The idea itself can be a rather interesting thing to explore as a thought experiment. Obviously the premise of the trolley problem is ridiculous, especially today since trains and especially trolleys are becoming much more rare for most people (with the exceptions for railroad tracks across roads, and passenger rail lines like subways and surface passenger services like we see in bullet trains). There are still railcars, like light rail transit in cities sometimes, but again, it’s fairly rare overall for the general public as a whole.
The idea of trolleys is a fairly outdated one and most of the safety systems in modern allegories are so robust that dangers are generally minimized.
Nevertheless, the moral quandary of whether you are responsible for injury or death as a result of your action (or inaction) is a fascinating mental exercise and has resulted in more than one discussion of adjacent morality concerns with the friend I mentioned. It’s fascinating to study overall, even in a casual context like we do.
I understand there’s a lot more to the picture when dealing with it in a more formal study, and that this question is only one piece of the puzzle when performing such studies.
The part that frustrates me more than anything is that people stop at whether or not to pull the lever, and run with it in memes and alternative solutions, rather than grappling with the moralities that are the root of the original question as part of the study. This is supposed to invoke a deep consideration about your actions and the responsibilities you may or may not be accepting when getting involved in a situation, and how your specific world view and moral “code” (so to speak) factors in. All of the memes and reposts of it, to me, always feel like it cheapens the meaning behind the initial problem as stated. However I understand that highly involved analytical thinking that forces you to consider all of those deep underlying concepts, requires significant mental work; system 2 work, of you will. Where you have to engage with your analytical “slow” thinking mind to really grasp, and our default reaction, as a species is that such thinking is usually something that will put us in danger, since our fast thinking system 1, can easily just blurt out an answer without considering it any further, saving significant mental effort.
I understand why people reduce this dilemma to the mechanical components of throwing a switch, but I always feel like they’re missing the entire point of the exercise.
But is it negligence? You’re foreign to the situation. You just happened to be nearby the switch as it is unfolding. There’s no implication of your involvement in anything that’s happening. You can just stand there and do nothing, not be involved, and four people die. You neither took any action that caused them to perish, nor do you have anything to do with the trolley, or the operation of it, or anything. You just happened to be close enough to throw the switch.
Is it negligence to do nothing? You’re not otherwise involved. Are you now guilty or responsible for not doing something when you could have done something?
If you have the cognizance and capacity to act but don’t you are negligent, it becomes a matter of individual human capacity and a truth only to the individual as to where that line begins and ends for any given situation. It’s not determinable by an outside observer because it’s entirely reliant on the individuals capacity for comprehension. But there are limits, negligence is not always determinable but there are still standards that are enforced for the safety of others, such as in a car accident, where fault is determined by circumstance not capacity.
That is certainly an interesting opinion on the matter. I’m not sure that’s what the law would agree with; but this exercise is not really about the law.
I hope you can appreciate that different people with different moral and ethical priorities would either agree with you or disagree with you about this. The point of the mental exercise is to foster discussion on these kinds of discussions. That’s exactly what has happened. Clearly you believe that the moral dilemma has an obvious solution. That is absolutely a valid perspective on it.
The idea itself can be a rather interesting thing to explore as a thought experiment. Obviously the premise of the trolley problem is ridiculous, especially today since trains and especially trolleys are becoming much more rare for most people (with the exceptions for railroad tracks across roads, and passenger rail lines like subways and surface passenger services like we see in bullet trains). There are still railcars, like light rail transit in cities sometimes, but again, it’s fairly rare overall for the general public as a whole.
The idea of trolleys is a fairly outdated one and most of the safety systems in modern allegories are so robust that dangers are generally minimized.
Nevertheless, the moral quandary of whether you are responsible for injury or death as a result of your action (or inaction) is a fascinating mental exercise and has resulted in more than one discussion of adjacent morality concerns with the friend I mentioned. It’s fascinating to study overall, even in a casual context like we do.
I understand there’s a lot more to the picture when dealing with it in a more formal study, and that this question is only one piece of the puzzle when performing such studies.
The part that frustrates me more than anything is that people stop at whether or not to pull the lever, and run with it in memes and alternative solutions, rather than grappling with the moralities that are the root of the original question as part of the study. This is supposed to invoke a deep consideration about your actions and the responsibilities you may or may not be accepting when getting involved in a situation, and how your specific world view and moral “code” (so to speak) factors in. All of the memes and reposts of it, to me, always feel like it cheapens the meaning behind the initial problem as stated. However I understand that highly involved analytical thinking that forces you to consider all of those deep underlying concepts, requires significant mental work; system 2 work, of you will. Where you have to engage with your analytical “slow” thinking mind to really grasp, and our default reaction, as a species is that such thinking is usually something that will put us in danger, since our fast thinking system 1, can easily just blurt out an answer without considering it any further, saving significant mental effort.
I understand why people reduce this dilemma to the mechanical components of throwing a switch, but I always feel like they’re missing the entire point of the exercise.
The whole exercise is pointless because we already have an understanding of the concept of negligence.
But is it negligence? You’re foreign to the situation. You just happened to be nearby the switch as it is unfolding. There’s no implication of your involvement in anything that’s happening. You can just stand there and do nothing, not be involved, and four people die. You neither took any action that caused them to perish, nor do you have anything to do with the trolley, or the operation of it, or anything. You just happened to be close enough to throw the switch.
Is it negligence to do nothing? You’re not otherwise involved. Are you now guilty or responsible for not doing something when you could have done something?
If you have the cognizance and capacity to act but don’t you are negligent, it becomes a matter of individual human capacity and a truth only to the individual as to where that line begins and ends for any given situation. It’s not determinable by an outside observer because it’s entirely reliant on the individuals capacity for comprehension. But there are limits, negligence is not always determinable but there are still standards that are enforced for the safety of others, such as in a car accident, where fault is determined by circumstance not capacity.
That is certainly an interesting opinion on the matter. I’m not sure that’s what the law would agree with; but this exercise is not really about the law.
I hope you can appreciate that different people with different moral and ethical priorities would either agree with you or disagree with you about this. The point of the mental exercise is to foster discussion on these kinds of discussions. That’s exactly what has happened. Clearly you believe that the moral dilemma has an obvious solution. That is absolutely a valid perspective on it.