The Trolley Problem - Explained and Debated 

Learn More About Carneades's Book: www.carneades.org/are-all-lives-equal/ The script to this video is part of the Philosophy Vibe “Ethics” eBook available on Amazon: US: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088Q85GPK UK: www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B088Q85GPK Canada: www.amazon.ca/dp/B088Q85GPK India: www.amazon.in/dp/B088Q85GPK Australia: www.amazon.com.au/dp/B088Q85GPK Germany: www.amazon.de/dp/B088Q85GPK

I love how intense the debate is.

As a freshman in college enrolled in an intro to ethics class, let me say your videos help me tremendously! The dialogue format is incredible.

The one difference I can see with the lever vs pushing the engineer, is that it is in the act of *pushing* the engineer that the five engineers are saved. In other words, it is the body of (and incidentally the murder of) the engineer that stops the train. In the case of redirecting the train, it seems more like an unfortunate side effect that there was an engineer there. Another way of looking at it is if the train were heading towards 5 engineers, and you could redirect it with a lever pull, but would then hit one big engineer, you might do it not based on the fact that the big engineer would stop the train, but that only one is dying. In the scenario where the engineer is pushed, you are treating the engineer as an object. In the scenario where you pull the lever, you weigh up people’s lives more directly. If the one engineer miraculously jumped away in time on the lever pull, that is even better. In the case of pushing, you don’t want the engine to get away, you need them to get hit.

Very interesting The best part is how amazing the arguments were I didn't felt bored at all

I would like to propose a slight variation of trolley problem " Would you pull the lever and sacrifice one of your close relatives to save five other people?" When the person is unknown to us being an utilitarian seems easy , but not so much in this case ha?

If I went to court because I was in this situation and I had to deal with these guys I'd probably not make it out sane

If the lone engineer saw you going for that lever, and knew he would die if you moved it, and he had a gun, would he be justified in shooting you to protect himself, killing not only you, but also the other five engineers?

I love this channel now this is my 3rd video and the arguments are incredible.

For the organ donation dilemma, the scenario assumes that the only way to get healthy and viable organs is to murder an innocent person. We have built systems that allow people who have died from accidents, violent crime, injury or harm to donate their organs into a network. This is how we avoid murder for life-saving donations, and avoid the state of anarchy and paranoia suggested. The scenario is also a classic example of how someone taking a deontological position essentially keeps moving the goalposts so that the original dilemma fits their philosophical standpoint. Note how the utilitarian did not feel the need to modify the original scenario to make their stance clear.

what you SHOULD do: pull the lever while the trolley is halfway across

Fascinating, thank you. And the book sounds great.

the best answer to this question is : just sit on your chair with sweet tea and buiscits, and watch the natural course of action while eating sweetness, its much more satisfying.

Great debate! Thank you 😊

This is the best video I've ever watched on RU-vid!

this channel really is such a gem. loved this video

I don’t think the burden of responsibility lies on the person controlling the train it falls on the person responsible for allowing the train to go out of control who will have to be investigated later, your only responsibility is to help mitigate deaths and attempt to make a value assessment.. if it’s one baby or 5 older men I’ll save the baby, this isn’t a numbers game it’s making a value judgement on what has the most potential to save.

Great video. I sincere hope that the pilots of enola gay had the same discussion before dropping the nuclear bomb.

Interesting! I like how far the debate went. Never heard about the last utilitarian argument.

3:59 this through me off a bit, but then I realized his action would lead to an extra life being saved, since the people on both sides would survive.

The difference between the pushing of the engineer and the pulling of the lever is that both the 5 people and the 1 person on the tracks are both fair game. You have to choose a path for the train to go on so one group over another has to die. In essence all 6 people are involved. In the pushing case, the 5 people already on the track are already involved, whereas the one person not on a track is not already involved in until you involve him by pushing him

For years I drove a taxi. And on many occasions I had to make split second decision. There was no "What do I do now?" I always reacted as the human I am. Luckily my reflexes avoided harm. I had a sheriff scratch his head and ask me "how did you NOT hit that car?". He saw the tracks in the snow, the other driver slid on the ice. And I just MOVED AWAY. I could tell more stories about how 'GOD' saved me.... But that would be BEEE-ESSS. Nobody was hurt because I was DAMN GOOD AT MY JOB. On that day.... I was also a preeek other days... Ask my ex.... I'm sure she will agree O_o

I think there's different view in this ethical debate. let's call it Idealistic view. it's almost like utilitarian, but you yearn for the best outcome no matter how small the chances is, but by valuing others more than yourself. So The person with this view will still move the lever, but because saving 1 person is easier than saving 5 and when the case about pushing people, well it's kinda depends. like forcing other to sacrifice their life is far from idealistic, so if there's enough time I won't push them, that person with idealistic view will ask what they want to do, if they don't want to do it, that person is going to jump and hope his sacrifice can stop the train, same thing if there's not enough time.

At 3:50 the explanation given hints towards a form of moral or rather ethics, that I found in 3rd grade to be an alternative way of looking at things and defended against the tought topic "denial of assistance" to most resentment of my teacher, as I had the majority of our class on my side, as they were following my rule unconsciously up to that day. So far I havent found any philosophical branch that argues in such way, as allmost all of them argue in some way towards a "greater good"-principle. I call mine the "lesser guilt"-principle and I have found it to be what allmost all of humans act upon by some form of (even non-verbal) neural network learning until any outer source actively forces them to change their behaviour to align with the prevalent ethics given by religion or law or whatever the social environment pressures them into. The lesser guilt principle: 1. Any action has a result. 2. Any result can be judged on a moral scale. 3. The moral scale is usually given by parents/family during (early) childhood. 4. Independent from what the moral scale actually looks like, its clear, that the causation of morally negatively judged results, forms a value called "guilt". 5. Guilt cannot be deleted/erased, its summed up over a livetime. 6. Positive results are a nice bonus, but "positive guilt" if one wants to call it that way is something that dissipates into joy and cannot be held to be summed up but still remebered. Here is where the ought comes in: 7. "Try to accumulate as least guilt as possible within your lifespan." And here is where the "ought "is excluded from anywhere else: 8. "Be free to do or not to do anything, just as you want, but face the result." That little list could be shortened as some steps seem self-explaining, but I wanted to display the principle here in a form of an unambiguous program. Another thing to mention is the trivial conclusion: - No guilt is created whithout an action. and the further, maybe not so obvious conclusion for some religious people : - There is no such thing as a thought crime. If we use that principle for the above trolly problem (and to all variations of it out there), it follows: - Just touch the lever if a) you are willing to collect the selected/caused guilt or b) you find an alternative position, where no guilt is caused. - The trivial solution is allways: No guilt is caused without touching the lever. In any way, you are free to choose any action but bound to face the result. So, guys from "Philosophy Vibes", have you come accross any philosophic branch that has this?

Great debate! Incredibly thought provoking.

This channel is Undervalued

Great discussion

In the pushing the engineer scenario, he argues the doctrine of double effect makes the choice to push the guy on the tracks ethical because killing the person wasn't the intent and led to saving five lives which was the intent. That argument doesn't hold up, in my opinion, because in that scenario, both the man dying AND the five saved is the intent. In that moment, you intended to sacrifice a life to save multiple lives. I think it really does come down to action vs inaction and I think I wouldn't do anything to affect what was going to happen even if I wasn't there.

This is brilliantly mind provoking 🤓

If you are close enough to push the engineer, you are also close enough to jump in front of the train (the diver will stop the train regardless of who he hits). If you think that sacrificing a life to save 5 is a good thing, then you should be the one making the sacrifice.

The difference between the first and second/third scenarios, is that the lone worker is killed as an UNINTENDED consequence of pulling the lever and so the principle of double effect holds, and hence the deontological principle, thou shalt not murder is maintained. But pushing a man in front a train, or cutting a man up to save other people's organs, is a direct and INTENDED consequence of our actions. And as both actions, if executed efficiently, will end in death of an innocent person, then both are deontologically impermissable.

The original trolley problem is a simplified "or" logic statement while the other supporting arguments are a risk assessment/ cost benifit problems. There is not 100% certainty that pushing an "big" guy in front of a train will stop the other 5 being killed and killing a person for their organs has a relatively low percentage chance of giving 5 people a full helthy life. It's a straw man agrument to replace a well designed "or" logic statement with more ambiguous risk benefit problems.

Excellent

you are a train controller, and as a controller part of your duty is to minimize danger/risk/damage regardless of who caused the problem at hand. By actively ignoring the switch you've made a choice to kill.

"Surely this inaction is responsible for the drowning person's death." Legally: He should not be held liable for the death because he did not have a duty to rescue in that scenario (this law applies fairly universally across the united states). Morally: No one should be compelled to give up their liberty for someone else. Saving someone's life is generally morally good, but not saving someone isn't always immoral. You would be acting immorally if you took pleasure in watching them die, but not if, say, you had a religious belief not to intervene, or were afraid to help, etc. What if you're saving someone the mafia wanted to kill? Then you're putting yourself in potential danger, etc.

Interesting. I think the roles of the two people in the two scenarios are different and not quite comparable. One is at his job (which is not clearly defined) and the other one is a bystander. What happens to the nature of the lever handlers’ job and responsibilities? What he thought before signing up for it?

The real solution to the trolley problem is quite obvious: An actual track switch can be moved to a middle position where neither track is selected properly, and would cause the train to derail thereby saving everyone. Thank you. And for my next trick, I will solve world peace.

Doesn't the track vibrates/moves a little when a train is nearby? The slight irregular movement can alert the men.

Here is a simple twist: 1. do nothing and the train will run over 5 people 2. redirect the train which will run over 1 person who is your loved one

How can you ever know for certain that the trolley will actually go on to hit and kill the 5 people, until it actually does? You cannot and that's why you can never pull the lever.

Which is more important, intent or consequence?

I'll say valuing lives by numbers is logical but not strictly moral. Then the problem is if intervening is moraly correct. It is a problem because choosing not to act is also a conscious decision. Idk I'm a kantian on this one, if there is unavoidable tragedy, follow good will even if its ambiguous.

This shows the relations between theory, practice and being human. I would already have a big problem pulling the lever spontaneously. However, as a human being I can clearly say "no" to actively killing one person as a "good deed". Ultimately, the trolley problem can only be solved on the metalevel. Why is there a train running amok, how can this be avoided? Can the workers learn some useful safety techniques? Moral condemnation of a person who spontaneously gets into such a situation should be avoided.

I feel like making the "lever puller" the site manager requires him or her to make the Best decision for all parties in volved 6:56

In situation 2, rather than pull the bystanders to the train rail, why not we just running towards the 5 people and save them? At least 1 person among the 5 constructers. That action is better than none you can't save.

In the standard kidnapping scenario: I think the fact that people are able to be kidnapped to begin with is a) a sign of weakness and/or b) a foundation for trauma which causes future weakness - I find weakness to be an ethical problem and thus would allow for the 5 to pass. I understand this is a very unpopular opinion.

In the engineer scenario: I think the fact that a group of 5 do not have even one person performing risk assessment - checking for any danger - shows a group of people unfit to protect the safety of others. Therefore those 5 portray ethical issue and I would let the train hit them.

"If you can prevent the death of someone and choose not to act, you are responsible for their death." Oh I beg to differ. Last I checked, I am not responsible for anybody.

I see the problem as "how do you get the trolly to go down both tracks", results = no dilemma

What a video!

The example of the man drowning in the pond and you walking by and you can save him but you choose not to. That makes you responsible because you had the freedom to save them but you chose not to. However the one with the train is different. You cannot save the five people, you cannot make it there on the track on time before the train runs them over. The train coming is not your problem and you will most likely be too late if you try to run there and save them so I won't call the action of not pulling the lever responsible. The train coming was not your problem and you see there is no way to save them without pulling the lever which will make you responsible for the death of the one engineer. *Please correct me if you disagree.*

Im under the impression this is not necessarily what Kant meant with his categorical imperative. Kant would have been ok with one pulling the lever as long as one understood that it should not become a universal law since such pulling of lever is killing a person and killing is wrong; meaning, sometimes one has to do something usually considered immoral although we should understand that very action should not be repeated in other circumstances since its a universal law. Will Durant had a good example where he asked if one should lie knowing that lying is wrong, however said lie in this instance would safe your friend from lets say the Nazis who wish to murder him. So its alright to lie in that instance while knowing that lying is universally wrong. Its a way of allowing one to read the situation without such strictness since you wouldnt want lying to become a universal law but understand that sometimes one has to lie for a greater good. At least this is my understanding of Durant’s explanation…

The trolley problem is irrelevant because railroads always have spotters when people are working on the track. There is a reason you never hear about rail workers being hit.😜 Seriously though, some great food for thought.

The real problem is to break human rights, when you decide to move the train you're not sacrifice 1 human to save five, you decide to save 5 people and because you save five people one guy is going to die (because i save 5 people 1 guy died) and because of that as a human my rights are still valid, no one have the right to kill me for the sake of others but i have the right to save others even if because i did it someone is going to die, when you kill ‏‪‬‏ a fat man to save five people you're breaking his right to be alive (because one guy died 5 people are saved) and you're probably going to jail.. ‏‪ ‏‪ the more human rights you break the less human you become.

Well this was an interesting take on utilitarianism.

Plot twist, by pulling the lever to divert to the path of 1, the trolley derails because of abrupt change and kills all passengers aboard.

nah , at 9:15 ..... pushing him is wrong cause there wasn't a possibility where he would die , while on the other hand being on track had a possibility for him dying and just made that possibility happen.

wow!

how I view it is, in the first scenario the workers shouldn't be that disconnected from what's happening around them in the first place so they're mostly responsible for their own death anyway which makes me gravitate towards the utilitarian side. in the end they're partially responsible for their death so just a simple 5>1 does it for me. in the second scenario though, it's different because while the 5 workers are again partially responsible for their would-be death, the big guy is definitely not so the blame would entirely be on the choice maker if they did choose to push them, and so I'd rather let the 5 workers die here the third one is really tricky, in our world I'd definitely let the patients die because your life would be ruined because of that murder charge lol, in a world without legal consequences though I can't really find a way to explain logically but I feel closer to letting the patients die rather than murder someone

If at least we could know who they vote, what language they talk or which football team they support, we could introduce the prejudice variable, and the dilema is solved.

The answer to this problem depends at your situation. If you are worker and you get paid for puling the lever you just need to folow rules in book about this type of acidents. You don't realy need to think. If you are not worker and you are not involed in this it is even easier. You just need to call help number and inform about situation and go home. Here are no need to think too. Because responsability will go to work manager, who was sleeping and not working. Also, to choose one of two options, here needs to be some type of diffirence between them. At last in your mind. If you don't see any diffirence, why should you make any choice? So, may even choose to run to shop to buy popcorn and find better view place.

I'd pull the lever every fucking day just for fun

But again. You could then think about all the engineers that would live with constant fear of trolleys or of being pushed into one. The utilitarian view simply stands no ground However I believe the key factor for me not pushing the lever is not the moral obligation to not actively kill someone, but rather the non moral responsibility to interact with the situation. In the case of the life vest and the person drowning I would still say you don't need to throw them the vest. It wasn't your fault that they putted themselves in that stupid situation. It would be a nice gesture, but the opposite wouldn't be wrong. Why tho? Imagine that for every person who died of starvation somewhere you were responsible for not donating to a NGO, or dedicating your life to saving them. It makes no sense

What happened to the dead man's handle on the train ?

I think I'd do neither, it's not my decision to make and I wouldn't feel bad at all.

insane. this is true intellectuality

I disagree with the second train because you state that there are only 2 options like the first train dilemma but that is simply not the case as you are down on the ground and have time to act to warn people.

And What about if... ...in the original problem, the engineer working alone is the son of the guy in the Central? It sounds like a Trolley Problem 2.0. That makes a BIG conflict in the Utilitarian view.

Well then would you kill your close relative?. It's not as simple as utilitarian yes or utilitarian no. Our decisions vary depending on the situation. Like variables switching inside an ecuation, only there is just 2 possible outcomes. Of course its got nothing to do with maths but every action's got consequences.

A big guy can't stop a train. He'd have to be a giant. The 5 still die unless they see what happened and jump away. How are the 5 people needing transplants need them instantly? Why are they on the verge of death, someone messed up.

Whatever devine intervention there is let it be. No small deeds goes unpunished. Whatever the lane switch it is the God's purpose.

It's clear that this shows the weakness of the deontological principle - you pay for your supposed moral superiority with five lives. True, utilitarianism is far more pragmatic - which can lead to its own problems (cutting up a healthy person to save five people in need of organs), where "humanity as an end in itself" prevails. An original approach would be the "six degrees of separation" principle. If I - for instance - would be held (legally) responsible for pulling the lever, I wouldn't do it. If there was a person involved which was very dear to me, I'd choose for that person. Similarly, if I held one of these persons for particularly important (e.g. Einstein) I'd choose that one. If not, I'd take the utilitarianism or deontological default, depending on my personal stance on ethics.

Re: organ transplant Poor example because the organ can be rejected by the recipient's body.

If you time it right, You can derail the train or trolley, rather killing no people, or killing them all. Depending how close they are to the middle of both tracks. Edit: And if I don't or pull the lever in time, I'll still go to jail.

Great debate. What i feel is, a minority never should suffer due to the majority-freindly rules/ actions. Not even to save the majority, we just can't push the minority to hell

I’d get off the track because I’m not an idiot.

Murder isn't ethical so I would do nothing. Intentionally aiming a massive vehicle at someone and killing them is murder.

The categorical imperative doesn't work. What if a person has to lie to save a life? The categorical imperative would say you can never lie, so don't do it at all costs. But Rahab does so in the book of Joshua to save the lives of the Israeli spies. Was she wrong? The Bible seems to indicate in the book of Hebrews chapter 11 that she was acting in faith (in the right) when she done this. Therefore I find the categorical imperative to have holes in its logic, at least in regards to the biblical definition of right and wrong.

Evil wins when good men do nothing

For the Organ donation scenario: I would only kill the man if he was a less moral person than at least 4 of my patients - and worse or equal to one. (There are more variations with equal morality I cant think of atm) This way you trade his life without letting a greater number of immoral people than them live - and letting more moral people survive.

To the people of certain culture this is no problem at all . Just toss a coin , leave it to faith , case close .

Omission / Commission

I would push the day man

Depends on who the people are

👍👍👍👍👍😎

pull the leveller you become a murder, dont pull the leveller you accept things for what it is no matter how painful the out come maybe, push the fat dude in front the tracks makes you a murder aslo. However i'm pretty sure if it was a very beloved person (say your baby got lose in it's stroller), i think its almost save to say we would pull the leveller almost 100% of the time

The trolly problem is all semantics. Taking legality out of it. No matter how you word it either 5 people are going to die because you or 1 person. If someone had the opportunity to stop your child/spouse/parent from being murdered and they choose not too. No one would just hold their hands up and say “well you didn’t make them do it so ok I understand”.

So the trolley problem is incredibly easy. It's the difference between 5 people dying in an accident, and you choosing to kill someone. It was another version that really made it click for me. You're sitting in front of a button. Every time you push the button, 5 people about to die in an accident are saved and one random person is killed. If you switch tracks, you chose to kill that person. You are a murderer. You made the decision that took the life of an innocent, uninvolved party. The only ethical decision is to do nothing and allow the accident to happen.

What about if you can't push the big man a he pushes you instead 🤔.

The thought experiment wasn't correctly posed. The lone engineer can work with 100% certainty that he is safe because even if a train did come it wouldn't go his way.

America cant sue you if you do nothing.

Here ill add something else. In the main train track it is also likely that the 5 engineers could feel the tracks moving and might get out of the way but if you change tracks the one would not have felt the vibrations and would not be able to get away and will be a 100% death.

First, do no harm.

toss a coin and let chance decide.

The moral answer is easy. Don't hang around railway lines, otherwise some sociopath will push you onto them.

That's not what the Trolley problem is all about. Take the same situation, 5 vs 1 death, most people would agree pulling the switch would be better since 5 is greater than 1. But imagine this slightly different scenario, either u dont pull the switch and let the 5 die, or u pull the switch and so dude gets his skin peeled of slowly until he dies. is 5 still greater than 1 then ? Or imagine this, u dont pull the switch and u let 5 junkies die or u pull the switch and the man who'll cure cancer gets hit by a train. The whole thing is just a jab on naive ethical thinking like "1 death is better than 5".

This is just my opinion of course. If you don't pull the lever while understanding that the train's going to kill 5 people instead of 1. It's not that you didn't kill anyone. consciously u did. But either way someone was going to die. After all is over they might ask you why did u pull the lever, and then u can answer If I hadn't done that 5 people would be dead now. Whereas if I had stayed still while the 5 engineers were being killed they would ask you. Why didn't you pull the lever, you could have saved those engineers. What are you going to answer? There's no right answer I did what I belived to be best. But if we assume that the train couldn't have been stopped then, how many of us would actually not pull the lever. I mean considering that in such a situation we would be able to act completely disregarding nerves or fears. We can look at this from the saving perspective. U can save 5 and kill 1 or u can save 1 and kill 5 but for instance let's say It's not 5 let's say there's 10, 15, 30 people about to get crushed would the man on the right still do the same? Before watching this video. What would we all have done? I don't think we need people to tell us what's right or wrong however I believe most of us would incline for the greater good philosophy.

God the Father pulled the lever when he sent his only Son Jesus into the world knowing full well that he must die to save many. So I would also pull the lever to save five people and deeply regret the death of the one who had to die so that the others might be saved.

Also I got an ad for mail orders bride lol what a wild time.

Deciding _not_ to pull the lever is action.