/philosophy/ - Philosophy

without further knowledge, killing the fat man would be better since your chances of saving someone worth living is 5 times higher.

If you do nothing doesn't that absolve you of responsibility since you've chosen not to be involved?

Or is this like the extreme case of unexpectedly running into someone being assaulted and if you turn around and walk away you're a shit person?

Push the fat man off. He will just eat the train anyways.

I just wouldn't interfere, I don't know those people and I don't care about them. If I knew one of those choices would be beneficial to me over the other (perhaps someone whose invention would make life better for me would be on the tracks) I'd choose tha, but otherwise I don't want to risk screwing myself over by choosing the wrong option. That causes regret and bad feels, and I don't want none of that.

>>2584

Let's say you're stranded on an island with these people, and you depend on their cooperation to survive.

Don't you think the labor of five would be a more viable option than one.

Also, one of the stipulations of the experiment is that you're forced to make a choice. Not making a choice is still making a choice.

>>2603

Then I would of course save the five people, since that would be beneficial to me.

Unless they were out to get me or something, then I wouldn't.

>>2603

>>2604

but what if the fat guy is a master craftsmen or survival expert ( unlikely i know) and the 5 were actually retarded?

>>2604

Now, what if told you that whether or not you're stranded on an island, your survival depends on the cooperation of other people?

More people generally means a stronger economy and a more effective national defense.

Using this knowledge, perhaps you'd be more inclined to choose the five regardless of the specific situation, provided that they're of your in group.

This is how I think of it, anyway.

>>2606

Then I would save the useful guy. Not much of a choice, really.

>>2607

More people also means you're less likely to get a job, they could also be jobless and living off welfare.

Besides, the benefit to me country is so small that it's unlikely to have an effect on me, or at least not enough of an effect to outweight my bad feels.

>>2609

>bad feels

those don't exist. Morality is a lie.

Just convince yourself of this and your decision making will become clearer.

>>2610

I know that morality is just a spook, but I unforunately still need it to function in today's society.

Notice that I'm not trying to act in a way that is moral, I'm trying to act in a way that won't make me feel bad.

If I could just throw away my morals like that, I might choose to save the five people, after I analyze the situation and weight the potential benefits to myself.

That said, I think there are far too many variables to consider, meaning we can't clearly pick five people over the one guy every time.

rationality >>>>>>> sentimentality

>>2615

How does rationality give your life any meaning?

>>2615

Emotions are the sole reason why rationality has a content in the first place. Reason is a way to actualize desired aims that begin in emotion. Pure reason is meaningless.

>>2655

>the meaning of life

nice meme

>>2656

Pure reason is great for philosophy, and science in general. Emotions are, of course, an important part of our life, but they're just too subjective and easy to manipulate to base any theory on.

>>2663

>pure reason is great in philosophy and science

Except that's wrong, you dingus. There is no such thing as pure reason, reason is only the form of real content that is only amenable to thought form, in itself it is nothing.

>>2656

>Reason is a way to actualize desired aims that begin in emotion

How can this be the only purpose for reason?

How can we know reason has any purpose at all but that which you ascribe to it?

>>2663

>philosophy

>science

stop

Once you've decided on an answer, consider this.

You're in a hospital where there are 5 very sick people who will all die without organ donations. Suddenly, in walks a healthy looking man here for a check up. You notice he would have enough organs to save the 5 dying people. Would it be okay to kill this man against his will to save them?

>>2674

Something clever I heard once was to let one of the dying patients pass away, and then to use any of his healthy organs to help as many as the other four as you can.

>>2675

Why have the utilitarians not thought about this sooner? They could've saved a life!

>>2675

That wasn't really the point of the question. They all die at the same time from all of their organs rupturing.

>>2825

Kill the least useful. He'll die anyway from ruptured organs.

>>2409

>fat guy puts his trust in me

>5 ignorant shits on the track

those guys deserve some training anyway

The problem with any 'means justifies the ends' scenario is that you don't truly know the ends.

Sure, you *may* save the five people by killing the fat man, but you can't really predict the future. Your plan may fail. You may kill everyone. You might be better off making no choice. The train may stop on its own. Those five idiots might get loose at the last moment.

The problem with this question, as I see it, is you can't 100% predict the future in any scenario and this question assumes you can. IRL, you end up doing nothing hoping for the best in situations like these. It's why people freeze in fear.

I wait for the fat guy to jump.

I Do nothing. I don't want to go to jail for pushing a fat guy to die on the tracks. Imagine trying to tell a jury why you killed him.

And what if the train keeps going and killed 5 more. What if you were a fat man? Should you kill yourself instead?

The only solution is not to interfere and thus you are not complicit in murder and not morally wrong

>>2971

>letting 5 people get killed

>not morally wrong

>>2974

>implying morality exists

>>2974

By pushing the Fat Man you are killing somebody directly but by doing nothing you are no more responsible for the deaths of these 5 people than somebody living 500 miles away

I would stand by knowing it was not my place to decide who is and isn't worth saving.

This marxist non-sense has a single answer that does not devolve into relative morality. You can't as third party distribute something that isn't yours nor has been voluntarily forfeited to you.

>>2997

>this marxist nonsense

Retard just showed himself, folks. If you knew anything about Marxism you would know Marxists HATE ethics and moralism.

>>2992

that is why you should change the trolley to hit the one man on the track. that way you are saving 5 and not killing any

Who are you to say that those 5 people's lives are more important than that of the individual? Such utilitarian reasoning.

The only correct decision to make is to not do anything.

>>3042

Who is that trolley to say that the law of inertia justifies its killing one or any x number of men tied to its rails with responsibility on someone only trying to make the best of its rampage?

>>2409

If you have the ability to push the fat man, and the fat man is heavy enough to stop the trolley, then it would be trivial for you to hop down yourself and give the trolley a light tap to derail it as it passes by, thus saving the fat man and the five people.

>>2409

the fat man is fat, I hate fat people, thus he deserves to die.

Under other circumstances, I'd get arrested for killing him, and my reputation would take a major hit, but in this case, I could be given some clemency in both fields.

Thus I will throw him under the trolley, purely for the lulz.

>>2409

There is something to consider too; how is your life more important than the one of anyone, you could kill yourself to save 6 people.

Or you could try to send the train on the way of the single person and try to untie him, this solution is not necessarily a moral choice it might simply be a practical choice since untying a single person is way faster than untying 5.

Or you can let yourself be guided by your intuition; since intuition will be influenced by both the intellect and the instinctive this might the best choice as it's closer to the higher object.

>>2678

Either way, one person dies and five people survive.

>>2603

Then who's driving the train or gets them stuck on the tracks

>>2928

well, you CAN switch tracks over and over, so that you switch it repeatedly when the train is on top of the moving rail, which would dislodge the train from the track, saving all five people, but causing a train crash that endangers, but not necessarily ends, the lives of those aboard.

you essential guarantee the life of the five people, by creating a chance that any number of people aboard the train will die, which might be zero, or way more than five.

>>4863

if you believe in divine providence, then those who die will be more likely to produce vice in their future, and those who live, would be more likely to produce virtue.

give them a chance to die, and god's protection will favor his own.

What trolley?

I think there's something wrong with the trolley question. The answer is trivial if you know what assumptions you want to put into it. E.g. if these are six randomly-selected unknown people and all life is sacred, the answer is too easy to write.

Alternatively, as a tool for fishing out assumptions, it's underspecified. One equation, two or more unknowns.

Many other problems. I won't be exhaustive because tl;dr.

>>2997

>I would stand by knowing it was not my place to decide who is and isn't worth saving.

Governments have to decide who lives and who dies all the time, whether it's their place to do so or not.

>>5315

>Litterally all but 1 of the posts are by you OP, do you not know how IDs work?

It's a bug. Also 'literally' only has one 't' in it.

>>2409

The correct answer is whatever will result in killing the most ugly people, and sparing the best looking people. A human alive is not inherently better than a human dead, so you should do whatever will maximize the net value of the humans in question. Assuming they are strangers, the only metric available to you to determine their worth is their physical appearance.

>>2436

>If you do nothing doesn't that absolve you of responsibility since you've chosen not to be involved?

According to certain people, if you don't involve yourself on something, you're GUILTY

So for example, if a child is drowning nearby and you don't choose to save him you're GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY for leaving the child to die there

(Do remember that this post is just for reference on why this whole thought experiment can be created, and in my opinion it probably was created by some muggle.)

Whoever originally tied them to the tracks is ultimately responsible.

But, fun fact: everyone who let themselves end up tied to tracks fucked up. It's not a random act of god. They failed to secure their person against mad Snidely Whiplashes with sufficient enthusiasm, and are now paying the price. This breaks the symmetry between the 'kill' and 'let die' versions. The fat man did nothing wrong.

Whether you pull the lever or don't, Snidely Whiplash is guilty of murder, and you're not. Who you happen to save is purely down to personal taste. If they don't like it, they shouldn't have let themselves get tied to train tracks. Maybe their funeral attendees will learn better for next time.

However, as a private citizen, you will literally never see a trolley problem. Snidely Whiplash doesn't exist, nobody gets tied to train tracks, and even if they did you don't hang around manually-operable track levers. Not even metaphorically. The trolley problem is a problem for states.

E.g, do you execute murderers? If you don't, they may go and murder again. If you do, you might execute an innocent man. By the displacement theory you can lock them up until they're 35, but that's expensive. If you spent that on, say, blood drive advertisements instead, you might well save more lives than you lose in executed innocents. However, all of these options save different people. The distributions are dissimilar. Necessarily the state is saying they care more about one group than another.

And that's why getting the trolley problem right is important, but also why getting it right is irrelevant. States have never given the slightest shit about philosophy, so even if you work it out correctly and all agree, they're still going to do horrible corrupt state things instead.