59% would sacrifice their own life for five people? Someone been messing with the votes.
I don't make a conscious choice to take action that will cause a stranger's death (even if more people die because I didn't take action) with exceptions for my monkeysphere. In the case of the worst enemy one, I didn't hesitate to run them over. In the case of self preservation, I chose to save myself. In the case of my best friend, other people are gonna die. Etc.
It makes a lot of these pretty easy and a few (like first cousin vs 3rd cousins) a matter of happenstance, just like the happenstance that I was looking at these absurd trolley problems.
Which one is "inaction" now, purposefully standing very still, or acting as you would have otherwise?
That matters legally (accidental death) versus intent (mens rea, murder).
It also matters socially, because you can deny that you made any choice even though you may have chosen (assuming you only do it once). You can even deny it to yourself.
It does beg the question: who set the trolley up to kill people, and why did you happen to be standing on the trigger?
I'm just trying to poke at the gp's idea (paraphrasing) that inaction is morally blameless.
Allow me a dodge: I think that I’d probably press the button, but that it’s strictly wrong for me to do so. Chalk it up to weakness.
Like that 5-to-1 standard trolley problem is a hard question for me to answer, and on different days, I pick different answers. Probably "do nothing" most days. But if you made it 50,000,000-to-1, it is not a hard problem any more. Somewhere in between those two is "the line" where the fact that you are becoming a murderer is outweighed by the value of the life you saved.
Yes, if I could be certain that I could save 50,000,000 lives by murdering someone, I think it would be a moral imperative to do so. That wouldn't change the moral evil of murder, it just outweighs it.
I think. Don't ask what I'd do "in real life", I won't know until it happens (which I pray it will not)
On the other hand, some of the responses have a small contingent disagreeing, and to explain those I would remind you of the Lizardman Constant [1]. That is, some pollsters just want to watch the statistics burn.
[1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...
But I'm glad that innocent-minded people like you exist. Here's a question, if you had the choice between killing me or yourself, who would you choose?
These are mostly gut feelings and unfinished thoughts. I'm not sure about any parts of it except "it's not a complete picture". I'd love to hear any thoughts on this and reading recommendations are welcomed.
I am probably just as terrible in their eyes.