The Archery Problem: An Analysis Of The Trolley Problem

Most people would pull the lever to divert the train onto the tracks where only one person is working. To throw the switch in order to maximize well-being, saving five workers corresponds with the ethical example of utilitarianism. Utilitarians believe the most ethical course of action is the one that offers the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

There are not many activities out there that relax and soothe me quite like shooting my bow. It is not as simple as it sounds though, just pulling on the string, releasing the string, and watching the arrow fly towards your target. There are a number of aspects that must be taken into consideration when trying to shoot a bow and arrow efficiently, this is where we will get into the physics of archery.

Virtue ethics is a normative theory whose foundations were laid by Aristotle. This theory approaches normative ethics in substantially different ways than consequentialist and deontological theories. In this essay, I will contrast and compare virtue ethics to utilitarianism, ethical egoism, and Kantianism to demonstrate these differences. There is one fundamental aspect of virtue ethics that sets it apart from the other theories I will discuss. For the sake of brevity and to avoid redundancy, I will address it separately. This is the fundamental difference between acting ethically within utilitarianism, egoism, and Kantianism. And being ethical within virtue ethics. The other theories seek to define the ethics of actions while virtue ethics does not judge actions in any way. The other theories deal with how we should act, while virtue ethics determines how we should be.

What is really ethical? What is right? What is wrong? What are the factors involved in making the distinction between killing and letting die? What is the difference between killing one to save five and leaving one to die while rescuing five? Philippa Foot created a thought experiment that presents two cases known as Rescue I and Rescue II. In these cases, one must create a dissimilarity between doing and allowing. They must ask themselves what would be the moral thing to do. Philosophers have tried to explain the concept of morals and ethics and create systems to relate the two. John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant are both two of these kind of philosophers. They express conditions on morality which are then applied to an ethical position. These conditions both explained what they believed is right and wrong and who benefits from what, but they are very different. Mill and Kant’s ethical positions foil one another and are very necessary when being applied to Foot’s thought experiment. This begs the question if you will do things to save the greatest number, or if you would do things strictly because it feels right. In Rescue I and Rescue II, Mill would provide happiness for the 5 individuals, while Kant would give life to whomever needed it simply because of his “good will.”

In Peter Singer’s essay “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”, published on September 5th, 1999 in The New York Times Magazine, Singer claims that the solution to world poverty is for Americans to donate excess income to aid organizations. His article consists of a gathering of exaggerated situations which he uses to engage readers, while also adequately supporting an argument of moral duty by comparing the hypothetical scenarios to Americans who do not donate. Singer exhibits an appeal to pathos to a substantial amount throughout his article. The provided situations set an outline for the reader to feel certain, appealing emotions.

The complexity of the Trolley problem is one that can be resolved by unravelling the concept itself and considering the multipe possible analogies, the use of which is very important in the understanding and answering of ethical questions such as the Trolley problem . The trolley problem mainly deals with the law in relation in to morality, how public policy dictates or influences legality. Finding the most ethical solution to the problem is what is required of those who dare undertaking solving this problem

Every day we are faced with certain situations that challenge us with how to act in an ethical manner. It can be human nature to feel unsure or conflicted with the correct moral choice. Some can say that one should know how to handle such dilemmas and others may say that there should be a reference of some sort to help guide through such conflicts. Sometimes we know the answers and sometimes we are unsure of how to handle certain situations. Most times we go through life wondering what we should do. As I become further educated on the different theories of ethics, I believe there are answers that are available in guiding one through an ethical dilemma and or judgment. I will discuss Vincent Ruggiero’s three basic criteria, Robert Kegan’s order of consciousness, the three schools of ethics and the correlation between all three.

(6)You should not kill an innocent (friendless but healthy) person EVEN IF by doing so (and giving his organs to several others) you could increase net happiness.

In The Maze Runner, Thomas breaks the Glade’s number one rule: Never go into the Maze. Since Thomas, however, acts out of his own moral code, a conflict ensues. The question becomes: “Is it okay to punish someone for saving two others’ lives?” versus “Is it okay to let someone go without punishment for breaking the biggest law here?” Though what Thomas does is against their biggest rule, he should not be punished. The unifying idea is to help

One of the Dharma in Buddhism that is part of the process to reach Nirvana (enlightenment) is to have no attachment.. According to Buddhist texts, attachments bring suffering and if someone wants to reach enlightenment and end Samsara (the cycle of rebirth), they must let go of the things that bring them suffering. Being able to let go of attachments to reach a higher level is not only something related to Buddhism but can be applied to other concepts such as archery. Where such as one has to let go of thirst to reach nirvana, an enlightened state, one must be able to to let go of attachments to get better or master a craft such as archery. This is shown in the book, “Zen

The issues of morality are most clearly expressed through examples of different methods of analyzing a situation. The case of Holmes, an officer in charge of a sinking ship, shows the striking differences between philosopher Immanuel Kant’s beliefs and those of the Utilitarians. After Holmes’ ship sinks, there are twenty passengers in a lifeboat that is only meant to hold fourteen people. There was no time to send out a signal for help before the ship sank, so no rescue is guaranteed and the nearest land is fifteen hundred miles away. Holmes decides to force the wounded passengers and those wearing life jackets off of the lifeboat and make his way to shore without them. This action

For generations, philosophers have long contemplated the distinction between morality and immorality. The ‘Fat Man’ variant of the ‘Trolley Problem’ is a thought experiment first articulated by Judith Jarvis Thompson (1929 – ) which aims to question our moral intuition. Its basic form is as follows: A train/trolley is coming down a track out of control. Standing on a platform you can see that if nothing is done, the train will inevitably run into five rail workers down the track and kill them.

The trolley problem can be expanded to discuss a number of related ethical dilemmas, all referring to the conflicts inherent in utilitarianism and consequentialist ethics. The problem with the trolley driver scenario is that the driver is faced with a choice of whether to infringe on the rights of one man (the man on the tracks) or whether to allow the trolley to crash, thereby killing the five people on board. The driver is stuck between two equally unfortunate situations, and the issue calls into question whether it is more ethical to save five lives than it is to refrain from infringing on the life on an innocent man. Inherent to the problem is the fact that it is impossible to know whether the diversion of the trolley will in fact save the five lives.

The last dilemma faced is whose life is of more value, those who use the bridge for transportation or those who use it for suicide. This is a dilemma because “the screen might create dangerous wind resistance and make the bridge structurally unstable,” which increases the risk of those who use the bridge for transportation (111). Although this risk is undoubtedly small, it still places a vastly larger amount of people in danger. This is known because there is an “average of 20 to 25 [deaths] per year” by suicide, yet a larger number of vehicles, which have the possibility of containing more than one passenger, pass over the bridge every minute ("Traffic/Toll Data" 1). The resulting dilemma is whether one should slightly increase the risk for millions of people in order to drastically decrease the risk for an individual. By Utilitarianism, you should choose the action that decreases the risk the most for the largest number of people, but due to not being able to truly quantify the risk, the decision remains unclear. An ethical dilemma does not have a distinct solution as no action is completely without an error in morality, in order to achieve a good outcome, it is essential to dissect the issue and identify the primary stakeholders.

All employees (including the company executives) should be guided by moral principles and ethical values when making decisions (Balc & Simionescu, 2012). The ability of executives to make ethical decisions can be influenced by their cognitive bias (Zeni, Buckley, Mumford & Griffith, 2015). Utilitarianism is one of the frameworks that can be used to address ethical dilemmas. Utilitarianism holds that decision makers should take alternatives that maximize the happiness of the majority of the stakeholders (Choe & Min, 2011 and Marques, 2015). This presentation will discuss how the 8-step ethical decision making process can be applied when addressing a dilemma using the utilitarianism framework. The presentation will also guide the executives of Toyota on how to address the negative publicity associated with the production of cars with faulty acceleration system.