Philosophy discussion responses
1. When analyzing this trolly situation, it’s obvious that there are two choices that can be made. The first choice, is to do absolutely nothing, which in essence would keep the train on the main track, killing the five people tied to the track, saving the life of the one tied to the side track. The other choice is to pull the lever in order to direct the trolly off the main track, and ultimately killing the one person tied to the side track, saving the lives of five. Time is of the essence in this scenario, and i would choose to pull the lever to save the five other lives.
I’m not one to believe one persons life is more important than another. However, in this situation it makes more sense to me to save the lives of five, than one. I also see it as a ripple effect. Say each person on the track has 5 family members in their immediate household. That means even though their are five physical bodies on the track, you are in essence saving 25 lives as opposed to five, if that makes sense.
2. The trolley problem is an iconic thought experiment that has been debated over for years. The first perspective is, if you let the trolley run, it will hit and murder five people. The other perspective is that if you have the opportunity to pull a lever, switching the tracks to only kill one person, would you? Would you let the trolley run its course and kill five people, or would you pull and lever and let it murder one. The basic answer is that you pull the lever and the trolley only kills one person. But this situation becomes difficult when you put names and faces to that one person. That one person can be your mother, and those five people could be terrorists and evil dictators. Does that change what is right and what is wrong? Are those five lives still valuable? Is one life more than one? That is the burning question. In my opinion, I would pull the lever because I do believe that five lives are worth more than one, no matter who those five people are.
3. The choices in this situation are difficult. In either decision, lives are lost. We are really choosing between the lesser of two evils. The choices are that the train continues its course and kills five people but spares the life of one person who is on a different track or we can choose to pull the lever and intentionally kill one person but at the same time save the lives of five people. I find this dilemma interesting because there are many contributing factors that, if we were given more information, could greatly affect our choice. For example, are the five people tied to the track serial murders? Or is the one person tied to the side track your mom, dad, sister, brother, best friend? Additional information could greatly affect our choice, but we do not have this information therefore an argument must be given on strictly what we are told.
1. By not pulling the lever five people will be killed by the trolley.
2. If the lever is pulled, only one person will be killed.
3. It is best to spare as many lives as possible.
4. Therefore, the lever should be pulled.
4. trolley problem is about your moral ethics. I would pull the lever to divert it to the side track with one person. I would rather sacrifice the life of one to save the lives of 5 other people. That’s 5 families that do not have to bury their loved ones. While it is unfair that a life had to be taken in order to spare others, it was for good reason.
5. Based on limited information, I naturally would choose to kill one person rather than five. Of course, I would morally want no one to be killed, especially in this manner but if I am left to make this hard decision, it would be killing one instead of five. I think that those five could be a great asset to the community or the world, so I wouldn’t want to chance so many lives when one was also an option. There really is no final decision or choice if you think about it. This situation could play out in a couple different ways and some may have different reasons for choosing one or five. Now with this being said, I think this question could of been a little more detailed. What if the five were criminals that committed heinous acts, what if they were child molesters, or rapists, thieves that just robbed people, etc.; this would totally alter my decision. I would choose to let the one survive rather than those five.
