[thret]

When I first heard this problem, it was told in a heart-wrenching first-person 'this actually happened' way. Roughly as follows:

"A man who worked the gears for a train line took his son to work. His son ran off to play and when it came time for him to divert a train (not doing so would cause a head on collision) he couldn't see his son, but he heard him cry out - he was stuck in the gears. Diverting the train would kill his son. So he does the right thing, sacrifices his son to save hundreds of lives."

This was a Sunday School story, meant to illustrate how God So Loved The World that he sacrificed his son. So I've actually always unhesitatingly believed that the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few, or the one.

As an adult and upon deeper reflection, I find that this holds true for strangers, but if I am completely honest my life and the lives of those I hold dear are worth more to me than the lives of basically any number of strangers.

[yongjik]

I also heard the story (actually, a slightly different version involving a bus driver with faulty brake) in "God Sacrificed His Son" setting, and man, that's totally fked up. I'm just glad I didn't hear it as a child. I might have actually believed that BS.

I mean, a man goes to work which involves speeding trains, and he lets his son play in the railroad? Out of sight? Assuming he's such an idiot, where's his manager and why does the manager even allow that thing? Does the manager even know it? How many safety regulations should be violated for this to happen?

And a speeding train is on a collision course with another unless one single guy moves the gear in time (with a few seconds of safety margin)? Think about it. What happens if the guy has to go to pee, or (more realistically) he had a heart attack?

It's doubly fucked up when used as a Christian parable, because, you know, isn't the whole point of God that he's omniscient. (And he designed and built the whole railroad system with zero safety margin... God knows why.)

[GFischer]

Hmm, I think that is a different problem (too many different variables).

It involves the rights and obligations of a parent, for one.

I also agree I might have chosen differently if it were my son.

[rayiner]

As a parent, not only would I not hit the switch, I'd blame Congress for the passenger deaths for not funding modernization of the switching infrastructure.

[philh]

If blame is a meaningful thing to assign, I'm going to assign at least some of it to you for not watching your son, and quite a lot of it to you for not flipping the switch.

I much prefer a world where you are sad and your son is dead, to a world where hundreds of people are dead, all their families are sad, and your son is alive.

(That said, it's at least somewhat plausible that if I was in that situation, I would also make the wrong decision. That doesn't make it right.)

[thret]

I'm confident most people would do the 'wrong' thing. A train-load of strangers is abstract, and it is difficult to comprehend. I think it is like in Schindler's List. 6 million Jews - who can grasp that? It is a number that makes no sense, a horror you cannot attach a face to. But we all are immediately choked up over the little girl in red.