Ive been reading reviews of David Edmonds new book on the Trolley Problem. What I cannot understand is why it is relevant. The premise of the problem is impossibly improbably (you find yourself at a switch and have to choose whether to divert a trolley away from 5 people tied to the tracks toward 1 person tied to another track). Not only that, the dilemma presumes only two outcomes, when of course in real life there are many. In other words, it assumes a world where the future is determinable and there is no uncertainty. Do we live there? I dont. What they want to explain is why folks would more often choose to pull the switch, but if the question were changed so that instead of diverting the train and killing one person, you had the opportunity to push someone onto the tracks and save the rest, most people would choose not to do that, even though the assumed outcomes are the same (one dead, five saved). The reviews talk about intentionality and all that, but it seems to me it comes down to uncertainty. In real life, we dont know what the future holds and what the effect of our actions will be. We could be wrong about the danger to the five people tied to the tracks. If so, wed be in a much worse position explaining ourselves if we pushed a man in front of the train, than if we pulled a switch. We flick switches all the time and we could easily argue it was a reflex if we made a mistake. We dont often push people in front of moving trains. So in the event of a mistake, wed be hard-pressed to argue that it was innocent. That seems to be driving the answers, at least for my mind. Similarly with the supposed firing squad dilemma, where we are told that if we shoot one person, the other 19 will be set free, but if we refuse, all 20 will die. I dont know about the philosophers, but when presented with that dilemma, my mind thinks How can I trust the person presenting me with this dilemma? Id refuse to play along. Again, it is the uncertainty of the outcome that drives the response. Sure, if you pretend there is no such thing as uncertainty, you can invent all sorts of equivalent dilemmas that people respond to differently because they re-insert the uncertainty (i.e try to make the problem more real world and less fantasy). But why is that relevant or interesting? Am I missing something?
Posted on: Wed, 09 Apr 2014 00:51:06 +0000
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