Earlier today in class when talking about the Trolley
Problem, we talked about some of the scenarios the author used in the text.
What it came down to was if it was better to take 1 life or 5. What if, though,
that one person was of high importance? To use the same idea from the scenarios
we talked about in class what if that one person held the
cure for cancer while the other five were average people.
Would that change anything? Or what if that one person was the president and
the other five were civilians. In those two scenarios what if you could only
save that one person or save the five people or kill that one person or kill those
five people. Do your obligations then change? I am curious to hear what people have to say regarding these scenarios and if your views would change.
The whole Trolley Problem poses so many difficult questions. I think that you may have to look at it this way, by saving the person with the cure for cancer you could also possibly be saving millions of lives later on down the road by allowing him to live so if you agree with that perspective the decision comes down to saving millions of lives or saving 5 lives and while everyone would rather they all live I think that comes down to being the better decision, although the guilt would remain in either situation. As far as the president is concerned that is a more difficult decision. Yes he is an important figure in our country but he is also an elected official that will be replaced the end of his term so it is not as though he has something valuable that cannot be replicated in the future, as is the case with the man with the cure.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting question, mostly because of the specific details you propose. You ask if it makes it different if the one person has the cure for cancer. I wonder how we would know that if we were the trolley driver? It makes it difficult to speculate such scenarios because when we look at this problem from the driver's point of view, the people would have to be using signs that differentiate them. Otherwise how are we to know which is of more importance? The article discussed the possibility for one man to be held by the mafia as a trick to save the members who were trying to kill the one man. I personally think that all of these details are impossible to know in the moment and in the blink of an eye, I think these are stories which arise afterwards and spark ethical conversations. These "what if's" are simply ways to consider and define ethical standards and guidelines, but when it comes down to it, it seems as though the driver will first only see the numbers 5 to 1 rather than each back story and history.
ReplyDeleteI feel like it's really pointless to try and rationalize what the better choice would be in scenarios like these. We're trying to assign values to a priceless thing. No matter how hard you try, you can never deal with qualitative things (especially someone's life) in terms of quantity. There is no equivalent between the two. Loss of life is still loss of life. I think people tend to try and determine the "lesser evil" to help deal with the decisions they have made or actions they have been a victim of, and I feel like this just a coping mechanism. I'm not saying this is a bad habit, I think it's completely natural. While the trolley dilemma is a bit of an extreme example, I feel like we try and justify our own actions all the time. It's pretty common for us to second guess or question our decisions especially when we those decisions occurred with something we have assigned value to. It could be as simple as thinking you sounded like an idiot when talking to your crush or something as tragic and complicated as the trolley dilemma. I think it is pointless for us to just sit around and discuss such extreme hypotheticals and how we would act in those situations. Discussing the "ethics" of a situation is irrelevant because it does not directly coincide with how we feel. In other words, discussing the ethics of hypothetical situations is irrelevant because it doesn't really pertain to real life, as most of us do not and will not know what it feels like to be in this situation.
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ReplyDeleteIn terms of avoiding the guy who has the cure to cancer and the President--I believe we are under a social contract to avoid them. Some people are reasoning in a utilitarian way that killing multiple people is worse than killing one person. Yes, if they were all averages Joes, it would be worse to kill five of them instead of one. However, if we were to use the same principle in the cases with cancer guy and the President, we would be denying the well-being of millions of other people. I think that our society can agree that keeping cancer guy and the President alive is in the best interest of humanity. Therefore, even though it goes against the utilitarian principle, keeping those two alive would be the more moral option.
ReplyDeleteNo matter what you choose it's till killing someone it's just a matter of quantity. I think the one person could be an amazing person and the five other could be murderers and people would say the quality of the first person is better than the five. But, I think most people under the particular situation would rather have killed one person instead of five. Regardless of how they were as people. It's really the lesser of two evils and a terrible situation to be in.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on who is driving the trolley. I know this is not very likely but say that someone involved with the white house was driving the trolley, they would 100% save the president if he were the one person compared to saving the 5 people, especially if the driver were a member of secret service. If the one person was the person that had the cure for cancer, I agree with Lizzy when she says that our society would agree that keeping the cancer cure person is in the best interest of humanity and will bring great benefits to millions of dying people.
ReplyDeleteThese scenarios Lauren presents, which of course have the possibility to happen, are somewhat ridiculous to think about because there is no way to know how important that one person is. As the trolley driver, there is no way of knowing who the people are, what they do for a living, what lives do they impact if at all. From the driver's point of view, it is strictly a numbers game, it has to be. Unfortunately that is the way it is, but without knowing who the people are, one dead person would be less tragic than five dead people.
ReplyDeleteI think that’s a really hard question because we want to say that there is an inherent dignity to human life that is the same for all humans, but we also have to face the reality of the world we live in. I think that in most circumstances where you had to choose between the 1 president and 5 citizens, most governments would decide that the president was more important than the five citizens. I really think it depend upon the circumstances in the country at the time, and also probably on whether the government in place is corrupt or not, and whether it is transparent or not. I think it is hard to make our modern ideas of expendability fit with the principle of treating the human life with dignity.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very interesting question because it indirectly asks if one person's life is worth more than another. I find the example where you pose the question if the one person has the cure for cancer or the five civilians because not only are you saving that one life, but you are also saving countless other lives with the cure for cancer. I believe in that case, it is better to save the one life because you're also saving thousands of lives compared to the five. You have the utilitarian logic and the value of life logic. However, in the case of it is simply a high profile celebrity of political official, I believe that you would save the five because we should not put extra value on someone's life because they are well known. They have not necessarily provided anything extra to society, and therefore their life is not more or less valuable than the other five so it would make sense to save the five civilians.
ReplyDeleteI very much agree with Drake in his opinion that it's almost impossible to judge the ethics behind a hypothetical situation due to the fact that we cannot truly know how we will act or feel in that specific moment. In this same regard, I think that it is almost impossible to determine what is ethical in scenarios like the trolley problem because there are so many conditionals. For example, yes, it may be in the best interest of society as a whole to save the man with the cure to cancer because he will be able to save lives in the future; however, what if he was a terrible man at heart. If the man with the cure to cancer was a convict who also happened to be the mastermind behind a recent mass murder, should he then still be saved? Or should he be punished and removed from society? Another scenario to consider would be if the one person was your mother, and the other five people were the only ones to collectively know the cure for cancer. Who should you save? Don't we have an moral obligation to save our mom? It's hard because everything is so subjective and conditional upon different viewpoints-- none of which are necessarily correct. In situations like these, each choice is justifiable to a certain extent.
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