The Trolley Problem
12 May 2010
There is a famous conundrum in moral philosophy.
The Trolley problem
You are the driver of a train that is hurtling down a
railway line. It's out of control and the brakes have -Invented by moral philosopher
failed. Ahead, five workers are working on the track Professor Judith Jarvis Thomson,
and apparently face certain death. You try to stop by who taught at Massachusetts Institute
you can’t. Then, you notice a side track on the right, of Technology
where there is one worker on the track. Do you turn the
train down the side track, killing one person, or -Case one: A runaway train is
continue straight ahead and kill the five workers. What heading towards five workers on the
should you do? Should you steer the train down the side tracks. You are approaching a side
track? track that you could steer down, but
there is one worker on that track.
Now try this. The runaway train is again heading Would you steer the train down a side
towards five workers. This time you are an onlooker track, where one worker is, killing
standing on a footbridge, next to a very big man. The one person instead of five?
only way you can stop the train is to push the big man
over the footbridge onto the track. His bulk will stop the -Case two: Same problem, but you
train and five lives will be spared. What should you do? are a bystander. You are watching
Should you push him? from a footbridge. You could push a
fat man next to you off the bridge,
Most people believe it’s acceptable to divert a runaway and his bulk would stop the train,
train away from killing five people who are working on killing one person instead of five.
the track, even if by so doing, the train would crash into Would you do it?
and kill one other person. But the majority of people do
not think it’s acceptable to stop a train by throwing a large man in front of it - even if this would
save five lives.
But why might the two train cases be morally different? What was the moral difference between
the two? After all, in both cases it's a choice of one life or five. What does the conundrum tell us
about what sort of moral creatures human beings are? And why does any of this matter?
It's a moral conundrum that philosophers have been grappling with for several decades. Why
does this apparently arcane philosophical puzzle matter in the real world?
The answers we give in such cases have huge implications in numerous practical areas, such as
abortion, capital punishment and the conduct of warfare.
The solution to the conundrum has implications in numerous practical areas, including warfare.
All West Point cadets now study philosophy and the so-called trolley problem, a problem that
continues to absorb some of the most brilliant minds in moral philosophy.
These include Jeff McMahan, of Rutgers University, who has also taught at West Point.
McMahan forcefully makes the claim for the relevance of the trolley problem.
He says it adds weight to a crucial moral distinction - enshrined in international law - between
killing civilians as an aim, and knowing civilians will die merely as a foreseen consequence of
military action: between attacking a munitions factory aware that there will be, to use that
euphemism, collateral damage, and aiming at civilians intentionally.
In the classroom the new breed of philosopher soldiers are being taught Immanuel Kant, who
thought that there were some things it was always wrong to do to other humans whatever the
consequences, and without whom the modern conception of human rights is almost
inconceivable.
It is hard to know how the 18th-Century German philosopher would respond to this updating of
his philosophy.
Outside the classroom, one officer, Major Danny Crozier, admits that there is a danger in
teaching cadets to think reflectively for themselves - the danger of insubordination.
But the risk is worth it, he says, because soldiers must not obey unjust commands.
Philosophy can help them draw the necessary distinctions.
His young soldiers could be required to go to Afghanistan, and if engaged in combat will have to
take snap decisions about what to target, when to shoot.
Their moral instincts have to be trained alongside their military ones.
Harming the Innocent
According to the principle of utility, we should always do whatever will produce the greatest
amount of happiness and whatever is necessary to prevent the greatest amount of unhappiness.
But what if the only way to produce happiness, and to prevent unhappiness, is to harm or even
kill innocent people?
1. Suppose you are driving through a narrow tunnel and a worker falls onto the road in front
of you. There is not enough time for you to stop. If you keep straight, you will hit the
worker and kill him, but if you swerve left into oncoming traffic, you will collide with a
school bus and kill at least five children. What’s the right thing to do? Does utilitarianism
get the right answer?
2. Suppose ten thousand innocent civilians live next to a munitions factory in a country at
war. If you bomb the factory, all of them will die. If you don’t bomb the factory, it will
be used to produce bombs that will be dropped on fifty thousand innocent civilians in
another country. What’s the right thing to do? Does utilitarianism get the right answer?
3. Suppose a man has planted a bomb in New York City, and it will explode in twenty-four
hours unless the police are able to find it. Should it be legal for the police to use torture to
extract information from the suspected bomber? Does utilitarianism get the right answer?
4. Now suppose the man who has planted the bomb will not reveal the location unless an
innocent member of his family is tortured. Should it be legal for the police to torture
innocent people, if that is truly the only way to discover the location of a large bomb?
Does utilitarianism have the right answer?
5. You are a passenger on United Flight 93, headed from New Jersey to San Francisco.
Once the flight is in the air, four armed terrorists take over the plane and intend to divert
the plane towards Washington, DC and fly it into the U.S. Capitol building. Do you
attempt to regain control of the plane forcefully, which may result in the plan crashing
and killing everyone on board, all 44 passengers? Or do you let the hijackers fly the
plane into the U.S Capitol building, possibly killing thousands? Does utilitarianism have
the right answer?
[Link]
[Link] (part 1)
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id=8 (Harvard University, Justice with Michael Sandel course debate videos – Episode 1)
The Moral Side of Murder: If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of
five others and (2) doing nothing, even though you knew that five people would die right before
your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do? What would be the right thing to do? That’s the
hypothetical scenario Professor Michael Sandel uses to launch his course on moral reasoning.
