Should you kill the fat man?

I got a 54%. Again, my response is because in any normal situation, I believe taking another's life is wrong and so is torture but in extreme circumstances like saving 1 million lives, I believe the choice is obvious.
 
Kgal said:
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.
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i was thinking more about the engineer here as well. those five people were on the track for whatever reason. if the engineer were to consciously change course to me he would be a murderer. if he does nothing it's an extremely unfortunate accident.

Trifoilum said:
...I found this particular test very patronizing in tone. And its purpose rather...mocking.
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i agree.
 
christmas said:
i was thinking more about the engineer here as well. those five people were on the track for whatever reason. if the engineer were to consciously change course to me he would be a murderer. if he does nothing it's an extremely unfortunate accident.
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That's absurd. If he makes a decision to be laissez-faire in this situation, he'd still be killing five men - through his deliberate refusal to act where he had ample time and ability to do so.

It's a shitty situation no matter how you look at it, and if he is a murderer for consciously turning the train on the one man, so is he the same and more for consciously allowing the train to run over the five men where he could have stopped it.
The difference is in how many lives he saves in each situation. In the former, he saves five men for the one. In the latter, he saves one for the five lost. If you were railroaded (in this case, literally) into the black-and-white decision between tacitly allowing many to die or intentionally killing one, most people would say that you'd be in the right for making the deliberate choice of killing one.

Try and consider the people on the receiving end of such a deal, as well. You tell the five men that you just killed one man to save their lives, they can share the burden of that guilt. If they're strong enough, they can cope with that together and likely avert any serious depressive episodes that could lead to a suicide.
But tell the single man that you just killed five people to save his life, and his reaction could be entirely different. Essentially, he has to live with the guilt of five people being murdered on his behalf. The collective guilt of five lives, potentially five devastated families, upon that one man's shoulders, could lead him to take his own life later on down the line - and then you have six dead where you only had five before, or could have only had one in the previous situation.

And if you were in the engineer's position, could you really live with yourself if you allowed five people to die through conscious inaction? I can't imagine how it wouldn't take some serious mental gymnastics to absolve oneself of responsibility in such a case.
 
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.
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But if you have to do it, then it's the right thing to do, isn't it?
 
That fat bastard got out of the way of the train! I failed a homicide attempt and the people on the tracks died! I'M THE REAL MONSTER HERE!!! T_T
 
I just want to say that that's an awesome site, as well.
 
sprinkles said:
No. I don't think it can always be called the right thing.
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Then why are you doing it?
Just because it's a hard decision doesn't mean it's the wrong one.

I think the whole point of the test is that people aren't always going to make the most logical decisions, because they're motivated by irrational impulses.

I got 83% as well, by the way-- on the same question… mostly because I was thinking about popular opinion and not considering that logically, torture is sometimes justified. I need to brush up on my torture skills, I think.
 
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Apone said:
Then why are you doing it?
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Because it is necessary to some end or other.

For example, the torture scenario in the test above, I wouldn't fault someone who refused to do it.

If it's right then I must fault everyone who does not line up to do it, because if it's right, then why aren't they doing it?
 
SealHammer said:
That's absurd. If he makes a decision to be laissez-faire in this situation, he'd still be killing five men - through his deliberate refusal to act where he had ample time and ability to do so.
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But those people were going to die and the one person was going to live-- for some people, you're not really killing them if you do nothing… you're simply not involving yourself in the situation.

But anyone who changes the direction of the trolley is actively making a choice to involve themselves in the situation, probably to maximize happiness… which means that it's logically consistent to shove the fat man onto the tracks, and torture him as well.
 
Apone said:
But those people were going to die and the one person was going to live-- for some people, you're not really killing them if you do nothing… you're simply not involving yourself in the situation.

But anyone who changes the direction of the trolley is actively making a choice to involve themselves in the situation, probably to maximize happiness… which means that it's logically consistent to shove the fat man onto the tracks, and torture him as well.
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Happiness is not subject to logic, therefore a key premise in the equation is faulty.
 
sprinkles said:
Because it is necessary to some end or other.

For example, the torture scenario in the test above, I wouldn't fault someone who refused to do it.

If it's right then I must fault everyone who does not line up to do it, because if it's right, then why aren't they doing it?
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You're inserting variables that don't exist… the exercise imagines that you're responsible for every decision.
But people are irrational, which is exactly the point.

You can't believe that torture is always morally wrong if you also agree that it's always important to maximize human happiness.
 
Apone said:
You're inserting variables that don't exist… the exercise imagines that you're responsible for every decision.
But people are irrational, which is exactly the point.

You can't believe that torture is always morally wrong if you also agree that it's always important to maximize human happiness.
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I actually said no when it asked if it's important to maximize happiness.
 
sprinkles said:
Happiness is not subject to logic, therefore a key premise in the equation is faulty.
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Whether you are dead or alive is, however… that's what I meant.
 
Also, if the key is to maximize happiness, why not either kill everyone who is unhappy (and would be unhappy with the system of killing everyone who is unhappy) or simply invent a drug that makes everyone happy regardless?
 
You're getting wayyyyy off track here.

If you said 'no' to maximizing happiness, then you shouldn't have cared whether or not the bomb went off and refrained from torturing the fat man, because you said that torture is wrong. There is also no reason to intervene and save the 5 workers if maximizing happiness isn't the point.
 
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Apone said:
You're getting wayyyyy off track here.

If you said 'no' to maximizing happiness, then you shouldn't have cared whether or not the bomb went off and refrained from torturing the fat man, because you said that torture is wrong.
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But I did care even if I shouldn't.

That's pretty big from me considering that I actually have a pretty nasty misanthropic side to myself. So there is something beyond reason which makes me care.
 
Apone said:
But those people were going to die and the one person was going to live-- for some people, you're not really killing them if you do nothing… you're simply not involving yourself in the situation.
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If the person sits in a position in which they are capable of making an intervention which will alter the outcome of the situation, they are already involved in the situation. They are the variable upon which the outcome of the situation depends. In such a case, one's acknowledgement of their ability, coupled with their willful refusal to commit to an action, is itself what gets five people killed. Consequently, they indirectly murder five people.
 
SealHammer said:
If the person sits in a position in which they are capable of making an intervention which will alter the outcome of the situation, they are already involved in the situation. They are the variable upon which the outcome of the situation depends. In such a case, one's acknowledgement of their ability, coupled with their willful refusal to commit to an action is itself what gets five people killed. Consequently, they indirectly murder five people.
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That's your opinion, not an objective fact.

You didn't choose to start the trolley-- all of this is an accident that is beyond your control.
Some people would argue that you're not directly involved until you actively make the choice to divert the train.
If I'm not mistaken, Judaism has some sort of rule about this… I know that Jainism does as well.

The point here isn't to determine whether or not this is true, it's to determine if your actions would be consistent with the way you describe your beliefs.
 
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