Train Conductor Ethics
As we often do on Foolosophy Friday, we’re going to start with a conundrum. Here are the basics;
- You are a train conductor. One day you are happily moving along the tracks when you see something terrible ahead. On the track you are on, two people are tied up and laying unconscious. If you continue, they will die.
- Luckily, there is a side track you can take. Less than lucky is that on this track lies a single person, similarly tied up, unconscious and immobile. If you switch to the other track, that person will die.
- If you continue on the tracks, the two people will be killed. If you change tracks, the one person will be killed. You can’t stop the train or do anything else to avoid hitting either the pair or the lone person.
Now the question is this: What do you do? Do you go ahead and kill the two people, or do you change tracks and kill the one?
How do you decide? Should you decide on the basis of doing the least harm? If so, you’ll probably change tracks. Yes, you’ll kill someone, but you’ll save two lives. If you continue without switching tracks, don’t you inflict more harm?
Does it change anything if the single person is conscious and can see you coming? Or if instead of 2 people it is 100? Or they are children? Why does that make a difference?
Think about this: If you continue, you don’t have to change anything. By acting you choose to do something, namely kill a person that otherwise would have been alive. Are you a murderer because you chose to kill the one person?
These kind of hypotheticals are simplistic, but they aren’t designed to teach you what to do in these kinds of situations. The question asks what we mean by morality, or more specifically, by the concept of the most good to the most people. (Or the least harm to the least number of people.) If you believe acting so as to bring about the most good for the most people, this kind of problem may arise. But if you think choosing to take the life of someone is wrong, then in this situation at least, you will have to cause more harm than good.
Hmm.
(Photo courtesy jamesfischer’s flickr page through Creative Commons license. Thanks, james fischer!)