Group topic was on Philippa Foot and the runaway train. Imagine that You are out for a walk one day and see a runaway train hurtling down the tracks towards five workers. The driver is unconscious, possibly as the result of a heart attack. If nothing is done, all will die. The train will squash them. It's travelling much too fast for them to get out of the way. There is, however, one hope. There is a fork in the tracks just before the five men, and on the other line there is only one worker. You are close enough to the points to flick the switch and make the train veer away from the five and kill the single worker. Is killing this innocent man the right thing to do? In terms of numbers it clearly is: you save five people by killing just one. That must maximize happiness. To most people this seems the right thing to do. In real life it would be very difficult to flick that switch and watch someone die as a result, but it would be even worse to hold back and watch five times as many people die.
What would you do? What if the five people were adults and the one person was a little girl or vise versa. How do you rationalize your decision. There still is the flaw that we think we would do and what we would actually do.
As we talked about in class, there isn't a real way to know what exactly you would do at the moment. Would it be your responsibility? You would be the only one to act in the situation and actually do possess a choice so existentially we are responsible. But on the other hand it was not our fault that the train was going out of control or our fault the workers were standing on the tracks when a train was barrelling down at them.
ReplyDeleteDQ: Would not acting at all on the basis that we wouldnt want to kill another just to save another? What if we didnt want to commit a murder to prevent a murder?
It just boils down to your morals and what you think needs to be done and as long as you can live with those consequences then it is ok by you standards.
DeleteDQ: If you think you would choose that the train would hit the 1 person over the 5 people. Would making that 1 person a child and the other 5 grown up(30 and older) change your mind? If so, Why?
I believe this is a difficult situation to put yourself in, in our minds. There are many variables that could persuade you one way or the other but we can't truely know what we would do unless put in that situation.
ReplyDeleteThe thought experiment is interesting in that we all at some point or another think about what we would do in certain situations and we go into our own imaginations where pretend a certain senario. However, it is still hard say what we would do unless put into that situation.
ReplyDeleteEither way, it appears that if someone dies, it is your fault by looking at it that way. Unless there is a significant difference in the amount of people, I would let fate have it. I would rather say I witnessed horror than to become a part of it. I would just be sure to call in 911 and rush to help any survivors after the collision.
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