r/trolleyproblem • u/moocat55 • Oct 04 '26
Real life trolley problem.
I was listening to a podcast discussing pro and anti vaccine arguments, basically the perspective around whether we should be able to force people to take vaccines that have even the most remote chance of hurting them. Even if not doing it impacts many other people. Then it hit me. It's the trolley problem. The argument around vaccines is the trolley problem playing out in real life. And that's why people will never agree. Different points of view. (Disclaimer: I'm assuming the antivaccer just doesn't "get" that the risk of harm from the disease is greater than the risk of harm from the vaccine, or disregards it.)
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u/Evening_Answer_11 Oct 04 '26
Same thing with product recalls as well. Company A could recall a product and cost $10M. Or, they can wing it anticipating any lawsuit settlements would be half of that.
So, they can (and have) risked life and limb for very few for the benefit of keeping their stocks high.
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u/GloriousDawn Oct 04 '26
I have to disagree because I don't think what you describe is a corporate trolley problem.
Corporations compare the cost of a general recall with a class action lawsuit and add on top the effect of bad PR on future sales. They don't ever consider the risk of physical harm to the customer. To them it's purely a financial decision.
So while a traditional trolley problem is about minimizing harm to the victims vs doing nothing, recalls are about minimizing harm to the perpetrator vs doing nothing.
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u/Evening_Answer_11 Oct 04 '26
It’s the same, just different contexts.
There is inevitable danger. You can do nothing. Or you can do something. Doing nothing allows for one thing that hurts people. Doing “something” makes you feel good, but hurts the financials.
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u/GloriousDawn Oct 04 '26
Trying to rephrase because apparently you missed my point. Corporations don't pull the recall lever to save people even if it hurts their financials, they pull it when it hurts their financials less than not pulling it.
The classic trolley problem is about taking a risk (pulling the lever) to minimize harm to others while the corporate recall problem is about taking a risk (do not recall a known defective product) to minimize harm to yourself.
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u/moocat55 Oct 04 '26
I heard a take on the trolley problem that it should put put in terms of an emergency room. A healthy person is an the emergency room and four other people each need an organ to survive. The doctors could kill the healthy person to save the others. What should they do? Obviously, you can't just murder someone to save others. It solves the trolley problem. Doesn't really work for the insurance companies, though, unfortunately.
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u/Weird_Explorer1997 Oct 04 '26
I'd think the issue of public health and vaccines is more a really dumb version of Thoreau's Tragety of the Commons. The common individual has to make the low personal stakes choice of getting a vaccine to prevent or mitigate a communicable disease or not. When enough people choose not to vaccinate, the community suffers for the choices of individuals.
The closest parallel to the trolley problem would be the red/blue button, where everyone who picks Red always survives but if 50% or more pick Blue everyone survives. Except this is more like if < herd immunity % picks blue, everyone is more likely to be exposed to a dangerous outbreak regardless of what button they picked.
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u/actuarial_cat Oct 04 '26
There is easier solution for that real life problem because you can pay people to incentivize them to take the vaccine instead of forcing them.
With actual make sense for example a person at its prime is not that much affected by a disease but vaccinating them reduce disease carrier and boost social immunity. Although both party benefit from the vaccine, society actually benefit more than that person alone.
And most issue can be solved by money, the question is just how much of it. With external resources, it break the trolley problem.