The Trolley Dilemma
Introduced in 1967, the Trolley Problem has become one of the most notable hypothetical scenarios used as tests of ethics and psychology. Through this stylized ethical dilemma, this experiment has been used in many schools to open up discussions and thoughts amongst students.
Firstly, what is the trolley dilemma? The fictional scenario is pretty easy to understand:
Should you flip the switch and kill the one worker but save the other five?
Now, consider this version of the trolley dilemma:
“A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. You are on a footbridge over the track, in between the approaching trolley and the five workers. Next to you on the footbridge is a stranger who is very large in size. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to push this stranger off the footbridge and onto the tracks below where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if you do this, but the five workers will be saved.
Would you push the stranger off the footbridge, killing him but saving the five workers?
Are your answers to both versions the same or different?
Ultimately, this comes down to the conflict between utilitarianism and deontologicalism. Utilitarianism is the doctrine that actions are right if they are for the benefit of the majority whilst deontologicalism is the ethical theory that an action is good or bad according to a certain set of rules. One of the reasons why this dilemma is so notable is it sparks discussions of ethics, moral choice, limitations, responsibility, and what the measurement of good or right is by the end result.
From one perspective, your choice can be determined solely by the number of deaths as it may be clear that the death of five people is worse than the death of an individual, given that you are not in any relation to either party. Another struggle could be the execution needed to change the course of the train in which the second scenario gives a feeling of a more active decision to put the doomed individual in the path of the trolley which can make the readers feel more responsible for the death than simply flipping a switch in the haste of panic.
Choosing to kill the one person to save the five in the first scenario is usually aligned with utilitarianism. It is considered morally acceptable to kill one person in order to save five people. But, when it comes to the second scenario, research shows that the majority turn to deontological ethics, and are against taking the action that results in the killing of the individual on the other track. It is not acceptable to actually push a stranger to his death to save five people as this is still considered killing, which is inherently unethical and therefore, opposed by deontology.
Why is it that the majority answers this way?
Scientists believe that our moral intuitions have changed to make us good social partners. Humans learn from a young age that violence towards others results in punishments and it is morally incorrect to take actions that physically harm others. With the two versions of the dilemma, the act of active killing in the second dilemma with you having to involve more physical contact, it creates a change in mindset that harming one to save many is less acceptable depending on the amount of physical contact which then determines the amount of responsibility we end up feeling. Another difference between the switching and the footbridge cases is how the individual is used in the scenario. Treating others as individuals with their own rights rather than as objects is a vital aspect in being a good person within society. Using others as means to an end also takes part in our decisions of what we would do in the different versions.
Critics of the experiment state that it is useless to mull over the issue when it is highly unrealistic and although it may have a very low possibility of occurrence, the rise in advance in technology as well as the continuous urbanization of our world expresses parallels to the trolley problem.