Questions of Ethics

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Nat

I asked this on my facebook page after hearing it on a Philosphy Bites podcast, and the question took off pretty well. So I'll ask it here:

A train is coming down the tracks and will hit 5 people and kill them - unless a bystander - who is standing next to a switch that would move the train to another track - decides to flip this switch. If s/he does this, only one person would be killed. Should the bystander flip the switch?

I think you need to probably imagine that none of these folks are people you know. They are all of the same value to you - all strangers, all the same age, all law-abiding, all in the same state of health, etc. in order to do real justice to this question. You would also need to imagine that the bystander knows that if he throws the switch, the train will behave in the way it's supposed to.

BUT, it would be interesting also to hear what variables would influence you regarding whether the bystander should throw the switch.

I'm going to try to stay within the boundaries as you've drawn them. Thus, given this situation where, for instance, it may be impossible for any of the people to clear the tracks then the correct move is to flip the switch. Presuming that I have no reason to prefer the one person (it is not someone I know well) over the five then the utilitarian calculus is that since a choice *must* be made (and doing nothing still constitutes a choice in this situation) saving the five people outweighs the one.

I'm presuming this is taking place in this universe so if a train is on its way along a track and there are only two possible ways for it to go, it won't disappear, turn to smoke, or fly suddenly.

Cheers
Aj