The Trolley Problem

Introduced by Oxford University Philosopher Philippa Foot in 1967 the trolley problem stays a very controversial topic with no conclusive answer being presented .Many philosophical theorists decided to make use of reason as philosopher

In Thomson’s Trolley Problem the bystander must not flip the switch due to the difference between doing and allowing. As the bystander is not the driver, the decision he must make is either allow five to die or kill one. The death of the five workmen cannot be blamed on the bystander since if the bystander was not there, there would be no one to flip the switch the five workmen would die and the one workman would remain unharmed. However, if the bystander was to flip the switch he would have greater responsibility for the death of the one worker because if the bystander wasn’t there the worker would have survived.

Decisions are judged by the conclusion of a consideration. Have you ever had to make a decision that would ultimately render the way you or others viewed you? The narrator, Matt Windsor of the University of Alabama Birmingham expresses a character test through the “Trolley Problem” in his article, “Will your self-driving car be programmed to kill you if it means saving more strangers?” It is normally easy to judge circumstances, however once the pressure stacks on, the judgment becomes more and more blurred. Windsor forces us, as interpreters, to understand that some decisions are more complex and need to be taken in for more consideration.

1. The scenarios presented in class was utterly interesting and thought provoking since each scenario made me think differently and make my conclusion. My conclusions for these scenarios mostly remained similar except the third scenario where it relates with settling on decision between saving lives, where one needs to make a choice that can save 5 moderately injured people in compare to one person who is severely injured. In that case, if moderately injured could persist for adequate period, I would treat the severely injured person just as any morally proficient doctor would do but if there is no choice, it is ethical to save maximum probable lives. However, in scenario 1,2, and 4, I would like to handle it differently

The trolley problem is a hypothetical scenario created by philosopher Phillipa Foot in 1967 to challenge ones moral beliefs on what action they would take in two difficult scenarios. There are many adaptions to the original scenarios, however for the purpose of this essay the two scenarios can be described as follows.

Utilitarianism is a moral theory which seeks to maximize welfare and utility by defining any given situation as right and wrong depending solely on its outcome, yet while utilitarian thinking does in fact accomplish its goal of creating a universal moral code, it does so at the expense of freedom, oftentimes even going against moral instincts. For that reason, utilitarianism works well up to a certain point before it becomes unreasonable. The point where utilitarian thinking becomes unreasonable may be seen in the contrast between The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, the terrorist dilemma, the trolley problem, and the surgeon dilemma. The people of Omelas sacrifice the well-being of one child in order to give happiness to thousands of citizens,

He makes two different arguments which are based on what “if’s”. The two main points were what if a child were about to get hit by a moving train and you had the opportunity to move a switch to change the direction of the train in order to prevent the child from getting wounded or killed. But they would have to sacrifice their car which would be hit by the train since it was at the range of the railroad. As Peter mentioned that most would rather save the car

Say you’re in the market for a new car and are given the choice between a standard vehicle, or an autonomous vehicle (AV). The typical vehicle you operate and drive yourself, while the AV does that for you, thus allowing you the freedom to do other tasks while in the car. Which would you choose? Personally, a self-driving car sounds extremely time saving. However, before we get too comfortable with the idea of a vehicle that can operate itself, we must consider the ethical issues involved with such an invention. We must also determine how AVs should be programmed in order to handle hard ethical dilemmas. I think AV’s should be programmed in a way that they prioritize their passenger’s safety, while still attempting to minimize overall harm done outside the vehicle. To promote this thesis, I will look at two thought experiments, the potential outcomes, and the best way to program AV based on certain ethical views such as consequentialism. I will then show why I believe prioritizing passenger’s safety is important. This paper does not intend to provide a clear solution to the ethical issues surrounding AVs, but rather intends to address factors, in addition to minimizing harm that programmers need to consider.

In addition, the use of AI is quite controversial from an ethics standpoint. The trolley problem is a no-win situation where it is guaranteed that either one person or a group of people will die, based on the choices made by an outsider, who in this case would be the car. If programmed to choose the most utilitarian outcome, the driver of the car would perish in such a scenario. Knowing this information, the requirement of self driving cars could cause an extreme public outcry.

If I were the magistrate I would not have done anything differently. I agree that the magistrate did not have any other option. Why would you risk the life of an entire community for one person? Even though the man was innocent, the news shows what rioters are capable of, very chaotic, and will not stop at nothing until they get the demands they are seeking. Therefore, I would sacrifice the life of one innocent disliked man to save an entire community and maybe the life of police officers as well.

The Trolley Problem, proposed by Philippa Foot, is presented in this way, “You’re the conductor of a trolley. The brakes fail and if you do not flip the switch to make an oncoming turn, you will kill five people trapped on the tracks ahead. However, if you do flip the switch, you’ll kill one person trapped on the other set of tracks. What do you do?” (Rowe). According to utilitarianism theories, the right action would be to divert the trolley away from the five people and to the one person. However, other ethical systems, like Kantianism, may disagree with and reject this solution. The “right” and “wrong” answers are determined by perspective; one “right” answer according to one theory can be the complete wrong answer to another theory.

Similar to the first situation, there is a trolley is hurtling down the railway toward five people. You are on a bridge under which the trolley will go pass, and you can stop it by putting an obstacle in front of it to stop the trolley. As it happens, there is a fat man next you. The decision needs to be made by either pushing the fat man off the bridge or killing 4 people. Similarly, the decision has to be made between save or scarifies the majority, however, the situation is ethically different in my point of view comparing to the first scenario. Even you may argue that it is about reacting to save more people, I believe the action behind saving 4 people’s lives unlike the action you take in the first one. I will save the people on the railway by pushing the fat man off the bridge theoretically, however, I wouldn’t react like that in real life. This is because saving more people’s life is in accordance with general moral rules, but without considering the action. This time if I push the man off the bridge, it is equal to murder as the man is innocent and I incorporate directly in the process of killing the man, won’t you feel guilty because you become a murderer. As a result, I won’t push the man off the bridge to save the other 4 people due to several of the

The trolley problem is a hypothetical experiment in philosophy that involves an emergency rescue where an uncontrolled trolley travels down a track towards a group of five workers. A bystander happens to be standing next to a switch that can choose to flip the switch and divert the trolley and save the five, however, diverting the track towards a line which has only one worker on it. This problem poses a question on the rights of people sacrificing themselves or others for a better outcome. In this essay, I agree that it is permissible for the bystander to intervene and divert the track in order to save the five workers, resulting in the death of one. From an entirely utilitarian viewpoint, it is important to provide the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest amount of people (Smart 1973). However, it is important not to infringe upon the rights of others directly.

The point in this specific case is to show how in the first case “standard” we as humans will automatically redirect the trolley to save five people but if we have to put someone in front of the trolley our morals take control and we let the five people die. This is because as Liao says we do not intend for the man on the track to be hit in standard but in push we are intending for the innocent by standard to be hit over the five other people so because of this it is not permissible for us to push him into the trolley's way. There are multiple different variables in which can and will affect someone's chose. The way in which the cases are presented to the subjects can have an influence on what they choose. For instance if they are presented in a different order or if you are lecturing one group about how you should always save five if it means killing one but the control group you say nothing to then the first group is obviously going to lean towards saying yes to push because the thought of saving five has been buried into there

The doing and allowing principle was initially presented by – (------) . It can be summed up with: ‘doing’ as actions that are usually intended whereas ‘allowing’ is refraining from preventing; also, referred to as enabling (----). According to the doing and allowing principle, it is permissible in this Trolley Problem variation for the bystander to do nothing, letting the five die. Moreover, the proposal of Killing One or Letting Five die is also applicable to this variation and gives further weight to my verdict on this variation. Consequentialism, however, dictates that the value of five lives outweighs one and that the bystander should flip the switch, killing the one. However, in this case consequentialism neglects the principal of negative