[2013-Mar-28] Train Crash Ethics 2929

[shawndream]

This is coincidental, I just stumbled on the trolley problem yesterday from a Cracked article about racism, and now catching up on my SMBC I find it referenced again.

I had to make an account to post that I don't understand why this is considered a confusing ethical dilemma, and why people are weird about it.

To me it breaks down very simply.

Ethically, anyone with a choice that changes the outcome of a situation is involved regardless of whether they choose to act or not act.

This means that choosing to "not get involved" is not an automatic out, nor does choosing to remove a portion of your brain, leap off the train, or get drunk remove your ethical entanglement with the world you live in.

Accepting that we are ethically entangled, any real person should also wish they were not, as they should be aware by the time they are capable of understanding death and railways that the real world is vastly more complex and confusing than any simple thought experiment.

You can take the best action you can see and still be WRONG.

Maybe those 5 guys were never actually in danger, or are a trick of the light.
Maybe behind that 1 guy is a building chock full of babies.
Maybe throwing that switch will derail the train, killing all on board.
Maybe that 1 guy is a hitler-to-be and millions will curse you for not killing him.
Maybe you can save 5 saints for the cost of one rapist and still suffer crippling guilt or persecution for years.
Maybe that switch does nothing and we should have been looking for the horn.

We are all subconsciously weighing all of these, especially the:

- will I be unjustly blamed by myself or others if I act
- will throwing the switch lead to more harm than not
- is there a better action I could find if I think a bit harder

But in the classic fork 1vs5, I think almost all folks would decide the unknowns are a perfect balance and steering for the fewest bystanders is a no brainer.

Of the derivatives discussed in the wikipedia article on the Trolley Problem:

Fat man on an optional section before the 5 guys:
- I think very few people would justify steering for MORE bystanders, SOONER in the improbable case the first guy's corpse will reduce the harm done by the train regardless of what expert calculations claim on short notice

Derailing the train into a meadow where someone is hanging out in a hammoc.
- I think one hammoc guy vaguely in the derailment direction would be almost irrelevant next to whether you felt the 5 guys on the track were stuck enough to risk whatever random damage and death on board and in the valley would be caused by derailing entirely.

Does anyone else think disagree that people's answers are rationally taking into account all sorts of things left out of the thought experiment because adults know them to be very important?

[noone]

I don't think its hard unless you desperately try to invent an 'escape' that isn't present in the dilemma.

If you have a choice, obviously you should choose to kill one person as opposed to five.

The reason that people have so much trouble is that some search for a morally pure 'third option' because they can't cope with the imperfect options on the table. Ironically, the search for an impossible 'third option' can be worse than anything, since its rare that tough moral situations can leave us without making some kind of sacrifice. In the often-told moral dilemma of whether you shoot a gunman or risk the death of a lot of people, people who talk about elaborate ways of disarming said gunman are basically risking everyone's death.

[ThePeople]

mate there's no such thing as objective morality, ethics and such are a feature of biological and cultural evolution

if there was a way to split the train so that the five workmen and the one both died I'd choose that

[Oldrac the Chitinous]

They should just get off the tracks.

Ethics solved. No need to thank me.

[Paradox]

They should just get off the tracks.

Ethics solved. No need to thank me.

That's what I was thinking...

Really, I'd blow the train's whitsle, so that they'd know to get off the tracks, this results in 4 possible outcomes:

1. They get off the tracks; problem solved.
2. They don't get off the tracks; They shouldn't have been there to begin with and I can't be held responsible for their own stupidity
3. They try to get off the tracks, but the train is so close and moving so fast that they are unable to do so in time; It doesn't matter whether or not I decide to switch tracks, the train was so close and moving so fast that the train would have hit them before I can even react, there is absoultely nothing that can be done.
4. Superman swoops down at the last second and gets the people off the tracks himself; problem solved.


Also, why didn't I hit the emergency brake the moment I found out the train was out of control? Why did the train's onboard computer not alert me of this problem?

[DonRetrasado]

What we really need to do is support train maintenance and train safety! With properly maintained breaks and people who know not to hang on train tracks, this never would have happened.

[Lethal Interjection]

I'd speed the train up. No swerving. Only the fittest survive.

And in this case the fittest would definitely be the one with the train. Suckers!

[Fez]

I actually listened to a radiolab podcast over the summer about decision making and emotion and it actually disarms the one lady's argument.
It was about choice and decision making and it talked about studys made with a man named Elliot who had the part of his frontal lobe that governed his emotions removed due to a tumor. Well it turns out that he had a much harder time making decisions. Without having the emotional push to chose one thing over the other he would take hours deciding between using a blue or black pen.
So one could argue that removing the empathetic portion of your brain to become" an inhuman computing machine" would actually make it harder to choose.


Here is the radiolab I was talking about:
http://www.radiolab.org/2008/nov/17/

And a review of a book about choice that mentions the case of Elliot:
http://www.curledup.com/wedecide.htm

[Oldrac the Chitinous]

How about that, I learned something in the LCD thread.
Good show, Sir, Madam, or Otherwise.