[oniony]

I guess because there's more wiggle-room with a non-action. If you don't pull a lever, you could argue there wasn't time to pull the lever, or that you were frozen with fear or whatever.

I think non-actions are judged less harshly than actions, so people are more inhibited in making them..

[pteraspidomorph]

Clearly not. The vast majority of people responding to this problem usually want to pull the lever, murdering an innocent who would otherwise have lived through the day - an utilitarian perspective that holds that by default it's best to maximize the amount of lives saved. It's difficult for those of us that would argue that every life is valuable, and that, not being god, the bystander does not have the right to make this call. The bystander did not place the runaway trolley there, nor are they responsible for the people who are tied to the tracks.

I would ask the person who is (in most of these scenarios) on the diverted tracks what they want me to do. They have the right to make this decision, since they are masters of their own life.

[NineStarPoint]

I’ve always presumed you don’t have time to ask those sorts of questions in these problems. You have to decide that you’d let 5 people die so your action doesn’t kill one, or kill the one not knowing how they feel about dying to save five.

What I find…not surprising I guess, but sad is that while a large percent of people would pull the lever only a small percent of people would pull the lever if they were the one on the other track. People not being at least as likely to pull the lever when they are at stake breaks all basic moral principles.

[pteraspidomorph]

I did notice that. I'd pull the lever if I was the one on the tracks, since in that case I am not robbing someone else of their life through my decision - my life is my own to sacrifice. At that point it's best to save five.

Then again, a sizeable minority wouldn't sacrifice their life savings for lives either, which means this portion of the respondents does not think the lives of strangers have value at all, or at least that they are not in any case responsible for lives other than their own. Which is interesting!

[FFRefresh]

Right now, non-hypothetically, would you be willing to donate your internal organs to those who will die without them, even if it meant you will not survive yourself?

[pteraspidomorph]

Not right now, no. That would be terribly inconvenient.

Jokes aside, I'm aware of my own moral weakness in this regard. The religion I was raised in - and I'm still a spiritual person - holds that suicide is the gravest of sins, but I don't have that high an opinion of my own life and its potential. The closer I am to the situation, and the more urgent it is, the more tempted I am. So I try to stay aloof, for the sake of those who love me, and out of my own instinct of self-preservation, which is a powerful force in most human beings.

If your mind was exactly like mine, and you were close enough to the situation to make the decision to sacrifice someone else for a group of strangers - and being tied to the tracks is pretty damn close - you would likely be willing to sacrifice yourself. But remember, someone must have tied me to the tracks in the first place for my life to be in danger. As I said in previous comments, in most cases I am, though inaction or stalling, attempting to save the life of the single person in the tracks - the person in the same position. I will not kill to save others, and attempting to not kill myself to save others is consistent with this position.

I would be useless as a soldier!

[asib]

If that's unpalatable, what about have you donated one of your kidneys yet? You can live a healthy life with just one. If you truly believe you would sacrifice yourself in this trolley scenario, I don't think it is possible to justify not having done something where (excepting the slight risk of more serious consequences) the only sacrifice is time.

[tomtung]

FWIW, some religious/cult people do donate their kidneys: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/kidney-cult-en...

[NineStarPoint]

A perfectly moral person might? But I also think there’s a difference of kind in dealing with tragic one-off events (Such as someone getting run over by a trolly) and dealing with normal course of life problems (illness and bodily degradation over time).

[FFRefresh]

To explore the idea being brought up here, what type of death causes are considered 'tragic' or 'one-off'? Is it the improbability of the cause which will influence the decision-making? If so, wouldn't how the cause is categorized/labeled directly impact our perception of the improbability of it?

For instance:

- Being run over by a trolley is a highly improbable event

- Being run over by a vehicle (higher category in which trolleys are a part of) is a less improbable event

- Dying of a very specific form of cancer which destroyed an organ is a highly improbable event

- Dying of cancer is less improbable

In the scenario for organ donation, what if the recipient had an improbable reason for needing the organ?

As far as my own views, I don't know if the tragicness/one-offness/improbability of the cause of death factors much in my decision-making. Though, I do think there's probably a good argument for reducing active suffering (that I haven't fully thought out).

[sbuttgereit]

There's more perceived wiggle-room with rationalizations, not actual wiggle-room.

The only moment in the scenario that matters is when you've made your choice and as others have said: it's binary. You pull the lever or you don't. The moral act is in making the choice, not what comes after. In that moment of choice you've expressed a hierarchy of your values.

Now, you might value most highly your own mental well-being, and making the most of that by rationalizing to yourself that you didn't actually make the choice that you just made. You might value your social standing or legal disposition the highest and make the choice accordingly. etc.

Of course, the scenario itself is a bit silly and not the kind of everyday living guidance that one will most likely have thought deeply about in anything than abstract moralistic terms. It's pretty rare to face that sort of scenario with that kind of consequence.