My favorite realist injection into the trolley problem is that there will be far more uncertainty: you won’t know that the fat man will stop the trolley. I keep picturing someone tipping the poor guy over, watching him fall and break a few legs, moaning in agony, and then get mowed down by the trolley, which continues on its merry way and kills the children tied to the tracks regardless.
Have you come up with a better scenario for the trolley problem?
The one I currently like the best is:
Trolley: You’re a surgeon, you have a dying patient in your care, he needs five full litres of healthy blood to survive the operation; fortunately, you have exactly five liters available. You’ve just opened him up when five more emergency patients arrive, each of whom could survive with just one litre.
Fat man: There is no dying surgery patient, but the same five new emergencies have just arrived and you have no blood reserves at all. What you do have is a healthy but unconscious patient, with five litres of good blood in his veins.
It’s still not perfect though, because the role of doctors has deep cultural roots (Hyppocratic oath and so on), so the idea of a doctor doing harm to a patient feels repugnant and blasphemous, and since a patient feels like he is “entrusting” himself to a surgeon there’s also an overtone of betrayal. Modern hospitals, huge and anonymous, have only partially deleted such feelings (and they try their best not to).
Having played a healer in many online games, I’ve discovered that triage (what you’ve described above) quickly becomes second nature, to the point where if someone performs the wrong response to a threat, I will literally say aloud, “go die then” because I have more important people to take care of. I consider it a signature of the best healers that they will abort a spell on someone who needs it to instead cast it on someone who is more important.
A true trolley problem would have to be contrived by a murderous, insane villain ala Saw); the uncertainty remains in any real world scenario that I’ve come across
Though perhaps organ transplants can serve as a stand-in. Tons of otherwise healthy people just need one organ to live out a good life, and tons of people who are somewhat negative utility have nice, juicy organs. We’ll know we’re on our way to fixing the trolley problem when organ donation is mandatory, and can be a punishment handed down similar to the death penalty for those who harm society.
That’s what makes heroism so poignant in real life. If you have to shoot an innocent but firmly believe it’ll save the world, you’ll probably brood a little (especially if there’s also a cost to you), but mostly you’ll get massive fuzzies. (I’ve never shot an innocent, but defending a cause you think is just is… more pleasant than it should be.) If you have to shoot an innocent and you expect it won’t save the world but on average it’s worth it anyway, it gnaws at you.
Heroism is throwing yourself on the tracks to save the greater number of people. Pushing somebody else may be an example of decisiveness, or courage (in the sense of grace under pressure) but there is nothing heroic about it.
If it’s really purely a cost to others, okay. But usually there’s also a cost to yourself—you push someone else and get a death sentence, or a life sentence, you push a loved one, or you’re just eaten alive by guilt for the rest of your days.
Ha. I like Steve’s version better though, since you can assume away all the environmental uncertainty leaving just indexical uncertainty (the distinction doesn’t really exist but bear with me), and yet people still can’t just go “LCPW!”, because this version is both way less convenient and more probable. I bet it’d still annoy the hell out of a real philosopher, though.
My favorite realist injection into the trolley problem is that there will be far more uncertainty: you won’t know that the fat man will stop the trolley. I keep picturing someone tipping the poor guy over, watching him fall and break a few legs, moaning in agony, and then get mowed down by the trolley, which continues on its merry way and kills the children tied to the tracks regardless.
Have you come up with a better scenario for the trolley problem?
The one I currently like the best is:
Trolley: You’re a surgeon, you have a dying patient in your care, he needs five full litres of healthy blood to survive the operation; fortunately, you have exactly five liters available. You’ve just opened him up when five more emergency patients arrive, each of whom could survive with just one litre.
Fat man: There is no dying surgery patient, but the same five new emergencies have just arrived and you have no blood reserves at all. What you do have is a healthy but unconscious patient, with five litres of good blood in his veins.
It’s still not perfect though, because the role of doctors has deep cultural roots (Hyppocratic oath and so on), so the idea of a doctor doing harm to a patient feels repugnant and blasphemous, and since a patient feels like he is “entrusting” himself to a surgeon there’s also an overtone of betrayal. Modern hospitals, huge and anonymous, have only partially deleted such feelings (and they try their best not to).
Having played a healer in many online games, I’ve discovered that triage (what you’ve described above) quickly becomes second nature, to the point where if someone performs the wrong response to a threat, I will literally say aloud, “go die then” because I have more important people to take care of. I consider it a signature of the best healers that they will abort a spell on someone who needs it to instead cast it on someone who is more important.
A true trolley problem would have to be contrived by a murderous, insane villain ala Saw); the uncertainty remains in any real world scenario that I’ve come across
Though perhaps organ transplants can serve as a stand-in. Tons of otherwise healthy people just need one organ to live out a good life, and tons of people who are somewhat negative utility have nice, juicy organs. We’ll know we’re on our way to fixing the trolley problem when organ donation is mandatory, and can be a punishment handed down similar to the death penalty for those who harm society.
That’s what makes heroism so poignant in real life. If you have to shoot an innocent but firmly believe it’ll save the world, you’ll probably brood a little (especially if there’s also a cost to you), but mostly you’ll get massive fuzzies. (I’ve never shot an innocent, but defending a cause you think is just is… more pleasant than it should be.) If you have to shoot an innocent and you expect it won’t save the world but on average it’s worth it anyway, it gnaws at you.
Heroism is throwing yourself on the tracks to save the greater number of people. Pushing somebody else may be an example of decisiveness, or courage (in the sense of grace under pressure) but there is nothing heroic about it.
This is a definitional dispute and an attempt at applause lights rather than a helpful comment.
I don’t agree with your judgement. The applause light reference in particular doesn’t seem fair.
If it’s really purely a cost to others, okay. But usually there’s also a cost to yourself—you push someone else and get a death sentence, or a life sentence, you push a loved one, or you’re just eaten alive by guilt for the rest of your days.
Ha. I like Steve’s version better though, since you can assume away all the environmental uncertainty leaving just indexical uncertainty (the distinction doesn’t really exist but bear with me), and yet people still can’t just go “LCPW!”, because this version is both way less convenient and more probable. I bet it’d still annoy the hell out of a real philosopher, though.