I wanted to create a post talking about the trolley problem because it shows utilitarian vs kantian thinking. You might have heard of the problem before, it’s famous. Imagine you’re on a runaway trolley and the breaks are broken. On the track ahead of you, there are five construction workers who can not escape from the track. Luckily there is a switch that you can pull that will transfer you to the next track. Unfortunately, there is one construction worker on that track who also can not escape. When I’ve asked some people this problem in the past, they kept asking for loopholes (what if one is a brain surgeon, can they hear me tell them to move, etc). The thing with thought experiments is they’re not meant to be dissected, they’re supposed to get you to answer a question, and this question is whether you’d kill one to save five. Most people say they would because five lives are more important than one life. Those people in this case are utilitarians (best action benefits most people). Some other people say they wouldn’t switch the lever because if they do, they’re directly responsible for someone’s death where as if they did nothing, it would be the train’s fault. They are kantians (moral rules). Many people think that’s malarkey because to them (and also me), choosing to do nothing is the same as choosing.

Okay, that was a softball, so let’s tweak the problem. It’s the same trolley scenario but this time the one person on the other track is a loved one, let’s say a parent or child. A decent amount of people say they wouldn’t switch the tracks because while five lives are more important than one, they feel an obligation to not run over a loved one with a trolley. Others reason that just because they love the person on the track, it doesn’t mean that their life is more precious than the five workers’ lives. For me, I probably wouldn’t switch the track if it meant my mom had to die. People would ask me what happened to her and I would cryptically say “I switched the tracks…”.

Okay, now imagine you are on a bridge with a large man. Underneath the bridge is a track and you see a runaway trolley coming your way. There are five workers on the track behind you and the trolley will run into the workers if you don’t do something. If you pushed your accompanying large male onto the tracks, the lives of the five workers would be saved. Most people said they would not push the man onto the tracks. To people I’ve asked this variation to, they’ve said “I can’t push him on the tracks, that’s just murder.” It seems like it feels more personal to actually push someone to their doom than to kill them in collateral damage. The people who said they would push the man are probably devout utilitarians, even though you’re pushing this man to his doom, you’re still saving five other people in the process. Everyone else is probably kantian or rule utilitarians. As you may remember from last week, rule utilitarians generally agree that the best action benefits the most people, but they don’t think that this should validate every action. They think long term, no one wants to live in a world where they’re pushed onto a track randomly. They follow rules that in general lead to the best outcome.

Here’s another variation of the problem similar to the previous one, this one was mentioned in last week’s blog post. Imagine you are a doctor who has taken an oath to never hurt a healthy person. You’ve done well with that so far, but today you’ve questioned it. You have five patients who are each in need of organ transplants. There are no organs left, so they will die. But then you remember you have a neighbor who no one likes or will remember who happens to be a match for all five needed organs. Do you kill him to save your five patients? Remember you’ve taken an oath. Most people, almost everyone, says they wouldn’t harm the neighbor, and if this is you, imagine having to tell the families of the dying patients the news. It’s not so simple now.

One time I watched an episode of a show where they put this problem to the test. They had people actually think they were in control of a trolley track and it was up to them to switch the tracks. Most people say they would switch the tracks but most of the people in the show did nothing. I’m sure they have the same opinion of what is the right thing to do in that scenario as they did with the thought experiment, but the choice to switch the tracks isn’t as easy when you’re actually in the scenario. It seems that when confronted with a serious choice in real life, it’s easier to do nothing and it’s hard to act. So you might say you’re a kantian or a utilitarian, but who knows what ethics you’d follow outside a thought experiment.

I put the different variations of the problem in order from least to most complicated. The more complicated problems feel more personal than the less complicated ones. It feels personal to push someone off a bridge and this creates a stronger emotional response to an action. There’s also increased responsibility in each variation. You feel more responsible to save loved ones from trolleys instead of strangers, and you feel responsible for saving patient lives but also for not harming the healthy. So it seems like the more responsibility you have for an action and the more personal/emotional an action feels, the harder it is to do. Ethics isn’t as easy as pulling a switch to another track.

Thank you for reading! Next week I will talk about contractarianism.