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If we all collectively agree to just pass it on, then either:
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It’s infinite, and it just passes on forever, or…
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It’s not infinite and somebody at the end has no choice, in which case nobody in charge of a lever has killed anyone
So yeah, I say pass it on.
Except that somewhere down that chain someone is almost certainly going to choose to kill people, so by passing the trolley on down to them you’re responsible for killing a lot more than if you ended it right now.
And since every rational person down the line is going to think that, they’ll all be itching to pull the “kill” lever first chance they get. So you know that you need to pull the kill lever immediately to minimize the number of deaths.
Only the person pulling the lever is responsible for his/her action though. There is a difference between passively passing on and actively murder someone
Dentological ethics: you have a duty to not murder people, so you don’t pull the lever
Utilitarian ethics: pulling the lever will kill less people
In this case it isn’t even a guarantee that anyone has to die as the problem is presented, the tram can just continue to be passed along. The default setting for the lever is “go to next” so to not pull the lever is easier both physically and morally.
The individual that pulls the lever is the same individual that would take action to harm others for no benefit, and even in real life I can’t morally take responsibility for a person who runs over a child by purpose after I let his/her car merge in front of me just before a school crossing
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If I hand a machete to Jason Voorhees I think I’m at least partly responsible for the people he hits with it. I know what he’s going to do with that thing.
Except you’re not passing a machete to Jason Voorhees. That would be “double it and pass it to the next person who you know is going to pull the lever.”
You’re passing a machete to the next person in line. You don’t know who that is. They may or may not pass the machete down the line. Considering I would not expect a person chosen at random to kill someone when handed a machete, it seems unethical for me to kill someone with a machete just to prevent handing it to someone else.
I know Jason is somewhere down that line I’m handing the machete off to. And the farther down the line he is the more people he’s going to kill.
There are only 33 people in the line though.
Either you get to 33 and there are no more and the track just ends or it’s “nuke the planet” or dont for everyone else above 33.
Or it keeps doubling even well after its surpassed the human population, and we all have to keep hitting “pass” in turns forever, and if even a single person gives up then boom.
That’s only if he’s next in line though. If you pass a machete to someone who might one day eventually pass it onto him, is that as bad? I suppose at some point there’s an ethical cutoff lol
The farther away he is the worse it is because the more people he gets to kill. If for some reason I absolutely had to pass the machete down the line then the best case is for the very next person I hand it to to be Jason. But even better if it’s me.
In this case you don’t hand him a machete, instead you murder someone innocent to prevent possible murders in the future by a third party
I guess it comes down to the weight you give the word “possible” in your sentence. If possible means extremely likely (and there are logical reasons to believe so) then taking responsibility makes sense.
I guess then the issue would be: do you ever find out the result of your actions? If no, then I guess it’s sort of a “glass half empty/full” kind of thing, because you could just pass it on and assume the best and just go live your life quite happily.
Although if you did find out the result, imagine being first, pulling the lever and then finding out nobody else would have.
If it’s infinite, you’d basically be gambling that no evil person exists.
If it’s infinite (up to the current human population), we’re all tied up on the tracks. Unless we’re leaving out the exact number of people that would bring it to approximately the full population, I guess.
As long as I’m not on the tracks, I’ll take the hit and kill one instead of risking a potential genocide.
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Someone needs to stop tying people to those train tracks or this trolley problem will never go away.
Step in front of the train: Tell your manager this whole project is dumb, provide a list of reasons why it’s a bad idea and explain you are prepared to resign rather than enable its further development.
MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING!! Which also kills the other lever guy, bonus!
KANSEI DORIFTO
Just keep doubling forever until the number is more than everyone alive, free s-risk emergency button.
This might cause a buffer overload that crashes the programming and we can escape the matrix together once and for all
But what if we are all NPCs?
In that case I hope someone has a backup
Double it and I’ll do it myself
Yeah, who even needs a trolley?
Half-pull the lever so that the points get stuck midway between the two tracks. That should derail the trolley. Someone could conceivably still get hurt, but it improves everyone’s chances.
(What? You mean it isn’t a literal trolley that has to obey the laws of physics? Damn.)
News next day, 10 dead in derailment.
Ten baby puppies to be exact
Philosophy problems vs all real world problems
Napkin math, from the last time I saw this:
I’ve been thinking about this. I estimate a few people per 1000 would do an atrocity for no reason if they were guaranteed no consequences, and the deaths if the switch is pulled are 2^(n-1) for the nth switch. The expected deaths will cross 1 somewhere in the high single-digits, then (since it’s outcome*chance), so the death minimising strategy is actually to pull yours if the chain is at least that long.
Edit: This assumes the length of the chain is variable but finite, and the trolley stops afterwards. If it’s infinite obviously you pull the switch.
Could you elaborate what you are analysing here? If I dont misinterpret the model, the option where you dont double the victims minimizes deaths every time.
Ah, but then you’re giving the opportunity to the next guy to kill even more, if he wants. Most people obviously won’t want to do that, but a rare few will, and the body count gets so big so fast that it only takes a few switches before that’s a bad risk.
I was expecting a bigger number of switches, but I guess that’s just another example of humans being bad at tracking the consequences of large quantities.
But if you assume that such a person exists, then it is inevitable that someone will pull the switch. The very best case is that such a person is immediately after you. Therefore, the only minimizing choice is to kill however many people you have.
Oh, I see. Yes, the context here was that we assume all possible chain lengths. If it’s infinite the death-minimising strategy is obviously to pull it, and if your switch is the only one you obviously don’t. The question was where it changes from one to the other.
I’ll edit a clarification in.
Makes me wonder what happens when the number of people tied to the tracks exceeds rhe number of people currently alive. Should be around the 33rd lever.
I think you’re on the right track.
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There is one person in danger.
Now I pull the lever.
Now there are two _______
person in dangers
I’m afraid you failed the wug test, or rather one of many wugs test.
Modern financial system in one picture.
Just walk away and assume the original engineer put safety measures in place.
If you pull the lever after the trolley’s first set of wheels has passed the switch but before its last set of wheels has passed the switch then you’ll derail the trolley and everyone lives.
Except the guy in the trolley
He should have been wearing his seatbelt. That’s on him.
Also, why wasn’t he pulling the emergency brake? He deserves it.
The group of kids on a school trip in the trolley.
That’s also another fun layer of metaphor to this whole thing. What’s in the trolley? Nobody knows, and has to make decisions based on that incomplete information.
Yeah, not a bad answer! I’d assume someone is on the trolley too, but that’s just an assumption and, hey, maybe they would survive the wreck anyway!
If we keep doubling, will I eventually be a person on the tracks? There are a finite number of people, so eventually I would be, right? So, passing the buck would be equivalent to handing my fate to a stranger.
OTOH, if there are an infinite number of people, then this thought experiment is creating people out of thin air. Do these imaginary people’s rhetorical lives even matter?
Either way, it seems better to kill 1 person at the start.
If it creates infinite number of people, it could solve world hunger with some good ol’ Soylent green thinking. Although you might want to figure out how to slow down the trolley at some point.
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What is the base case for this?
