Morality question from NPR...

Very well put, Evan. I'll just second your reply.

 

I would extend Evans answer with the implied risk that the individuals were taking. in the first scenario, the workers on both sets of tracks are implied to have an understanding of the risks involved in their work (like getting hit by a train).

In the second scenario, the stranger doesn't have that implied understanding. He's just walking across the bridge.

It's very easy to weigh your life against that of 5 individuals working on the train tracks. It's also pretty easy to weigh one workers life against that of 5 (given the outward appearance that all 6 individuals are more or less equal). It's another thing entirely to weigh the life of someone not involved against those 5 workers, though.

From my point of view, you should never thrust someone into a deadly situation unless they fully understand the risks involved. The track workers have that understanding and have accepted that risk as part of their daily life. The stranger on the bridge has not.

 

Well what if they were atheist strolling along oblivious to the fact that judgment day was hurdling towards them like a steam locomotive and as we all know they were oblivious to the fact? Would you call out a warning knowing that their hostile reaction could cost you your life or great injury or loss of freedom and all possessions? The answer to this question is contained in the “Book of Martyrs†and today’s headlines try Googling Korea and Afghanistan.

Q1) Well what if the one man on the other track was an atheist and the other five were Christians in that case I would not throw the switch.

Q2) Well what if I was an atheist? In that case I would toss the stranger off the bridge and with great glee if he was a Christian. Now if the five fellows below were also Christian and I was an atheist I would try to nail as many of the five below with the stranger so that the train would not derail. After all trains are quite expensive and besides it’s a long walk back to town.

Wildkow

 

The track workers should have been wearing ANSI Class II hi-viz vests, as required by OSHA (or soon will be).

Pushing anyone off a bridge is murder. It doesn't matter if it might save someone, you have no right to murder that person on the bridge.

Harry

 

In each case, are you guilty of murder by acting ?

In each Star Trek episode I can think of, the 'few' that die INCLUDE the person making the decision. Without this distinction, value judgements as to which group is to be saved get skewed. For lots of examples see patriotism and christianity. There is a reason that the US military does not count US inflicted death on the Iraqi civilian populace. Big number, but meaningless value to most americans.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Aug 30 2007, 11:32 AM) [snapback]504313[/snapback]</div>

I agree with Evan. The aversion to knowingly or actively taking part in killing someone else, regardless of the circumstances, is hard wired into our brains. The question may be a morality issue, but the action or reaction is instinctual.

That said, if the stranger were wearing a Bush/Cheney '04 t-shirt the stronger urge (to push) might overcome me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mick @ Aug 30 2007, 02:11 PM) [snapback]504428[/snapback]</div>

The whole bridge, pushing, switch throwing, train coming, risk taking, jumping, etc. seems to be providing people with ways of avoiding the real question.

As I understand it, the 2 questions are:

1) If forced into a choice between a ) allowing multiple deaths of anonymous people because of choosing not to redirect an object or B ) allowing the death of a single anonymous person because of choosing to redirect an object, which do you choose?

You are choosing between redirecting an object to reduce a body count, or keeping your hands off the situation and letting it play out the way chance set it up.

2) If forced into a choice between a ) allowing multiple deaths of anonymous people because of choosing not to redirect a person or B ) allowing the death of a single anonymous person because of choosing to redirect that person into their death, which do you choose?

You are choosing between redirecting a person into their own death to reduce a body count, or keeping your hands off the situation and letting it play out the way chance set it up.

The only difference seems to be whether you are acting upon the person or the object to reduce the body count. For some reason many people find it easier to act on the object than the person.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]504320[/snapback]</div>

Everyone is agreeing with Evan that they themselves would jump to their deaths in order to save the lives of strangers?
I possibly could do that only if it were people I dearly loved.Or perhaps if it were someone who was of some huge importance to society.Although at the moment I cant think of anyone that important to society.
Then again , I would risk my life to save others but that wasnt the question.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mojo @ Aug 30 2007, 12:38 PM) [snapback]504450[/snapback]</div>

Death or even injury isn't a certainty when risking your l ife to save others but I think that throwing yourself from the bridge to save others is almost a certainty considering the Fall + the Train. In all honesty throwing myself from the bridge would probably not be an option. I guess the only way the five workers would survive is if burritos was on the bridge with me.

Wildkow

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]504320[/snapback]</div>

You are cheating.
(Note: please do not add any, "Well what if..." Let's just say, you don't know any of these people, you won't go to jail for any of your actions or inactions, and you can't run away or solve the problem any other way. You can either act or not act)
The original question asked you to choose between killing an anonymous person to save multiple anonymous people, or allowing the multiple anonymous people to die. Set up the question however you like to make these the only 2 valid options if throwing a person off a bridge doesn't work for you.

Perhaps a kidnapper has 5 people you don't know stashed somewhere, and has given you a gun. They inform you (and you fully believe them) that you have 5 seconds to unload the gun into the brain cavity of the anonymous stranger next to you or they will behead all 5 kidnap victims. If you still think you can find a way out of this predicament then create some other hypothetical situation. The point is that sacrificing yourself doesn't save the 5.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]504320[/snapback]</div>

While this is another moral and ethical dilemma, it is completely different than the one being posed here. There are a lot of real world moral and ethical dilemma's as well as many hypothetical ones. The question is how to handle this particular one. With dilemma's like these you are generally left with what the individual is willing to accept as personal responsibility and no answer that is right or wrong.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]504320[/snapback]</div>

I wonder if it only seems that way because of the possibility in the back of the mind that the guy on the track might still get out of the way in time, but the guy being thrown from the bridge no longer has a chance. If we accept the question at face value, then sending the train towards the single man is no different than shooting him with a gun (assuming that doing so could stop the train). If you could turn to the stranger on the bridge and kill him without touching him (a gun, knife, poison, sword, etc) rather than physically touching him to throw him from the bridge and it would still stop the train, would that make a difference?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(efusco @ Aug 30 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]504320[/snapback]</div>

Yes in both cases there are 6 anonymous people and you get to choose between allowing 5 of the 6 to die by the way chance has set things up, or acting to reduce the deaths to 1.

As I was typing this, I began to wonder. . . .
5 of 6 anonymous people or 1 of 6 anonymous people. Does the decision change if the person who has to die was going to die anyhow?

In otherwords,
There are 6 anonymous people A through F. If you don't act, A through E die and F lives, if you choose to be directly responsible for the death of A, then B through F live. Either way A dies and either way F lives, but in order for B, C, and D to live, you have to be personally responsible for the death of A (throw him from a bridge? direct the train so it only hits him? shoot him? does it make a differecnce?)

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Aug 30 2007, 11:46 AM) [snapback]504350[/snapback]</div>

Perhaps this nuance was intended in the original question, but I tend to think not. I suspect that the question was simply trying to set up a situation where you had to choose between allowing 5 anonymous people to die, or being directly responsible for a single person's death (either by acting on them directly, or by acting on some inanimate object and indirectly being the cause of the death) The implied understanding of risk may just be an accidental side affect of trying to create a real world situation to represent the dilemma.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny Hamilton @ Aug 30 2007, 02:35 PM) [snapback]504445[/snapback]</div>

The one item you're missing that makes the two situations truly different is that of risk acceptance. In the first situation, all 6 people had (implicitly) accepted the risks associated with their job of working on the train tracks. They all knew that there was a chance (however remote) that a train could be diverted the wrong way and kill them. In the second situation, the guy walking on the bridge hadn't accepted the risk. He hadn't even been aware of it. I think this is a rather important distinction between the two situations, as i mentioned before.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny Hamilton @ Aug 30 2007, 03:08 PM) [snapback]504472[/snapback]</div>

Believe it or not, this is a common problem that people face, and in fact are trained to face. People who do a lot of rock climbing in teams, for example, know that if there's an accident and several of them are pulled off the rock face, one or more might have to be cut loose in order to save the rest (The pin holding them up can only handle so much weight). While taking that act of cutting someone loose to save the rest of the group is rough and definitely weighs on a person ("What if we could have saved him?"), it's the right thing to do to save the rest.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Earthling @ Aug 30 2007, 02:04 PM) [snapback]504424[/snapback]</div>

This brings me back to the question of whether it matters who the one is. You state that you have no right to murder anyone even if it might save someone else. What if the person that must be murdered in order to save the others was one of the ones that was going to die anyhow?

Ok, so it's a real stretch of the imagination to keep the original question and change who dies, but 5 people on the tracks one is standing next to the switch. They can't hear you, but you have a high powered rifle and you are enough of a marksman to know for a fact that if you shoot that guy, he will fall on the switch and save everyone else. If you don't shoot him, he dies anyhow.

Now is it ok to murder him?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Mick @ Aug 30 2007, 02:11 PM) [snapback]504428[/snapback]</div>

Does this include throwing the switch, or only throwing the guy off the bridge?

 

well it is still murder. Is murder OK?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eagle33199 @ Aug 30 2007, 03:19 PM) [snapback]504484[/snapback]</div>

I'm still not sure that the risk acceptance was an intended nuance of the original question, but even if it was, by walking past a complete stranger on a bridge, wasn't he accepting the risk that the stranger might be a sociopath that might throw him from the bridge? He was accepting the risk of death from a stranger as much as the workers were accepting the risk of death from a train.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lywyllyn @ Aug 30 2007, 03:35 PM) [snapback]504491[/snapback]</div>

And failing to act means that 5 people die. Is it OK to knowingly allow 5 people to die when a simple act from yourself could have reduced the deaths to 1?

If you are so adamant that "murder" is wrong, would you be willing to allow the one stranger to live and the 5 people to die if you had a relationship with the 5 people about to die? (family, friends, etc)

It is still murder. Is murder OK?

Killing one is more wrong than standing by and letting multiple people die? Is there a number where this equation changes? If killing one criminal could save the lives of 1,000 that he would have killed, then is murder OK?