I feel like you just pulled a lever on me. Honest conversation over here.

What’s wrong with the doctrine of double effect? But I don’t really know what that is.

“What was your intention?”

“I thought if I pulled the lever I would be preventing a horrible accident that killed five people.”

“Did you know you would be killing one person?”

“Well, yes.”

“So you intentionally killed one person?”

“No I intentionally steered the trolley away from five people - should I have done something else?”

“Yes, you murderer, you should have realized that by sitting still you would not have been called before we moral adjudicators for sentencing your unethical, immoral heart.”

Bring in the next participant.

“What was your intention?”

“I hate you! And all society. I contemplated pulling the lever to feel the power of killing as I killed, but quickly realized I could kill more people if I sat still - so I intentionally sat their on the seat’s edge so that I could know I was the reason four more than just one would spill blood.”

“Ok, as long as you didn’t touch the lever. Good man.”

You are claiming that by refusing to pull the lever Bob has killed five people, and this is a controversial claim on your part. — Leontiskos

No I’m not!

If we are supposed to think that no one set this up, that it is just one of life’s predicaments that we get to decide, then we are further from a moral dilemma. No one can be charged with or accuse themselves of murder of killing an innocent person. No one could be faulted for action or inaction. Pulling the lever is both killing an innocent person and saving 5 innocent people. Sitting still is both killing five people and saving one. Those are just the facts. Why would anyone hold whatever happens against the random person who made a choice quickly to do anything there? Their involvement was part of the accident! Pulling the lever is saving 5 people. Sitting still is saving one person. Or both of these are a rash decision exigent circumstances. If you can assume the whole thing is just an accident that you are caught up in, there is no moral culpability or wrongness.

If you had the poise to think you could make this ongoing accident better and intended to make it better by pulling the lever, you are not intentionally killing one person.

Here is what Bob Ross said (and I agree):

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 — Leontiskos

Well, actually, I would not pull the lever either. Because by pulling the lever I would be demonstrating my willingness to participate in the whole scenario at all.

I take the hypo to be an attempt to force you to participate. It assumes you have to make a choice - choose five or one deaths. And under these circumstances, they are all innocent deaths.

Then, now playing along, now playing your role in this scene, you then have to choose how many innocent deaths happen. To effectuate that choice you either sit or you pull a lever.

But a third option that the hypo was trying to block is to instead say “no - I’m not making any choice, I’m not conducting any act towards your goals for my participation in it. My act of sitting here has nothing to do with which way the trolley goes because I have no duty to follow any of these instructions or participate in any way. I take no responsibility for any of these deaths - rightly so.”

That, to me, is the right moral response - to stay out of the whole bloody death trap scenario.

Failing to pull the lever could be wrong by omission, and sitting still could be an act of intentional murder. To answer that you don’t look to what the act is (sleeping in your seat or flipping lever), you look to what duties exist, what intentions exist and then what actions are taken.

You may be right on something I said and meant to say. I’m not sure I agree I was wrong.

But my simple point is, you need a duty in place before you can perpetrate a wrong by omission. It’s omission of a duty. The act is not the point. Sitting still is an act. Sitting still doesn’t tell you anything about whether that act perpetrates a wrong by omission or a wrong by commission, or anything.

The trolley problem, to me, creates a simple switch, if you switch the switch one way, five people die and the other way one person dies. The way you physically operate that switch is by sitting down or pulling a lever.

If we all have a duty to save the most lives at every opportunity to do so, then sitting still could be wrong by omission of that duty. If you switch the people on the tracks and put 5 on the lever side and 1 on the rolling side, then failing to pull the lever would be a wrong by omission as well.

the premise is almost certainly that, "Nothing which is intended can come about by omission." — Leontiskos

No it’s not almost certainly, because it’s not the premise at all. I’m saying sitting still doesn’t reveal an intention, you have to seek more facts (such as ask the person) what their intention is by sitting still.

A lifeguard sees a person drowning and does nothing and watches the person drown. That is intentional conduct. It is a wrong done by omission of a duty.

How, in a monetized, competitive, profit-driven society, where, if you don't hustle, you end up living in the street and having police clear out your encampment on a regular basis, because the sight of have-nots upsets the haves, are children supposed to learn unselfishness? — Vera Mont

The same way they would in a communal society.

You don’t think anyone can learn of unselfishness in any society?

I think this is a strawman because cleaely what is not interesting about the trolley problem is not the trolley problem on its own, its the underlying reasons that people make decisions on it. — Apustimelogist

I’m not against augmenting the facts to continue the conversation and add more layers. I’m saying that as it initially stands, the hypo has very few layers. The only ethical question posed in the basic formulation of the problem is: should you participate at all in the demand that you make the decision? My answer to that is no - you didn’t set up the scenario, and it would be irresponsible of you to take action on these facts. And I still don’t know that, if you do decide to participate and take action (and so act irresponsibly towards the overall scenario), you could make a wrong decision on who dies or a right decision on who lives. 5 versus 1 living certainly seems better but why did someone give me this choice? Why didn’t they just say “pull the lever, pull the lever!” ?

Do I trust the murderer who set up this predicament for me that pulling the lever will save five people by killing only one? I don’t know how you build that trust - maybe you can see the people coming fast, but are you supposed to know that the lever will effectuate the choice the murderer who set this up is telling you it will?

Before we can judge the passenger, we have to know they heard and understood the instructions, and that they believed them to be true. They weren’t just playing around with levers.

These aren’t incidental facts. These aren’t facts that can just be layered on top. They are essential considerations before you could analyze any moral/ethical issue for the passenger.

If you stick to the raw, initial facts first, before moving this into more layered situations and questions - what do you see as the moral issues?

I see only whether to make any choice at all as the moral question - should you trust anyone who drops this into your lap and do anything they say? Or if you do trust them, are you implicating yourself in a wider conspiracy that you would likely agree you would not intend to be a part of?

Someone may not be blameworthy in some sense that they can't help being forced into a situation where someone had to die. But does that mean there was not a better or worse decision ethically? Not necessarily. — Apustimelogist

So “not blameworthy”, but worthy of a judgment of “worse ethically.” Hmm.

You need to define (so layer into the hypo) some things to clarify that.

If you are forced to either kill one or five people, with seconds to choose, and you had no interest in killing anyone at any point, and you can’t be held blameworthy for the outcome, how is the decision you do make better or worse ethically? I would say the decision (should you decide to risk participation in this death trap) is a practical one, not an ethical one. Less death is practically speaking a better outcome. Why ethically? What is the duty on these facts?

That is why I am arguing that it is metaphysically impossible for an infinite succession of button pushes to end after two minutes. — Michael

Exactly. You don’t have infinity any more anywhere in the whole scenario if you want to talk about 2 seconds and what happens at 2 seconds or after.

What is infinite is the number of switching that would occur before two seconds. Once you are looking at second number 2, you have to ignore all of the premises and activity of the scenario. Midnight is not part of the conversation. It’s a limit that will never be reached so the state of the lamp at midnight is indeterminable because the function of the switching will never be operating at midnight.

that 'absolutely' is a nitpick you can cling to if you're determined to avoid the idea of a communist society. — Vera Mont

I don’t see it as a bit-pick. It’s a massive game changer. If there is any ownership (which I can’t see avoiding) then there is no need or possibility of imagining a world where there is no concept of ownership (which the OP asks). Further if we admit some ownership, we have to address all that would follow, such as ownership disputes, selfishness, accounting for those who share more than others, etc, etc. It becomes the same world we have today just maybe with disputes over socks and whose trash is piling up over there, instead of percentage of owner profits and whose war has to be cleaned up. (And I’m sure there are people who would go to war over socks.). But any ownership (which I see as unavoidable) refutes the possibility of true communism as an economic and political structure.

But I’ll check out Kazohinia.

And I do think that if people were more charitable, sacrificed their personal wants more for the good of others, were more compassionate and less selfish, greedy and proud, the society would look more communal and communist. I don’t resist communism. The utopian vision is a good one. I just don’t see it happening as a political or economic structure - instead it would have to be a daily, voluntary effort involving daily sacrifice for the good of others - otherwise if a communistic lifestyle had to be imposed from above, it would only be oppression and additional suffering and less equality and less access to all of the things that are supposed to be shared. Ownership will never go away. We all need to be more responsible for others using the the things we own.

What if it was about their own life and not innocent people? What if it was about tge reward of a tasty cheeseburger: " I didn't intend to kill anyone, I just wanted that cheeseburger so bad". — Apustimelogist

I think the question the hypo poses is: should the person who either pulls the lever or sits still be held responsible for anyone’s death? And the answer is no, under the existing facts. Or should the person be held responsible for anyone’s death and culpable for their murder as a co-conspitator in the whole trolley of death scenario? And the answer is, it depends on their intent and whether they can be held responsible for anyone’s death by participation in the scenario.

If we are going to start changing the hypo and adding intentions and cheeseburgers, we would have to conduct a new analysis of responsibility and intent and actions in furtherance of these.

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. — Bob Ross

I’m not a consequentialist.

And I agree that the trolley hypo in general doesn’t account for intention and responsibility, so it misses the mark as a real platform for a discussion of morality.

And the only time the conversation gets interesting is when people change the hypo because it barely presents an ethical issue, if you play along with it as written.

I hate building off of it to make points, but I do see it reducible to this: This trolley can’t be stopped and will kill someone in a few seconds; if you sit there it will kill five people, or if you pull that lever it will kill one person; you get to choose. Go make your choice.

Sitting there is choosing to kill five and pulling the lever is choosing to kill one.

I see people disagree with that but I only see that as people trying to give the hypo more credit than it is worth.

If you play along with the hypo, there is one choice here - five or one die.

But there is no moral responsibility taken for making either choice, because of intention and duty - which are utterly undeveloped in the hypo and why the hypo barely presents an ethical issue.

You need to know the intentions behind all of the pieces here. The moral issues lie with the person or people who rigged the whole scenario. Why isn’t a conductor who has responsibility and duties regarding the trolley making this decision? Did he leave intentionally as part of the rigged situation or was he thrown off the trolley to bring about this scenario? Why is anyone tied to trolley tracks and who did that? Does the idiot standing on the tracks have any responsibility for standing there?

The moral question for the person on the trolley having this choice thrust upon them by other people (other moral agents) is whether to participate in this at all and make a choice. I actually think it would be immoral to play along with the scene and do anything.

That goes to intention. The person on the trolley who plays along still wouldn’t be guilty of any murder. People can kill people without any intent and it’s not murder.

But if the person on the trolley said “oh, wow, I finally get to hold lives in my own hands - I’ve always wanted to kill people so I’m going to sit here and kill the most people I can.” Now, because of intent, I think he he is culpable for murdering five.

But if the person on the trolley said “I need to save the most innocent people I can” and pulled the lever he wouldn’t be culpable for murder because that was not his intent.

This hypo has no analysis of duty (responsibility taking) or intent (what the act is to the actor).

To bolster the idea of omission versus commission (this hypo not capturing the concept of omission properly) here is an example of a wrong done by omission. A lifeguard sitting on his chair sees a kid drowning. He watches and does nothing and the kid drowns. That is killing by omission because he had a duty to act and omitted his responsibility. It could even be murder depending on how additional facts about intent play out.

On the trolley, why would a duty to make this decision arise in some random person thrust into the situation? It wouldn’t. There is no duty to choose a lane for a passenger. And there is no duty when told about levers and people tied to tracks to quickly choose who dies. It’s an insane world that trolley is riding through and to see some sort of duty here we need that person to have some understanding of insane-world trolley rules like “by agreeing to ride this trolley you agree to take control of the lever (whether you pull it or leave it) as soon as everyone else on the trolley magically disappears and some number of people are on the tracks.” Without a duty, whatever action is taken cannot be called an omission of that duty.

And to say a duty to save the most lives arises in this situation is ridiculous. If you want me to picture myself in a real world situation like this, I need the real world. In the real world, the person who pulled or did not pull the lever would be interrogated for his intent before murder charges and moral judgment could be contemplated, and in the real world the person would be saying “I don’t know! I just thought I should save the most people, or I just thought I would be doing the wrong thing if I pulled the lever.” End of interrogation. The deaths are not his fault or his responsibility.

Nice, I like irony. — schopenhauer1

Then why not have kids. Life is good too.

just the fact that you are making a decision for someone else — schopenhauer1

Having a child, feeding a child, etc. are as much making a decision for someone else as deciding not to have a child, or aborting a child.

If it is good to have no children because life is suffering, than life isn’t all bad since we get to make this good decision to have no children. Aren’t we brave and honest and considerate. Such wonderful compassion for the suffering of future generations - we should build ourselves some statues for thinking so compassionately and reasonably so that all future generations will remember our sacrifices. Oh wait.

We all have to be born and have to live before we can stumble upon the idea of anti-natalism. Seems self-defeating to think much of it. Trying to subvert the nature that brought us to this idea.

If life is ever good enough to allow one to ponder whether to have a child, life must be good enough for the child just the same.

If life is so bad to ponder whether to have a child, don’t have a child. But should no one be allowed to have a child? Death is still coming for all so what does it matter if you do or do not have a child? No one, not even your children (if you have any) are going to be there long enough to justify any judgment of it.

Maybe take a philosophy class. Night class. It’s a win/win opportunity. Could be cheaper than the sites Outlander found 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. — 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.

The only world where freedom is possible (but not always actual) is in the mind. Aside from the mind, everything is determined. And the mind itself can be determined. And the mind’s structure is conditioned, and its behaviors determined. But the mind can ignore all, ignoring time, space, matter, and motion, and just sit itself still, free, thinking of the impossible, constructing what cannot be constructed by hands. And this mind can give its free consent to rejoin with time, space and matter, moving as it is moved once again with it, in it, determined once again by it.

It’s kind of stoic, but with an existentialist awareness.

Freedom and determinism are both there. We don’t prove it exists by causing some effect and placing our free selves between these two. We are the cause when we are the freedom. We are its existence by claiming something as a cause in the first place, or consenting to something as my effect, something I claim responsibility for.

Freedom is in the thought of freedom, born in the thinking.

But absolutely “no” ownership? Seems impossible to imagine.
— Fire Ologist
It's impossible for some people — Vera Mont

Have you known anyone who could describe a coherent picture of a society of people where there is no ownership?

I haven’t seen it on this thread for instance.

What does a community look like where there is no ownership of anything?

Does everyone have a share of everything, or no one have a share in anything?

Who is in trouble when someone forgets to take the trash out? Anyone given ownership of failed trash duty?

Two months later Michael is still stuck in the same infinite loop. — Metaphysician Undercover

I posted a bit earlier in in the thread, then noticed recently it was up to 23 plus pages so I was curious if everyone had gotten to the bottom of the staircase.

But found out we are still counting the same steps over and over again!

I think I’ll give it another two minutes then I’m done.

Possibly done for an infinite number of minutes.

At that point I might post again…apparently.

at successively halved intervals of time within two minutes — Michael

Then stop talking about at two minutes or after two minutes. That’s some other scenario.

Don’t you see that?

Two minutes or more is outside the universe of “at successively halved intervals of time within two minutes.”

The question “is the lamp on or off at or after two minutes” is talking about some other lamp.

Maybe you are really picturing a person pushing a button? Do you think you could push a button to work the premise of switching the lamp at successive half intervals? A lamp switch like this would have to be automated, and it would not need any instructions or programming at or beyond two minutes to function.

I feel like I just suggested ham and eggs again.

And that's precisely why supertasks are impossible. — Michael

And that’s precisely why the question of whether the lamp will be on or off at two minutes will never present itself.

If you want to talk about how lamps and intervals of time work in an alternate universe why are we using any premises from this universe about lamps and so on?

The three stooges were hungry and looking for ideas on what to eat. Larry says, “if we had ham, we could have ham and eggs, if we had eggs.” Mo hits him on the head.

If we want to ponder what a lamp will be doing at two minutes time, we could just hook it up to a switch that switches every half of the interval of time prior, if we had a universe where such a switch existed.

This conversation (and not your fault) is starting to feel like a descent on a bottomless staircase.

Given that the lamp must be either on or off after two minutes — Michael

How is that? How is it on or off at or after two minutes?

It cannot be a function of a switch that operates by switching every half of the prior interval. Some other function needs to be introduced into the picture to ask about the state of the lamp at 2 minutes or beyond.

Why is it given by this switche’s function that the lamp will be anything in particular at or after 2 minutes? You are just assuming something exterior to the premise about time and lamps.

In that case, if the lamp must be on, or off, at two minutes, is that state caused by the switch?

So what are we disagreeing about?

Whether this is paradox, or whether there is an answer to question 3?

I don’t think there is an answer to question 3. Because the switch is not designed to ever present the question.

Is the lamp on or off after 2 minutes?

In all three scenarios the switch is "designed to function within two minutes." — Michael

Not if you want to answer the question in scenario three. Or more precisely, not designed to function at or after two minutes.

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.

The same is true if the lamp switches just the once — Michael

No, that’s a different equation. That switch is more easily predicted. The switch on Thompson’s lamp requires some serious calculation to determine its state after say one minute fifty-nine seconds. It can be calculated though. But it can’t be calculated at 2 minutes time, because it was designed to function within two minutes. Once two minutes lapse, the switch’s function has no relationship to whatever would be the state of affairs (which I’m telling you would likely be a fire, so in a sense, I’m guessing the lamp would be on).

So we resolve the paradox by accepting the metaphysical impossibility of supertasks. — Michael

I’d say we never had a paradox. There is no paradox at 2 minutes, because by the time we get to 2 minutes, the initial switch and algorithm it functioned by are no longer in play, unable to be held at odds with whatever might be the case at 2 minutes.

That's how the world works. — Michael

Haha! Ok, so the switch clicks at 1 minute, then it clicks again at 30 seconds more, then it clicks again at 15 seconds more, then again at 7.5 seconds, etc.

What will the switch and light be doing at 2 minutes?

Nothing in relation to the switch as described above. Something beyond the parameters the initial scenario set in motion.

It may be on. It may be off. It will probably be broken or melted. But in relation to the switch described above those possible outcomes have no bearing because the switch was designed to serve a function before two minutes time can elapse.

If the light clicks on at two minutes, or off, either the switch malfunctioned, or it can do more then switch itself at half intervals of the prior lapsed time.

“When the clock shows 12:02 I turn around. Is the lamp on or off?”

Whichever it is, it wouldn’t be a function of a switch that operates by waiting half the time to switch and then half of that time to switch again, and then half of the half, etc, because such a switch would have no direction or programming to follow at two minutes, because it is designed to operate before two minutes could pass.

It is not just the case that whether the lamp is on or off after two minutes — Michael

I don’t understand. How do you ever arrive at the two minute mark?
1 minute, half a minute later, quarter minute later than that, etc., infinitely…you never arrive at the two minute mark.

Like the endless bottomless staircase that for some reason had a bottom with a dead guy.

??? Two minutes and a bottom step subvert the issue and banish infinity from the math of it.

These are manufactured conundrums mixing what is an actual occurrence (walking down a step, turning a light on or off) with what is not an actual occurrence but a conceptual/mathematical idea that has no weight or influence on walking or flicking light switches.

There no paradox because the lamp can’t be on or off. There is just an endless motion (invented in a mind that can invent things and objects that can’t actually be built and tested).

If you are going to ponder whether the light is actually, physically on, you have to ponder whether a switch can be switched as rapidly as you would have to switch it as you approached two minutes. The light might be off because you broke the switch. I know, to a mathematical/logical student I am missing the point, but then, if we can assume functioning switches to lay out the mathematical intrigue, why can’t we assume the mathematical intrigue of never reaching two minutes and therefore never able to determine an on/off state at the two minute mark? And conclude that such a scenario builds a lamp that will endlessly turn on and off at ever increasing speeds with no limit or single state thereby enlightening or darkening said limit.

As you approached 2 minutes with really small fractions (but never got there if you are being consistent), would the speed between switching the light on and off eventually approach and then exceed the speed of light? (That’s one solid switch!). So how would we be able to tell whether the light we saw was the light from the latest switching motion or light from a few switches ago? We’d need a new measure besides our eyes, and could not watch the experiment in real time anymore.

We can’t mix real things with infinity as a limiter. Real things always include finite limits. The positing of infinite physical steps, or infinite half steps, pose logical perplexities, but not actual paradoxes.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

for caring itself is transcendental, mystical, as Wittgenstein would say. — Constance

Could caring instead, or also, be the most immanent, most intimate expression of the one who is being religious (or just being)? The place where instead of finding the essence of religion, you find the one being religious. By caring for something, one brings that transcendent thing (the “world”) into one’s immanent care. Still maybe mystical, but a mystery buried inside instead of beyond.

Little confused here, "I must consent to the choice as I act. That consent, can only be freely given. Home of radical freedom. Maybe?" if you care to, could you expand any more on this? what do you mean when you say that consent can only be freely given? Consent is the voluntary agreement or approval of what is done or proposed by another...I dont think consenting or approving the choice is necessary BUT IF ONE HAS TO BE MADE, (extremeness in this manner make the problem not realistic (to me),BUT I find this problem can be wildly interesting) — Kizzy

I may have gotten ahead of myself a bit. So we distinguished between the choices (1 or 5, good or bad) and the consent (I pull the lever, or I stay seated), and then I say consent can only be freely given.

I don’t know if that is right. But I am interested in considering it further.

You said “Consent is the voluntary agreement or approval of what is done or proposed by another.”. That is true, but I also think when I have a choice between at least two things, those two things are the other, they are what is to be done (kill one or five); those choices are what are proposed by circumstances (save 5 or let them die). I still have to consent to one among this other in order to act and MAKE the choice.

Consent it seems to me is part of the picture in every choice.

I think whether it is only freely given is a tangent that I’m not even sure how to address.

what if i dont feel forced, just scared? — Kizzy

That’s why I think it would take courage to do the truly moral thing on the trolley and not participate at all. I guess fear is a kind of force that might also diminish the ability to consent and therefore the ability to commit a moral act.