So, you reframe the problem to be not about making what is best for others, but about what is best for your self-image. — SophistiCat

Not self image.

Just trying to locate where the moral question really is, where the moral issue really arises.

The moral question is why does ANYONE have to die here? Did someone rig the whole situation intentionally? The driver certainly didn’t. They are just forced to pick a lane. Is this a case of negligent brakes on the trolley and no trained trolley driver to make the decision? How is a bystander any more responsible than any other person in this situation?

If it is wrong to kill people, it is wrong first and foremost to build this situation. Period. Whoever rigged the whole scenario is doing the intentional killing. The driver forced to pick a lane is incidental to the trap builders intentional act.

So when the driver intentionally chooses one lane or the other, they are probably going to recognize that mathematically, saving five is better than saving only one. But I don’t see holding them responsible for killing anyone.

I'm not sure I agree that scenarios like the trolley problem never happen - I think they probably do a lot in a messier way and in some ways the fact that the trolley problem has no perfect outcome reminds of the messiness of reality sometimes. — Apustimelogist

But the messiness of reality strips the simplicity out of the scenarios adding so many moving parts that the scenario in itself has changed so much that the parameters of measurement becomes skewed.

I think the value in these analogies is not necessarily in trying to find out what the right thing to do is, but why we have the moral preferences we do and how they differ. — Apustimelogist

Yes, as an introduction to philosophy it's great. But it's not very good at higher level thinking about morality as it's already clear how complex morality can really be.

Its like an experiment. Scientific experiments need controlled and independent variables to figure out whats going on. If you have a simplified scenario and you change certain aspects of it and see what people think then it may give more clarity as to why we make certain choices or what our preferences are. If you just present a scenario with lots of different factors then its not always clear what is actually guiding peoples decisions. — Apustimelogist

Yes, but in that case I much rather look at the scientific experiments that have already been conducted. Since experiments that cannot be actually conducted only becomes theoretical and at best very surface level. The fact that people regularly over-estimate their ability to act morally in every single situation makes it hard to actually get a good "scientific" result.

Most moral analogies usually only pinpoints the banalities in people's confidence in their own morality, but those people were usually not very involved in critical thinking about morality to begin with. The same people who would most likely freeze like a deer in headlights when they actually face a real moral dilemma and situation.

Since the complex parameters always matters in real situations, I'd much rather try and find a method of thinking that can incorporate variables and speed up decision making within moral situations; a more holistic approach with a focus on having a trained mental state and a practical moral methodology to be able to act regardless of pressure.

To not-pull-the-lever is an omission. — Leontiskos

No it’s not. What if in this situation I want to kill five people? My choice is killing five people. How do I actively effect that choice - by actively refusing to pull the lever, but intentionally sitting still. These are not omissions.

There is stuff to ponder in the trolley problem but the difference between a wrong of omission and a wrong of commission is tough to find here. There is first, the act of the trolley trap builder who commits an act of murder of either five or one person. You can’t build this scenario to be a moral problem without knowing the intention (or negligence, or just life’s predicaments) behind it.

If the whole situation arose innocently, and for some innocent reason five men were tied to the trolley tracks, and one standing on the other, and you innocently knew how the lever worked the tracks, and you innocently knew no one else was going to take responsibility for what happens, then you might be forced to decide whether your own participation in things will help improve the outcome, and quicker save five and kill one. But I don’t see how given the innocence of every other aspect of this scenario we have to all of a sudden focus on the morality of the person thrust into that fast moving scene. It’s not a moral question - it’s a practical one, and whatever happens isn’t the driver’s fault whether he chooses to switch lanes or chooses to stay in one lane.

But I don’t see how given the innocence of every other aspect of this scenario we have to all of a sudden focus on the morality of the person thrust into that fast moving scene. — Fire Ologist

Suppose someone walking by a lake sees a child fall, hit his head on a rock, and start floating face down in the water. They only have to get a little bit wet to save the kid's life. If they don't, can't we judge them? Wouldn't it be wrong to let the kid drown?

To not-pull-the-lever is an omission. — Leontiskos

No it’s not. — Fire Ologist

It obviously is.

I want to kill five people? My choice is killing five people. How do I actively effect that choice - by actively refusing to pull the lever, but intentionally sitting still. These are not omissions. — Fire Ologist

Yes, it is. Just as you can be culpable for an omission, so too can you effect some outcome via an omission. Your claim that because someone can achieve an intended outcome by not-doing something does not invalidate the fact that not-doing-something is an omission.

1a. something neglected or left undone — Merriam Webster | Omission

To not-pull-the-lever is to leave the act of pulling the lever undone. This is particularly obvious when the whole question is one of whether to pull the lever. The one who considers this question and then decides not to pull the lever has omitted to pull the lever. Whether this omission amounts to killing or murder is part of the point of the trolley problem. It can't just be stipulated away.

It’s not a moral question - it’s a practical one — Fire Ologist

Moral questions are always practical.

Yes, it is. Just as you can be culpable for an omission, so too can you effect some outcome via an omission. Your claim that because someone can achieve an intended outcome by not-doing something does not invalidate the fact that not-doing-something is an omission. — Leontiskos

If I had a duty to save the most people when riding a trolley that had no proper conductor, than sitting still would be an immoral act of omission.

But do I have any duty to participate in this situation at all? That has to be addressed first.

If I had a duty to save the most people when riding a trolley that had no proper conductor, than sitting still would be an immoral act of omission. — Fire Ologist

I have not spoken of "immoral acts of omission." I have spoken about omissions. See:

To not-pull-the-lever is an omission. [...] Whether such an omission is wrong will depend on the analysis. — Leontiskos

Whether this omission amounts to killing or murder is part of the point of the trolley problem. It can't just be stipulated away. — Leontiskos

not-pull-the-lever is an omissio — Leontiskos

It’s not an omission if you intend to kill five people. It’s how you carry out your intention. It’s a physical act to stay seated in order to kill five.

You said you can omit pulling the lever. If you omit pulling the lever, are you omitting everything then, or choosing and physically enacting the killing of 5? If you can omit pulling the lever, are you committing to staying seated? Or are you merely omitting all acts? Which goes to participating in the whole rigged experiment.

It’s not an omission if you intend to kill five people. — Fire Ologist

This argument has already been addressed:

Yes, it is. Just as you can be culpable for an omission, so too can you effect some outcome via an omission. Your claim that because someone can achieve an intended outcome by not-doing something does not invalidate the fact that not-doing-something is an omission. — Leontiskos

Specifically, here is your argument:

1. Nothing which is intended can come about by omission.
2. Suppose the death of the five is intended.
3. Therefore, in that case the not-pulling of the lever which results in the death of the five is not an omission.

(1) is false, and the fact that one can be culpable for an omission proves that it is false. If nothing which is intended could come about by omission, then one could never be culpable for an omission. But this is mistaken because some omissions bear on volition, and these kinds of omissions are called negligence. Whether omitting to pull the lever involves negligence is part of the problem at stake.

-

If you omit pulling the lever, are you omitting everything then, or choosing and physically enacting the killing of 5? — Fire Ologist

One of the central aspects of the trolley problem gets at the question of whether one is equally responsible for omissions and commissions:

To not-pull-the-lever is an omission. [...] Whether such an omission is wrong will depend on the analysis. — Leontiskos

Whether this omission amounts to killing or murder is part of the point of the trolley problem. It can't just be stipulated away. — Leontiskos

But the messiness of reality strips the simplicity out of the scenarios adding so many moving parts that the scenario in itself has changed so much that the parameters of measurement becomes skewed. — Christoffer

I don't see this much different to how scientific experiments are always much simpler than everyday reality. A dice roll is presumably describable via Newtonian / classical forces but no one creates a direct Newtonian / classical model of a dice roll and then conducts an experiment to validate it.

But it's not very good at higher level thinking about morality as it's already clear how complex morality can really be. — Christoffer

For me, the point of it isn't to produce moral thinking and correct moral answers but to uncover the underlying reasons and intuitions of moral thought.

Most of us would assume those reasons are consistent across many different scenarios regardless of complexity or if "the experiment [has] already been conducted".

Yes, but in that case I much rather look at the scientific experiments that have already been conducted. Since experiments that cannot be actually conducted only becomes theoretical and at best very surface level. The fact that people regularly over-estimate their ability to act morally in every single situation makes it hard to actually get a good "scientific" result. — Christoffer

The thought experiment itself is the conduction of it. I just want to see what the opinion or judgement is of it. The fact that people may over-estimate their ability to act morally would apply to any thought experiment regardless of complexity or realistic-ness.

Most moral analogies usually only pinpoints the banalities in people's confidence in their own morality, but those people were usually not very involved in critical thinking about morality to begin with. — Christoffer

I disagree. As far as I'm aware there is no consensus on the correct solution to the trolley problem. The fact that people disagree brings up the question of why they disagree and what this says about their moral thinking and what kind of variables make them change their moral choices, which imo is an interesting thing in its own right. The question of how people act and actually behave morally in real life (and whether they actually do what is in agreement with the beliefs, judgements, moral frameworks they have) is also another interesting question in its own right.

I think my disagreement with people in regard to these things maybe stems from me finding these questions interesting in their own right as opposed to just a vehicle for prescribing practical morality.

One of the central aspects of the trolley problem gets at the question of whether one is equally responsible for omissions and commissions:

To not-pull-the-lever is an omission. [...] Whether such an omission is wrong will depend on the analysis. — Leontiskos

It just does a poor job of highlighting the omission.

So the other guy on the trolley who is just sitting there unaware of anything, omitting to do anything at all, does he have a duty to choose a lane and save some people? Is he omitting his duty of vigilance over what lane the trolley should be in?

The whole reason there might be a duty to save the right people is because you were given the responsibility to do anything at all. Or you take responsibility to do anything at all. But the raw facts of the scenario don’t address any duties at all. There is no reason to blame someone for failing to act when they had no duty to act.

So if we are allowed to bring in exterior facts, like a duty to save anyone, we can rework the scenario any way we want. The scenario as it stands, to me, doesn’t present a moral question about saving or killing human lives, it presents a moral question about whether there is a duty to make any decision at all, to take any action at all, to participate and consent to one or the other committed acts (5 or 1) dying.

So the other guy on the trolley who is just sitting there unaware of anything, omitting to do anything at all, does he have a duty to choose a lane and save some people? Is he omitting his duty of vigilance over what lane the trolley should be in? — Fire Ologist

Arguably, yes.

The whole reason there might be a duty to save the right people is because you were given the responsibility to do anything at all. Or you take responsibility to do anything at all. But the raw facts of the scenario don’t address any duties at all. There is no reason to blame someone for failing to act when they had no duty to act.

So if we are allowed to bring in exterior facts, like a duty to save anyone, we can rework the scenario any way we want. The scenario as it stands, to me, doesn’t present a moral question about saving or killing human lives, it presents a moral question about whether there is a duty to make any decision at all, to take any action at all, to participate and consent to one or the other committed acts (5 or 1) dying. — Fire Ologist

As you say, whether a duty exists is part of the problem. The fact that the problem does not explicitly mention duties does not mean that duties are not relevant to the problem. Moral questions of this kind almost never explicitly mention duties.

Again, my point here is that what you described as "the heart of the trolley problem" is not the heart of the trolley problem. What you boiled it down to is not a problem or a dilemma at all. Everyone knows that the death of five is worse than the death of one, ceteris paribus. If it were that simple then there would be no disagreement over the trolley problem.

- The view your construal excludes is well-represented by Peter L. P. Simpson's, "Justice, Scheffler, and Cicero." The paper also constitutes a response to 's OP.

Everyone knows that the death of five is worse than the death of one, ceteris paribus. If it were that simple then there would be no disagreement over the trolley problem. — Leontiskos

Exactly.

So ethics arises not in the practical facts, but in the intentions behind them.

So you are saying the scenario is asking us whether, in these circumstances, a duty arises to act at all, and then complicates it by then asking if you fail to act at all, or pull the lever, are you culpable for committing murder, or culpable by omission for committing the murder of five?

I notice that in the paper the situation is portrayed as "killing one or killing five",but that would be an inaccurate representation of cause and effect. The omission of pulling the lever does not kill anyone.

The question really is, does one involve oneself by pulling the lever, thus killing one and saving five, or does one refuse to get involved (and thus omit to pull the lever).

Negligence, culpability, these are legal terms, and I think under most legal systems you would be charged with second-degree murder if you pushed some innocent bystander on the tracks, regardless of your intentions.

If you are talking about these terms in a moral sense, I think they need to be explained in more detail. When is one morally culpable? Negligence implies a failure to do a duty - what duty are we talking about here, and when can one be said to be morally negligent?

Nothing which is intended can come about by omission. — Leontiskos

That’s not what I am saying about omission. I am saying there must be an affirmative duty prior to there being an intentional omission of acting on that duty.

If you intend to kill five you can sit still, but you are committing an act of sitting still.

If you see you have a duty to save five and you sit still intentionally, you are committing a wrong because of your duty by your act of omission.

Suppose someone walking by a lake sees a child fall, hit his head on a rock, and start floating face down in the water. They only have to get a little bit wet to save the kid's life. If they don't, can't we judge them? Wouldn't it be wrong to let the kid drown? — RogueAI

Not helping a kid floating face down can easily be wrong morally/objectively, even if they have to get soaked.

That’s not comparable to being given instructions on how to work trolley levers, told people are (for some reason) tied to train tracks, told another person is standing on the other track, and being told you alone have to take responsibility for the outcome.

Does anyone think the people on the tracks (or their families of the deceased) could blame the person who pulled the lever for the death? There is much more to it than the decision to pull levers or not. The ethics lies in those places, not in the lever predicament.

It’s more immoral to ask a person to make this decision than it is for the person to kill 1 or kill 5. The rigging of the outcome - death or more death - that is where the wrong doing occurs.

If you are talking about these terms in a moral sense, I think they need to be explained in more detail. When is one morally culpable? Negligence implies a failure to do a duty - what duty are we talking about here, and when can one be said to be morally negligent? — Tzeentch

Exactly the point I am trying to make. The moral questions in the trolley problem are more about the trolley builder, the trolley driver who abandoned his post, the person who rigged the whole scene, the story of the five guys tied to the tracks, the circumstances that thrust someone to make this awful choice - not the person who picks one or five deaths. In the person who picks the one or five deaths, I think the moral question is, should he or she do anything at all - is it right for them to trust someone teaching them about levers in the moments before certain death around the corner?

This isn’t about whether it is better to let one person die or let five people die, or put another way, to kill one person or kill five - that’s easy. And none of that can be murder under these circumstances, and the single lever puller or ass sitter should not be the first held accountable in this scenario. They might be last to be held accountable. Where are the brakes anyway? It’s the big trolley corporation’s fault! This is basically a James Bond villain scenario. It’s all practical considerations here. The ethics is not on the table.

My take is the most ethical thing to do would be to refuse to participate. You can call that choosing to kill five, but that’s not what I said. That is choosing to leave the responsibility for creating this scenario where it lies before you were told about the lever.

There is no duty here.

That’s not comparable to being given instructions on how to work trolley levers, told people are (for some reason) tied to train tracks, told another person is standing on the other track, and being told you alone have to take responsibility for the outcome.

Does anyone think the people on the tracks (or their families of the deceased) could blame the person who pulled the lever for the death? There is much more to it than the decision to pull levers or not. The ethics lies in those places, not in the lever predicament. — Fire Ologist

Nobody argues that these thought experiments aren't contrived. J.J. Thomson's violinist analogy is even more implausible, and still one of the most famous thought experiments of all time. It does a great job of showing the permissibility of abortion in cases of rape, even if one concedes a fetus is a person.

In the case of saving five at the expense of one, I think a case could be made for a policy of non-interference, but that case falls apart when the numbers get extreme. For example, suppose aliens arrive at Earth, and demand to play a game of chess with Magnus Magnusson. If Magnus refuses, Earth's population will be sentenced to work to death in the aliens' salt mines. If he agrees, they'll bestow tech for cheap fusion reactors. Does Magnus have a moral duty to play chess against the aliens? Are we justified in cursing his name while we dig for salt if he refuses? I think the answers to that are obvious.

I think a case could be made for a policy of non-interference, but that case falls apart when the numbers get extreme. — RogueAI

It also falls apart when the scenario is accidental / incidental and hasn't been engineered by some evil agent.

That's true, too.

I would never pull the lever, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a morally bad outcome.

I would never pull the lever, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a morally bad outcome. — Bob Ross

What if the person is not innocent? What if the person being run over is a death row inmate?

I would never pull the lever, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a morally bad outcome. — Bob Ross

Couldn’t you just as easily say “I would never sit still on that trolley, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act (sitting still in the knowledge that by doing so five people will die) to avoid a morally bad outcome.”

What’s the difference? You are killing someone mo matter what you do. So if you wanted to uphold “one cannot commit an immoral act to prevent a morally bad outcome” wouldn’t you have to pull the lever? Just like you would have to sit still?

Which points to the non-agency of the choice, and therefore the a-morality of choosing to kill one or five.

I refuse to add premises until someone gets somewhere with the basic scenario.

I agree one cannot commit an immoral act to prevent an immoral outcome, because by committing an immoral act you have already facilitated an immoral outcome, avoiding nothing you intended to avoid.

But in the scenario, if you are part of the game, you are not permitted to avoid killing. So it’s no longer about the morality of killing since we all want to avoid killing anyone. You are not free to avoid killing so, if you are playing the game, you cannot be held responsible for committing an immoral act to avoid an immoral outcome. That’s not what you did. You simply choose one or five deaths. You didn’t choose death or no death. That choice was made by the trolley master and lever trainer.

I think a case could be made for a policy of non-interference, but that case falls apart when the numbers get extreme. — RogueAI

It also falls apart when the scenario is accidental / incidental and hasn't been engineered by some evil agent. — Apustimelogist

How so?

It doesn't matter whether one is asked to murder to save five, a million or the rest of the human race. There's no onus on the bystander to involve themselves.

There's no magical number at which participation becomes mandatory and murder becomes a moral deed.

I would never pull the lever, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act to avoid a morally bad outcome.

Your not pulling the lever is perfectly reasonable, is internally logical and no one can (correctly) fault you for your choice. However, pulling the lever is also reasonable for someone else (with a different logic system) to choose. As to your reasonable declaration that killing innocent people is wrong, sure it is, but folks do things that are wrong all the time (though perhaps not with such severe consequences). Thus wrongness is not a complete barrier to performing an action.

That doesn't make them guilty in the sense that they have forfeited there right to live in this trolley incident.

If I am a convicted felon, can you just walk up to me 5 years after my conviction, when I get out, and kill me for fun? Of course not. I was, in the instance that you do, innocent.

Couldn’t you just as easily say “I would never sit still on that trolley, no matter how many people I would save by doing so. Killing an innocent person is always wrong; and one cannot commit an immoral act (sitting still in the knowledge that by doing so five people will die) to avoid a morally bad outcome.”

It would be immoral to avoid helping save people if there is a morally permissible way to go about it. Letting something bad happen isn’t always morally permissible. I think we can hold people accountable for what they didn’t do just as much as they what they did.

What’s the difference?

There is an avenue whereof one can save them without doing something immoral; unless you are stipulating that sitting still is immoral, is that it?

You are killing someone mo matter what you do.

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!

This is the mistake of the consequentialists that makes it so appealing: they don’t understand the nature of moral responsibility, and how it relates to actions and intentions.

If I let something bad happen to someone else to avoid doing something bad, I am not morally responsible for the bad that happened to them; because my actions are not what is causing the bad to happen to them (it is someone else’s doing or nature’s doing) and I cannot intervene to save them without actually doing something wrong.

For example, imagine a someone walks up to you and says that they have 12 people that they are torturing in their basement; and that if you stab the innocent person that is about to walk passed you to death that they will let the 12 people go. Assuming you can trust what they are saying, would you do it? You shouldn’t. But your response would be: but either way, you are doing something bad (because either you let them continue to be tortured or you kill an innocent person). However, this is flawed thinking: the person morally responsible, in the event that you refuse to kill the innocent person, is the guy who kidnapped and is torturing 12 people in their basement---that burden of responsibility and culpability does not transfer to you just because you refuse to do something immoral. On the other hand, if you do something immoral, then you are morally culpable for it.

I don't see this much different to how scientific experiments are always much simpler than everyday reality. A dice roll is presumably describable via Newtonian / classical forces but no one creates a direct Newtonian / classical model of a dice roll and then conducts an experiment to validate it. — Apustimelogist

The key difference is that they aren't experiments, they are theoretical in nature only. You cannot really do these experiments practically and the ethical requirements today are so high that they can't ever be done. Therefore the scientific relevance without any form of actual experimental validation makes these quite useless in the same way we can't use string theory as a foundation of thinking about physics as the only form of validation for that is how well the math matches up to the rest. But without any actual correlation between that math and the wild statements of that theory it becomes useless as a foundational theory of everything.

For me, the point of it isn't to produce moral thinking and correct moral answers but to uncover the underlying reasons and intuitions of moral thought.

Most of us would assume those reasons are consistent across many different scenarios regardless of complexity or if "the experiment [has] already been conducted". — Apustimelogist

Yes, they work as introduction courses to philosophy, but since there's no validation past the theoretical, and real world examples of similar events show much more complexity in their situational circumstances that they become unquantifiable as statistical data, they end up being just introduction material, nothing more.

The thought experiment itself is the conduction of it. I just want to see what the opinion or judgement is of it. The fact that people may over-estimate their ability to act morally would apply to any thought experiment regardless of complexity or realistic-ness. — Apustimelogist

The problem is that since the main point of moral philosophy is to find truth in what constitutes and defines human morality, it requires accuracy in how we determine morality and situations of moral thinking. These thought experiments aren't valid in any scientific manner other than to conclude just how people over-estimate or under-estimate their ability to think morally, but they're not really good as actual components and premises of moral theories.

I disagree. As far as I'm aware there is no consensus on the correct solution to the trolley problem. — Apustimelogist

I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with since it's the fact that there's no consensus that's part of putting a spotlight on people's banalities when thinking about morality. It rather shows the weaknesses and lack of depth that people have around the subject of morality as their justifications for their solution to the trolley problem becomes arbitrary and sometimes just a question of their current state of mind and mood.

The fact that people disagree brings up the question of why they disagree and what this says about their moral thinking and what kind of variables make them change their moral choices, which imo is an interesting thing in its own right. The question of how people act and actually behave morally in real life (and whether they actually do what is in agreement with the beliefs, judgements, moral frameworks they have) is also another interesting question in its own right. — Apustimelogist

But still, the problem is that people's justifications rarely correlate to how they actually behave in real moral situations. Their "critical thinking" about their choices in a moral thought experiments just becomes self-indulged fantasies about their ego, rather than a true examination of their morality. The problem with these theoretical lines of thinking and discussions end up being fiction rather than examinations of truth.

And I'd say that fiction actually manage to be better at promoting moral thinking as the thought experiments in themselves rarely have an empathic dimension to them. But investing yourself in characters of a story that make decisions on your behalf, or even have yourself in control of them like in games, usually promotes much better critical thinking about morality. Just reading the audience discussion around the moral actions in The Last of Us part 2 and how people had problems with everything that happened in that story is more fascinating and revealing as a case study in morality than how people justify their choices in the trolley problem.

I think my disagreement with people in regard to these things maybe stems from me finding these questions interesting in their own right as opposed to just a vehicle for prescribing practical morality. — Apustimelogist

I found them interesting when I started out studying philosophy, but the further I've dived down into the complexity of moral philosophy the more trivial I've found these thought experiments to be. Especially when taking into account the complexity of human cognition and psychology and the entire experience of the human condition, both for the individual and the social realm.

I think the only way a consequentialist can consistently go is to deny that it is immoral to kill an innocent human being: they would have to say that sometimes that is true, and sometimes false.