Moral Dilemma: The Trolley Problem

PostMoral Dilemma: The Trolley Problem by **Tomous** » Wed Sep 29, 2021 4:46 pm

There is a runaway trolley barrelling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two (and only two) options:

1. Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track.
2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?

Here is, in my opinion, the best answer:

In all seriousness though, this is something that has to be discussed with the soon to be prominence of self driving cars. There's going to be situations where the computer has to choose whether to save the passengers at the expense of more pedestrians. At the very least what to do in that situation has to be programmed into the AI, even if that situation never comes to pass.

Return the trolley and keep the pound coin for myself.

You didn’t say the person on the side track was tied up, so I’d send it that way. Then it’s their fault if they’re on the tracks.

Anyway, there are so many people in this situation who are responsible for the fuck-up. Why have I got to be the one to make the decision? I don’t even work here. I’m going home.

I prefer the formulation that has you push a very fat person onto the train from a bridge, stopping the train, just for thinking through how fat this person would really need to be

I like the trolley problem for thinking about the difference, if it exists, between action and inaction, and even whether that applies to the pulling of the switch (and in the setup where you are the driver is "inaction" really applicable? Does the setup where you are a bystander give you more right to choose inaction?)

I don't like how the problem can be thought on very differently depending on specifics of the situation. Are the five people supposed to be there? Is the one? That can start changing the moral judgment if one set is trespassing while the other isn't.

When it comes to self-driving cars, it's a very uncomfortable proposition to say the car's AI may choose to kill it's passenger in order to save others who may have caused the problem.

Do I get charged for the murder of the one person?

rinks wrote:You didn’t say the person on the side track was tied up, so I’d send it that way. Then it’s their fault if they’re on the tracks.

Anyway, there are so many people in this situation who are responsible for the fuck-up. Why have I got to be the one to make the decision? I don’t even work here. I’m going home.

They're just questions, rinks. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?

What do you mean, I’m not helping?

rinks wrote:What do you mean, I’m not helping?

You took so long deciding that the trolley ended up crashing into the city's nuclear power plant. Millions died.

Dual wrote:
rinks wrote:You didn’t say the person on the side track was tied up, so I’d send it that way. Then it’s their fault if they’re on the tracks.

Anyway, there are so many people in this situation who are responsible for the fuck-up. Why have I got to be the one to make the decision? I don’t even work here. I’m going home.

They're just questions, rinks. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?

Nice Blade Runner Refrence

Do nothing, and if anybody asks pretend I didn't realise there was a problem.

One death is a tragedy, five deaths is a statistic.

Zilnad wrote:One death is a tragedy, five deaths is a statistic.

Who the strawberry float let Stalin register?

OrangeMKN wrote:When it comes to self-driving cars, it's a very uncomfortable proposition to say the car's AI may choose to kill it's passenger in order to save others who may have caused the problem.

It's not a great selling point either, knowing that your car would sacrifice you without hesitation in the right circumstances.

Pull the lever.

Can we see who it is on both tracks first? As if someone i don't like is present, then i would be able to send it in their direction.

If the track is electrified then they all might be dead already.

Moral Dilemma: The Trolley Problem

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