Should you kill the fat man?

This really drove me up a wall.
"It would be strange then if you did not think it might sometimes be right to torture a person if by doing so it might be possible to save all those people whose lives would otherwise be lost in a nuclear explosion. Perhaps then you should revisit your blanket opposition to torture."
As though the questions weren't deliberately set up to railroad you into one extreme or the other, not to mention the ambiguous phrasing.

"The first thing to note is that your consistency score is 58%. This is less than the average score for this test (where higher is better), which is 78%."
If only one's views on morality could really be summed up in eight questions.

The moment I saw the thread title I thought of this video which, sure enough, is about precisely this thought experiment.
[video=youtube;KUsGDVOCLVQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsGDVOCLVQ[/video]

e: Retook it and considered more carefully the questions in a broader scope ("the greater good"). It then spat out 100% moral consistency, given that I answered that murder and torture are sometimes justifiable.

What I don't like in this is that it doesn't attempt to acknowledge a potential distinction between what will produce the best outcome and what is morally "good." I realize that such is probably me just wishing to avoid identifying the two as one and the same, but it is an interesting thing to ponder nonetheless.

e2: I'd say I did a fair bit of Fi valuing in the first iteration, then turned it more towards Fe the second iteration.
 
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I got 100% consistency as a Consequentialist.

I'm INFP (Fi Dom.)
 
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Seraphim said:
It bothered me because I still don't think torture is right, but in an extreme situation it might be a necessary evil. That's not a contradiction to my "blanket opposition of torture."
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Exactly! I don't entirely recognize a contradiction between seeing it as wrong, yet doing it anyway when the situation necessitates.
 
I got 83% consistency.

I believe torture is always wrong. However, there's an aspect that the test ignored - I also believe that there comes a time where even though something is wrong, you have to do it anyway.

This is why I don't always appreciate binary logic.

Also I'm Fe
 
My consistency score was 100%.

I believe the test saw me as utilitarian which in theory is true, but how you believe you'll act in such situations often differs from how you'll really act.

I'm just glad that it didn't call me a psychopath as morality tests often have a habit of doing so.
 
well I nailed it, 100% consistent if not a little confusing. also went with not torturing the fatman.
 
I got 94%. I killed the fat man the first time he came up because it seemed like divine providence that there just so happened to be a fat man there who was so fat that he could stop a train. Seemed like it was the reason he was born and got so fat : so that he could save those poor people.

I killed him every time after that and then tortured him because fuck terrorists.

Si.
 
*SPOILER?*





But if you kill the fat man, you wouldn't be able to find out where the nuclear bomb is! D:
 
Question 1: Torture, as a matter of principle, is always morally wrong.
Yes

Question 2: The morality of an action is determined by whether, compared to the other available options, it maximises the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it.
No

Question 3: It is always, and everywhere, wrong to cause another person's death - assuming they wish to stay alive - if this outcome is avoidable.
Yes

Question 4: If you can save the lives of innocent people without reducing the sum total of human happiness, and without putting your own life at risk, you are morally obliged to do so.
No


I wouldn't kill the fat man, neither would I do so if I knew he was the culprit.
I got 83 %, as I consciously switched the trains direction, killing one person instead of five. I'm thinking the same way [MENTION=6917]sprinkles[/MENTION] did (regarding the train switch instead).
I still wouldn't torture him. If killing him would somehow stop the bomb I would probably do it though, even though that goes against my morals as well, as he'd have the opportunity to disarm the bomb himself, thus only killing himself if he refuses.
 
"The morality of an action is determined by whether, compared to the other available options, it maximizes the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it."

Am I the only one who thought this question was worded incorrectly???? fml...

I answered no because it could make some people extremely happy while making others miserable. But it could still maximize the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it.
 
The plan is simple.... we kill the Fat Man!

Alright, I chose the let the train hit the one moron who got stuck in the rail slider and spare the others. Also, didn't push Osama bin-Eatingtoomuch over the bridge because cliche poetic justice; also, it turns out that he is the mastermind of a nuclear bomb threat and we'll need him down the road with a nice 75% chance he tells us where it is after a few kicks to the scrote. If he's dead, we don't find the bomb, the city blows up, the moron in the slider dies in vain, and 4 people have no home to go back to.

Too bad life isn't a Die Hard movie.
 
Seraphim said:
It bothered me because I still don't think torture is right, but in an extreme situation it might be a necessary evil. That's not a contradiction to my "blanket opposition of torture."
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I agree. When I thought of the typical reasons for torturing someone, saving a million lives never once crossed my mind. This is silly...you could probably justify throwing your own mom into a bonfire if it would save a million lives, not that I'd do that lol.

I got 50% consistency =DDDDD

Because realistically, it's going to be almost impossible that you involving yourself and sacrificing someone is going to guarantee saving the lives of others. What's the point of asking these questions and then forcing us into extremely unlikely, hypothetical situations afterwards, which are not even relevant to the real world? I guess if I had answered these questions in alignment with the conditions that the situations presented, then I would've come out as more consistent, but I instead answered them in adherence to the constraints of real world probability.

For the OP, I'm unsure if I'm more Fi or Fe.
 
niffer said:
Because realistically, it's going to be almost impossible that you involving yourself and sacrificing someone is going to guarantee saving the lives of others. What's the point of asking these questions and then forcing us into extremely unlikely, hypothetical situations afterwards, which are not even relevant to the real world?
Click to expand...

Maybe it's to get people to be more excepting of torture and murder so that they don't ask questions when their government does it.
 
chulo said:
"The morality of an action is determined by whether, compared to the other available options, it maximizes the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it."

Am I the only one who thought this question was worded incorrectly???? fml...

I answered no because it could make some people extremely happy while making others miserable. But it could still maximize the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it.
Click to expand...

I also thought that was wrong.

My moral view is Kant-ish, in that if you would not have something be a universal law, then it is probably not moral.

I differ from Kant though in that I don't feel it is required to be moral 100% of the time.
 
sprinkles said:
I also thought that was wrong.

My moral view is Kant-ish, in that if you would not have something be a universal law, then it is probably not moral.

I differ from Kant though in that I don't feel it is required to be moral 100% of the time.
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I thought that section was kind of funny because when I read it I thought, what on earth do happiness and a moral imperative have to do with one another
 
[h=3]Should You Kill the Fat Man? - Analysis 1[/h]
A Matter of Consistency

The first thing to note is that your consistency score is 83%. This is higher than the average score for this test (where higher is better), which is 78%.
It is often thought to be a good thing if one's moral choices are governed by a small number of consistently applied moral principles. If this is not the case, then there is the worry that moral choices are essentially arbitrary - just a matter of intuition or making it up as you go along. Suppose, for example, you think it is justified to divert the train in the first scenario simply because it is the best way to maximise human happiness, but you do not think this justification applies in the case of the fat man on the bridge. The problem here is that unless you're able to identify morally relevant differences between the two scenarios, then it isn't clear what role the justification plays in the first case. Put simply, it seems that the justification is neither necessary nor sufficient for the moral judgement that it is right to divert the train.
You've done better than average in this test, but now is not the time to rest on your laurels, because let's face it, most people don't think very clearly about morality. However, before you embark on any further study(!) we suggest you check out the next page of analysis.
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I answered the initial questions the same way [MENTION=4361]Elis[/MENTION] did:

Question 1: Torture, as a matter of principle, is always morally wrong.
Yes

Question 2: The morality of an action is determined by whether, compared to the other available options, it maximises the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it.
No

Question 3: It is always, and everywhere, wrong to cause another person's death - assuming they wish to stay alive - if this outcome is avoidable.
Yes

Question 4: If you can save the lives of innocent people without reducing the sum total of human happiness, and without putting your own life at risk, you are morally obliged to do so.
No
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Essentially I do not think it morally right to kill or torture another person even if it saves lives.

You guys are going to think I'm nuts.....but....

When they asked if it would be better for the train engineer to kill one person by diverting the train down another track - I immediately thought about the position the engineer was in. First - if he drove straight on and killed the five - instead of trying to save lives and kill the one - I worried he'd be fired and maybe sentenced to jail. Hey. It could happen here.

That was my first thought. The next thought was the guilt and pain the engineer may feel - magnified by the death of five - as opposed to "only" one death. I felt like he might not ever emotionally recover from such a huge loss. [shrug] If it was myself being the engineer - that's what I would choose.

Having another individual push a man off the bridge killing him - goes against my morals. I could not make a man choose his ....ummm....karma. For example: I could never draft people and send them off to war to kill and maim people. Same goes for torturing the fat man. I would never tell an individual to do that to save the lives of a million people. That feels very - very - wrong to me. So much so that's it's visceral.

I am Ni Fe Ti Se.
 
sprinkles said:
I got 83% consistency.

I believe torture is always wrong. However, there's an aspect that the test ignored - I also believe that there comes a time where even though something is wrong, you have to do it anyway.

This is why I don't always appreciate binary logic.

Also I'm Fe
Click to expand...

yes, this. They don't take account the possibility of living with the sin-- against one's morality, for the sake of greater good.
The implicit statement working are these:
You would not want to make any mistake and give a negative consequences.
You would not want to give inconvenience to yourself.
You would not want to betray your own moral code, under any reason.


They also ignore the power of guilt, shame, and preciousness of human lives.

One could, for what it's worth, do all this, push the man, torture the fat man, turn the train, and then deal with the moral consequences. Go to a prison. Forever be haunted by the sins. Commit suicide for betraying their moral code.

That does not change anything about the moral code, and the 'gap' and 'inconsistency' trying to depict here are more binary, less 'philosophy.' It's constricting and trapping someone under a supposedly 'moral' code, when in actuality it's a black-or-white thinking.

Sometimes in these life-or-death situations, I cannot say one should burden someone else with their own moral code. And in that sense, call it a broken idealism, but perhaps cracking that moral ideal yourself is much better.

...I found this particular test very patronizing in tone. And its purpose rather...mocking.

For what it's worth, this is probably my NiFe talking.

I turned the train. killing the man. I don't push the fat man down. When I know he's the saboteur, I pushed him down because dude deal with your own actions, I'll deal with mine.

And with the bomb case, I won't torture him and instead spent 24 precious hours EVACUATING these people.
 
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