If you factor in the legal implications, the trolley problem becomes trivial. Do nothing. I'm not qualified nor allowed to operate train infrastructure and the legal consequences will become worse if someone dies because of something I did.
Consideration of legal implications is missing the point of the exercise.
I didn't introduce the convoluted idea of there being train tracks and a switch. If it was purely hypothetical, you could've asked: "Would you prefer to let 5 people die or let 1 die"
Here's another hypothetical:
"A train is on a track and you are standing on bridge above it. You spot a couple of kilometers further down the track 5 people who are going to be run over by the train. Do you push someone standing beside you over the edge and onto the tracks so the train will register a collision and stops in order to save those 5 people?"
This is the exact same scenario. Only instead of pulling a lever, you have a human interaction. The percentages of who would kill that 1 person change when the trolley dilemma is asked in that way.
If we're getting to the crux of the problem, then why does the response change when you provide the exact same scenario but replace the mechanical with a human-to-human interaction?
1. Let 5 people die and 1 live, and you probably don't have any legal consequences.
2. Save 5 people, cause the death of 1, and you probably go to jail.
So the thing that made the answer trivial was the introduction of legal consequences that affect you personally? Doesn't the difference of 4 deaths dwarf that?
Think about how many people have sacrificed themselves for others. Not just jail time, but death. Would each of those people have lived completely pure, selfless lives if they hadn't done what they did? Probably not. Who knows, some might have ended up being anti-maskers. It is said that "dying is easy". Making one clearly right choice, damn the extreme consequences, is actually very normal for humans. Just as normal as spending a whole life making bad decisions. Even more bizarre is the two "modes" aren't even mutually exclusive.
https://www.mzcr.cz/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IS_COVID19_Ti...
Page 5, new hospitalizations, 7 day numbers per 100K people in each group June 2022 unvaxxed 1.4/100K vaxxed unfinished 1.3/100K vaxxed 2 doses 0.5/100K vaxxed with booster 1.7/100K
To be fair most of these people are hospitalized for other reason than COVID regardless their vaccination as was always the case even when they were spreading propaganda about hospitalized unvaxxed. Numbers in ICU look better for vaxxed, but there are way too many factors to consider, you are more likely to have better life style as vaxxed risk group than unvaxxed risk group, which doesn't really say vaccination works.
So yeah, masks work in theory, but reality shown us they are completely useless, especially with newer more infectious variants. If they were such great invention we would not have flu and other respiratory viruses, in the end everyone will get infected anyway.
And during the pandemic, a lot of countries did indeed not have their usual flu season.
- Annoying the driver of the trolley for my enjoyment
- A 50% chance of killing 2 people or a 10% chance of killing 10 people
- Killing 5 people now or 5 people in the future
- Killing 1 cat or 5 lobsters
The calculation for me would change if there was a choice between killing 5 people and potentially killing nobody. But that's not the hypothetical here.
If those rules needs to be changed, then change them through debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split second decision. The "good samaritan" law is an example of this. If perform CPR on someone who's heart has stopped, they can't sue you if you save their life but cracked some ribs.
I find it bizarre that you're taking the side of the, say, thousands of transit policymakers--who are certainly not taking this hypothetical into account--over the majority vote of the public on this exact ethical issue. Not wanting to reason from scratch in the moment is fine, but you don't have to. This is a well-known dilemma, and the consensus is that you should kill one to save five.
> If those rules needs to be changed, then change them through debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split second decision.
Yep, that's why we're here. Now that most of us have agreed that "pull the lever" is the right call on the trolley problem, do you think the transit authorities are going to codify it as a law? Don't be ridiculous. Just take the legal hit, if it even comes. Laws are wrong sometimes, especially in hypotheticals.
I would never criticise someone for making the decision to pull the lever. I understand that decision, I really do. I only said I wouldn't do it and explained why.
It's not as clear cut as you think it is. If you think it is, then write to a philosophy professor and say you've solved the trolley dilemma through an internet vote. I hope this sounds absurd to you.
You can play with numbers, but if I were to pull the lever, I would feel I would kill someone for the sole reason they were in the minority. Which is an extra reason for me not to do it.
And I wouldn't critcise someone for not pulling the lever... unless the primary reason they didn't pull the lever was the legal consequences they would suffer. That's a terrible reason.
You have no problem when someone decides to kill someone and thinks the laws doesn't apply to them. To make matters worse, you think someone who tries to obey the laws makes a terrible decision by not killing anyone.
If killing someone doesn't give you a pause, I would be afraid to be a minority in whatever society you live in. The laws, which you so easily dismissed, gives some rights to minorities.
What's next? Here are five people who are dying... Let's kill someone in the minority to get their organs and transplant them. It's ok! Five people will survive, while only one dies.
Laws, whether or not you like them, are there to also protect minorities.
Oh save it, it's a disturbing hypothetical.
> You have no problem when someone decides to kill someone and thinks the laws doesn't apply to them.
This is the most dramatic mischaracterization I've read in recent memory. Who has "no problem" with either outcome of the trolley problem? "Oh, one person died? No problem!" Did you consider how strawmannish that sounded before you wrote it? And as for the law "not applying", that's not part of the conversation either. The law will certainly apply, as it must to preserve societal order. But the pragmatic application of the written law is not always aligned with what is right, and when multiple lives are at stake, the legal consequences themselves are not especially, well, consequential.
Take this euthanasia hypothetical as another example of the point I'm making:
Your spouse is experiencing horrific, constant, neurological pain. It is a given that they will die in the next 48 hours. The only treatment available to you is ineffective at treating the pain, but at high doses it will cause immediate death. Your partner is aware of the situation and has requested euthanasia. Do you euthanize them?
It's a highly contrived situation, but then so is the trolley problem. I believe that people should have an opinion on this problem that is not swayed much by the possibility of legal consequences to themselves. The consequences either way are so incredibly dire that the opinion of some disinterested court referencing a law that was absolutely not written with this situation in mind should be practically ignored. If somebody said to me that they would have euthanized their spouse if the law in their state hadn't said they couldn't, but since it did say that they just watched them suffer, then I'd say that person is a coward. I'm not saying they should have done it and then tried to avoid the legal consequences, I'm saying they should have done it and then accepted the legal consequences, because the consequences to the other party are so much more drastic.
That's all I'm saying about the trolley problem. If you believe in switch-pulling the trolley problem, you should switch pull without considering your local laws, or how much you could spend on a lawyer. If you don't believe in switch-pulling that's fine as well, unless you are somebody who actually does think switch-pulling is the right thing to do but not if there are legal consequences to yourself. Again, that's a terrible reason. Believe one way or the other and act on that. Don't outsource your morality to the legislators when you're faced with a once-in-a-lifetime moral dilemma where people are guaranteed to die at the end.
You'll be prosecuted for sure, but if the death of the 5 was certain unless you acted, I'd be pretty surprised if you were found guilty, let alone being jailed.
If you don't intervene circumstances play out and you are blameless. In the other case you are choosing to kill someone, taking their life based on an idea in your head which may or may not be valid. In reality nothing is so clear cut and the people at risk may not have died anyway and you may kill someone needlessly.
That is not to say I wouldn't, for instance, defend someone being attacked. In that case I'm not causing someone else's death by my actions. If the attacker dies during my defense that's fine because it's due to his actions, not mine.
"Blame" doesn't really factor into that decision.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know all laws of all countries.
I'm hoping a lawyer would jump into this thread.