Let’s suppose that someone flicks the switch, but then realises the deontologists were actually correct and that they shouldn’t have flicked it. Do they now have an obligation to flick the switch back?
That’s a great question!
My guess is that at the moment you touched the switch for the first time, you have violated the deontologist rules, and they are not reversible, so further touching the switch can only increase your sins.
(The whole idea of reverting your action to revert the result belongs to the consequentialist area. Deontologists care about the way, not the destination.)
As an analogy, imagine crossing the street at a red traffic light, and then crossing it back to “undo” your traffic violation. Sorry, does not work this way. You were supposed to stay where you are. You cross the street, you broke the law. Now you are guilty of breaking the law, and again, you are supposed to stay where you are now. Crossing the street again only means breaking the law twice.
Similarly, when you redirect the trolley, you are gulity of murdering one person and you are supposed to stop there. Redirect it back, and now you are guilty of temporarily endangering one person’s life and killing five people. On the other hand, if you don’t touch the switch, you are not guilty of anything.
Let’s assume that the train will arrive at the intersection in five minutes. If you pull the lever one way, then pull it back the other, you’ll save someone from losing their job. There is no chance that the lever will get stuck out that you won’t be able to complete the operation on trying. Clearly pulling the lever, then pulling it back is superior to not touching it. This seems to indicate that the sin isn’t pulling the lever, but pulling it without the intent to pull it back. If the sin is pulling it without intent to pull it back, then it would seem very strange that gaining the intent to pull it back, then pulling it back would be a sin.
Instead of thinking about crossing the road, then trying to uncross it, imagine that you are with a group of friends and you have told them to cross the road. You then realise that telling them to break the law was wrong, so you stop them before they cross. This is a better analogy as for the trolley problem, as pulling the lever didn’t carry any inherent risk, they were only under risk in the condition you didn’t pull it back. In contrast, for crossing the street, you’ve already created the risk the law is designed to prevent unconditionally. People may have already seen you cross the street which creates disrespect for the law. While someone may have already overheard your suggestion to cross the street or seen you pull the lever (before you pulled it back), this harm is still less then the harm caused by carrying the act to completion. In the crossing the street example, the most significant harms have already occurred, in the Trolley Problem, you can prevent them.
An analogy more similar to the crossing the street problem is imagining that you can bring one group back to life, in exchange for killing the other group. Perhaps this means the people who should have survived had you not interfered survive, but it also means that you killed two groups of people.
That’s a great question!
My guess is that at the moment you touched the switch for the first time, you have violated the deontologist rules, and they are not reversible, so further touching the switch can only increase your sins.
(The whole idea of reverting your action to revert the result belongs to the consequentialist area. Deontologists care about the way, not the destination.)
As an analogy, imagine crossing the street at a red traffic light, and then crossing it back to “undo” your traffic violation. Sorry, does not work this way. You were supposed to stay where you are. You cross the street, you broke the law. Now you are guilty of breaking the law, and again, you are supposed to stay where you are now. Crossing the street again only means breaking the law twice.
Similarly, when you redirect the trolley, you are gulity of murdering one person and you are supposed to stop there. Redirect it back, and now you are guilty of temporarily endangering one person’s life and killing five people. On the other hand, if you don’t touch the switch, you are not guilty of anything.
Let’s assume that the train will arrive at the intersection in five minutes. If you pull the lever one way, then pull it back the other, you’ll save someone from losing their job. There is no chance that the lever will get stuck out that you won’t be able to complete the operation on trying. Clearly pulling the lever, then pulling it back is superior to not touching it. This seems to indicate that the sin isn’t pulling the lever, but pulling it without the intent to pull it back. If the sin is pulling it without intent to pull it back, then it would seem very strange that gaining the intent to pull it back, then pulling it back would be a sin.
Instead of thinking about crossing the road, then trying to uncross it, imagine that you are with a group of friends and you have told them to cross the road. You then realise that telling them to break the law was wrong, so you stop them before they cross. This is a better analogy as for the trolley problem, as pulling the lever didn’t carry any inherent risk, they were only under risk in the condition you didn’t pull it back. In contrast, for crossing the street, you’ve already created the risk the law is designed to prevent unconditionally. People may have already seen you cross the street which creates disrespect for the law. While someone may have already overheard your suggestion to cross the street or seen you pull the lever (before you pulled it back), this harm is still less then the harm caused by carrying the act to completion. In the crossing the street example, the most significant harms have already occurred, in the Trolley Problem, you can prevent them.
An analogy more similar to the crossing the street problem is imagining that you can bring one group back to life, in exchange for killing the other group. Perhaps this means the people who should have survived had you not interfered survive, but it also means that you killed two groups of people.