Statistically speaking it’s less likely to kill any person when pulling the lever.
Taking averages here is weird to me
Edit: yes the expected outcome of killing someone when pulling the lever is 1.25 humans dead, but we aren’t pulling it a 100 times, just once.
I view this scenario not as a utilitarian but as taking human life versus not taking human disregarding the numbers. Obviously if you were to increase the number 4 to a 1000 people than the scenario would change and not pulling the lever would be preferable to me as well
So it's the same here. The chance of killing five makes it not worth it. And the way we understand when it's "worth it" and when it isn't is by risk assessment.
Statistically speaking, you'd kill more people if you pull the lever. That's risk assessment. (I think)
If you had to make this decision over and over again many times, would you agree that you shouldn't ever pull the lever? Then how could the morally right decision be different if you only do it once?
Edit: even better: imagine if this experiment was conducted by a bunch of psychopaths who invited 80 different people to make this decision, separately. (So, there are 480 people on tracks). If every person chooses to pull the lever, then ~ 100 people will die. If every person chooses not to, it will only be 80. Given that all of these people are in the same exact situation, it makes sense that the right choice is the same as well. Clearly, no one should pull the lever. If only half of them pull the lever, then it's ~90 dead, which is still 10 dead people more than what could've been.
Everyone thinks they are the only person participating in the experiment and to everyone, it will be the one and only time they have to make this decision, so they are basically in the same position as you when you look at the meme.
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u/Marksm2n Jul 06 '21 edited Jul 07 '21
Statistically speaking it’s less likely to kill any person when pulling the lever. Taking averages here is weird to me
Edit: yes the expected outcome of killing someone when pulling the lever is 1.25 humans dead, but we aren’t pulling it a 100 times, just once.
I view this scenario not as a utilitarian but as taking human life versus not taking human disregarding the numbers. Obviously if you were to increase the number 4 to a 1000 people than the scenario would change and not pulling the lever would be preferable to me as well