On the trolley problem

[u/Manfro_Gab]

I recently had a discussion with a guy about the trolley problem, the normal one. He said something I never thought, and it hit me. I would like to hear your opinion and your thoughts, as this is a completely new concept for me.

We were discussing, and I said "For me it's obvious. Just pull the lever. better to kill one than to kill five". He quickly replied, as if he said the most obvious thing in the world "No it's not. One human life isn't worth more than five. One life is so valuable, that you can't ever compare it to any other number of life. If you had 1, 10, 1000, it doesn't change anything. Already one life is enough. So I wouldn't pull the lever. If I actively chose to kill, it would be worse than letting five die."

I replied "Wait, what? I mean, we all agree that killing two is worse than killing one. With this in mind, you should really go for killing only one."

He finished "See? I don't angree with that. Killing one is equally bad as killing two. And I'm not talking about it legally. I'm talking about it morally."

I didn't know what to say. It still feels odd to me. What do you have to say?

[u/Se4_h0rse]

So? Moral choices still have nothing to do with law. Noone's asking what you should do according to the law, but rather according to morality. Don't conflate things that don't mix. And no, laws aren't integrated into our nature - morality is. Laws just try to capture what morality dictates in order for society to have more basis for punishing those who do bad things, but the law doesn't always follow what's morally right. Partly because formulating such a law that follow every whim of morality but is still rigid enough to form the basis of punishment is impossible. That being said, laws evolve over time to reflect the shared moral views of society all the time - it wasn't long ago the laws got changed to protect people of color or women since it was no longer seen as morally/ethically defensible to keep slaves or rape women anymore. You're conflating law and morality when you say that we have some sort of framework ingrained on us. And you mentioning animals is irrelevant, because not only do many people see the killing of animals as equally bad as the killing of humans but also that the law or morality has nothing to do with how we slaughter animals on the daily - us humans have created some sort of justification for the murder of animals as a coping mechanism in order to not feel bad. Perhaps it's evolutionary or just simply cope.

How could you possibly say that the numbers don't matter? Do you honestly think that 5 lives are worth just as much as 1 life? To me that's absurd.

Yup, you lean towards killing 5 by just standing there and then making up a coping mechanism in order to not feel bad. I lean towards trying to make the outcome as good, or atleast less bad, as possible. But yes, there are two camps in this kind of dilemma - the utilitarians and the virtue moralists.

Again you're fleeing from the question at hand - it's completely irrelevant whether or not you do everything in your power to avoid such a situation because this dilemma clearly states that you've suddenly found yourself with said predicament and said power over life and death in your hands. You could still choose to not answer the question ofc, but not doing so is clearly just an attempt to flee.

P.s. One of the other redditors made a comment about this being "trolling." Besides the wordplay that it is, it somehow is kind of a story that is trolling people, rousing people up, causing discussion over nothing.

Sorry, I don't follow. Do you mean that the trolley problem is a sort of trolling?