I’m a bit puzzled by this. If you care about yourself more than the five strangers, then why push or flip?
Pushing is going to get you prosecuted for murder in most jurisdictions, and could even attract a death sentence in some of them. Flipping is less clear: you could get a manslaughter charge, or be sued by the family of the one tied to the alternate track. The five you saved might decide to contribute to your defence fund, but good luck with that.
Or suppose you construct the hypothetical so there is no legal comeback: still, why do you want to push a fat man off a bridge? It takes energy, you could pull a muscle, he could notice and hit back or pull you over too etc. etc.
You’re being either really blind or deliberately obtuse. Caring more about your life than the life of five strangers doesn’t mean you care infinitely more about yourself than you do about them. Maybe you’ll pull a muscle flipping the switch? it’s entirely legitimate to say that you’ll take some costs upon yourself to do a big favor for 5 strangers without being willing to take the ultimate cost upon yourself.
Apologies. You are quite right, I was indeed being “really blind” and pretty obtuse as well (though not deliberately so). I’ve now spotted that the original poster explicitly said to ignore alll chances that the fat man would fight back, and presumably that extends to other external costs, such as retaliation by his relatives, the law etc. My bad.
I’ve also commented on this further down this thread. I now find my moral intuitions behaving very strangely in this scenario. I strongly suspect that my original intuitions were very closely related to all these knock-on factors which I’ve now been asked to ignore.
No I was pointing out that in all realistic ways of constructing the hypothetical there are going to be quite major risks and costs to oneself in pushing the fat man: an obvious one being that he easily could fight back. This may indeed be one of the factors behind different moral intuitions. (We have no instincts about the cost-to-self of flipping a switch: although that could also be very high in the modern world, it takes some thinking to realise it).
For what it’s worth, my own answers are “no flip, no push and no jump” for precisely such reasons: all too risky to self. Though if I had family members or close friends on the lines, I’d react differently. If there were a hundred or a thousand people on the line, I’d probably react differently.
No I was pointing out that in all realistic ways of constructing the hypothetical there are going to be quite major risks and costs to oneself in pushing the fat man
I’m guessing wedrifid isn’t taking that into account because we were explicitly asked not to do that here:
Try not to Kobayashi Maru this question, at least not yet. I know you can criticize the scenario and find it unrealistic.
Thanks for the patient reminder to read the entire original post before jumping into commenting on the comments. I did in fact miss all the caveats about wheelchairs, light rolling, fat man being anaesthetised etc. Doh!
I guess elharo should also have stipulated that no-one has any avenging friends or relatives (or lawyers) in the entire scenario, and that the usual authorities are going to give a free-pass to any law-breaking today. Maybe also that I’ll forget the whole thing in the morning, so there will be no residual guilt, angst etc.
To be honest, making the wheelchair roll gently into the path of the trolley is now looking very analogous to switching a trolley between two tracks: both seem mechanical and impersonal, with little to tell them apart. I find that I have no strong intuitions any more: my remaining moral intuitions are extremely confused. The scenario is so contrived that I’m feeling no sympathy for anyone, and no real Kantian imperatives either. I might as well be asked whether I want to kill a Martian to save five Venusians. Weird.
EDIT: I have now read your replies to other peoples responses. I see you have already acknowledged the point. Consider this response retracted as redundant.
Flip. Push. (All else being unrealistically equal.)
Pushing is going to get you prosecuted for murder in most jurisdictions,
You are fighting the hypothetical. Note that my response refrained from fighting the hypothetical but did so explicitly and acknowledged the completely absurd nature of the assumption that there are no other consequences to consider. That disclaimer should be sufficient here.
Or suppose you construct the hypothetical so there is no legal comeback: still, why do you want to push a fat man off a bridge?
Because I want to save 5 people.
It takes energy, you could pull a muscle, he could notice and hit back or pull you over too etc. etc.
Again, I chose not to fight the hypothetical. As such I refrained from opting out of answering the moral question by mentioning distracting details that are excluded as considerations by any rigorous introduction to the thought experiment.
I’m a bit puzzled by this. If you care about yourself more than the five strangers, then why push or flip?
Pushing is going to get you prosecuted for murder in most jurisdictions, and could even attract a death sentence in some of them. Flipping is less clear: you could get a manslaughter charge, or be sued by the family of the one tied to the alternate track. The five you saved might decide to contribute to your defence fund, but good luck with that.
Or suppose you construct the hypothetical so there is no legal comeback: still, why do you want to push a fat man off a bridge? It takes energy, you could pull a muscle, he could notice and hit back or pull you over too etc. etc.
You’re being either really blind or deliberately obtuse. Caring more about your life than the life of five strangers doesn’t mean you care infinitely more about yourself than you do about them. Maybe you’ll pull a muscle flipping the switch? it’s entirely legitimate to say that you’ll take some costs upon yourself to do a big favor for 5 strangers without being willing to take the ultimate cost upon yourself.
Apologies. You are quite right, I was indeed being “really blind” and pretty obtuse as well (though not deliberately so). I’ve now spotted that the original poster explicitly said to ignore alll chances that the fat man would fight back, and presumably that extends to other external costs, such as retaliation by his relatives, the law etc. My bad.
I’ve also commented on this further down this thread. I now find my moral intuitions behaving very strangely in this scenario. I strongly suspect that my original intuitions were very closely related to all these knock-on factors which I’ve now been asked to ignore.
No I was pointing out that in all realistic ways of constructing the hypothetical there are going to be quite major risks and costs to oneself in pushing the fat man: an obvious one being that he easily could fight back. This may indeed be one of the factors behind different moral intuitions. (We have no instincts about the cost-to-self of flipping a switch: although that could also be very high in the modern world, it takes some thinking to realise it).
For what it’s worth, my own answers are “no flip, no push and no jump” for precisely such reasons: all too risky to self. Though if I had family members or close friends on the lines, I’d react differently. If there were a hundred or a thousand people on the line, I’d probably react differently.
I’m guessing wedrifid isn’t taking that into account because we were explicitly asked not to do that here:
OK, my bad.
Thanks for the patient reminder to read the entire original post before jumping into commenting on the comments. I did in fact miss all the caveats about wheelchairs, light rolling, fat man being anaesthetised etc. Doh!
I guess elharo should also have stipulated that no-one has any avenging friends or relatives (or lawyers) in the entire scenario, and that the usual authorities are going to give a free-pass to any law-breaking today. Maybe also that I’ll forget the whole thing in the morning, so there will be no residual guilt, angst etc.
To be honest, making the wheelchair roll gently into the path of the trolley is now looking very analogous to switching a trolley between two tracks: both seem mechanical and impersonal, with little to tell them apart. I find that I have no strong intuitions any more: my remaining moral intuitions are extremely confused. The scenario is so contrived that I’m feeling no sympathy for anyone, and no real Kantian imperatives either. I might as well be asked whether I want to kill a Martian to save five Venusians. Weird.
EDIT: I have now read your replies to other peoples responses. I see you have already acknowledged the point. Consider this response retracted as redundant.
You are fighting the hypothetical. Note that my response refrained from fighting the hypothetical but did so explicitly and acknowledged the completely absurd nature of the assumption that there are no other consequences to consider. That disclaimer should be sufficient here.
Because I want to save 5 people.
Again, I chose not to fight the hypothetical. As such I refrained from opting out of answering the moral question by mentioning distracting details that are excluded as considerations by any rigorous introduction to the thought experiment.