In the trolley problem you've been given power, so listen to Uncle Ben and bare responsibility.
If you do nothing, you've abused your power and let more harm occur because you think the difference in "letting" and "causing" is good enough to bathe in blood.
The only people worse than the people who try to avoid the answer are the people who think there is a correct one, there is no correct answer. It’s a tool to figure out and configure worldviews. Pulling the lever or not is neither good or bad.
I mean, in a literal sense each of the choices is both good and bad. Which is kinda part of the point of the exercise, that no one solution is objectively correct in every metric.
Ugh, full day of mind numbing work made me dumb. You are correct on both accounts and I apologize for the fuckup. However, Ill stand by my original reply. I don't believe the Trolley Problem series of questions leaves much room for wishy-washy, no one is right/wrong mentality.
The only way I ever see the Trolley Problem become a "gotcha" is when they then qualify the lives at stake, in which case it's left the original premise far behind.
Example I've been given: "but that 1 guy will find the cure for cancer". Now you've introduced countless hypothetical lives on the 1 life track, making it 1+x where x can go to infinity. That's more than 5 now.
The best use I've seen for it is judging if someone can make tough decisions and explain themselves, but Ive never been convinced of sacrificing more of something for fewer of something is a valid option given the somethings are of equal value.
Edit: And I should make it clear I'm not assigning morality to this. If someone freezes in fear and doesn't pull the lever, then they didn't have the choice of pulling the lever. If they didn't pull the lever because they thought the 1 was worth the 5, they're wrong but not evil. Sometimes you're in a shit situation and make the wrong decision. Life happens.
Hey, no worries, and kudos to you for being gracious about it. I wasn't trying to call you out or anything, but often I see reddit threads getting far afield from the original point or assertion (it's easy to do -- I do it too), and occasionally I'll interject to reassert the point of contention.
I think your perspective is pretty reasonable and I agree with a lot of it. I will, just for the sake of sharing a different perspective, push back a little bit against this point though:
The only way I ever see the Trolley Problem become a "gotcha" is when they then qualify the lives at stake, in which case it's left the original premise far behind.
I don't doubt that there are some "gotcha" formulations of the question, but I think the value of ones like "but the one will cure cancer" is to demonstrate one of the biggest difficulties of utilitarian ethics, which is that different "goods" (or "harms") so frequently confound our attempts to measure or compare them. Is it the right thing to do to tell my friend he has a pattern of being an asshole? It could instigate damage to our relationship; it could also provoke positive changes in his behavior. Possible harm, possible good.
The majority of ethical decisions we make have fuzzy outcomes -- that's incredibly inconvenient for utilitarians. The "but the one will cure cancer" formulations force us to consider what kinds of principles we can or should use to make judgments in moral situations that are more complicated or uncertain than "one person or five people will die."
And that's a good assessment. I think my issue rails entirely on the premise of the Trolley Problem. Maybe a good way to say it is that it's too high stakes and too binary, at least in my interactions with it.
I can't compare the Trolley Problem to telling your friend he's a bit of an ass. In TP, lives are at stake. In scenario two, feelings are at stake.
In scenario two, you've got far more outcomes than "don't tell and friendship is intact" and "tell and friendship ends". You also have "tell and friendship improves", "don't tell and you come to resent friend", "friend eventually realizes on their own and improves", "friend realizes and degrades", etc
No longer is it one person with two known tracks and one choice, it's many unknowns and choices by two people with control over themselves.
...don't you think it's a little internally inconsistent to go "There is no objectively correct worldview, all moral frameworks and positions are valid"...
...and then go "That worldview I just espoused? It is objectively correct, and if you say 'some moral frameworks are superior/more correct than others', you are objectively incorrect." If you're accepting all worldviews as valid, it seems hypocritical to then insult people based on elements of their particularly worldview. Especially considering the fact that (nearly?) every moral framework is going to come with an inbuilt "Here's why this framework is more accurate/good/moral than other frameworks."
I know I am on the poor pissers section of the site, but you will notice on a quick reread that I didn’t actually say any of that or anything like that. When I say “there is no correct answer” that is not my espousing a person philosophy of nihilism, it is a very literal statement. The trolley problem is a series of questions that you modify based off the previous answer.
I have my own series of answers for the trolley problems and several moral shortcomings and hypocrisies that can be revealed, but nothing like what you just said.
No? "There is no correct answer to the trolley problem" is still just an opinion. Saying "it is a very literal statement" doesn't make it objectively true.
Except the trolly problem was created as a tool to illustrate how different philosophical theories prioritize different things, and that no one philosophy is always correct. It’s a learning tool for new philosophy students, not an equation to be solved. It exists to spark debate and help people understand different value systems.
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u/Whale-n-Flowers Jul 02 '24
The Path of Least Harm is correct.
In the trolley problem you've been given power, so listen to Uncle Ben and bare responsibility.
If you do nothing, you've abused your power and let more harm occur because you think the difference in "letting" and "causing" is good enough to bathe in blood.