains, I think, why some people have no problem with abortion, but have major problems with killing a newborn. Not seeing, hearing, feeling the fetus provides the distance needed to abort it.
Lori says:
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:16 am
If you are near enough to the track to push a large man in front, or pull a lever, why couldn’t you sacrifice yourself, by jumping onto the tracks, to save 6?
I agree that there are so many variables. One of the questions I would ask is if there are any people on the oncoming trolley. The people on the trolley would be at a much greater risk if the trolley were to hit 5 men than if it were to hit one.