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Thom18
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How did you happen to throw the switch if you didn’t make a choice to do so?
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pulchraesamicamea
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I will yell, if I am taking rail with 1 person on it from afar: “Hey, please move out of the way!”
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QwertyGirl
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But your understanding of the choice is not correct.
The choice is how many people NOT to kill. The choice is not how many people TO kill.
The choice is how many people NOT to kill. The choice is not how many people TO kill.
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Thom18
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Consider if all the Jewish people who would be victimized by Nazism were tied to one track, and all the rest of Germany on the other. Certainly the Jewish population is smaller than the combined population of everyone else, so would it be right to redirect the trolley to only hit them? It would result in fewer deaths this way, just as with the thought experiment’s original example.
This is exactly the problem we run into when we let utilitarianism decide for us who should live and who should die. Utilitarianism says that it doesn’t matter who the people are, and also that they don’t matter as individuals. They only have value if they can be lumped together with the majority population.
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o_mlly
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We cannot know objectively whether a human act is sinful, only if it is evil. The degree of sin, if any, in the act is only knowable to the actor and God.
The subjective components of the moral act, intent and circumstances like knowledge and emotions of the actor, come into play in determining culpability or sinfulness. But the objective components of the act, those components independent of any particular actor, determine the act itself as good or evil and is the same for all actors.
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Pattylt
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Now you are adding conditions onto the scenario. So hundreds of Jews vs thousands of Germans? Women and children in both groups?
Yep, is still go for the larger number. Please, don’t treat this as though it’d be an easy, pleasant decision. Remember, it is forcing me to decide to kill no matter what. I’m going with my gut reaction as I think it would apply at the time…save the larger number. I don’t think I could just walk away…which is basically what not pulling the switch entails.
If I later decided that I was wrong, I’d learn to live with it. We cannot second guess every spur of the moment decision we make…or at least I can’t. Usually, we try to make our best choice under the circumstances, realizing that what those circumstances were…and live with it.
Yep, is still go for the larger number. Please, don’t treat this as though it’d be an easy, pleasant decision. Remember, it is forcing me to decide to kill no matter what. I’m going with my gut reaction as I think it would apply at the time…save the larger number. I don’t think I could just walk away…which is basically what not pulling the switch entails.
If I later decided that I was wrong, I’d learn to live with it. We cannot second guess every spur of the moment decision we make…or at least I can’t. Usually, we try to make our best choice under the circumstances, realizing that what those circumstances were…and live with it.
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Wozza
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Maybe some people are missing the main point of the hypothetical. Which is how we consider our actions to be good or bad. Not necessarily the decision itself. There is an additional twist to the connundrum where, rather than throw a switch, you have to intentionally push a fat guy onto the tracks to derail the trolley. Same consequences…but more people baulk at this.QwertyGirl:
How did you happen to throw the switch if you didn’t make a choice to do so?
On the other hand, you could have a situation where you do nothing except make a decision. There are 5 people in room A and one in room B. Pick A or B and I will kill those in that room. Make no decision and I will kill them all. Would picking a letter be evil?
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0Scarlett_nidiyilii
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But the situation presented wasn’t the medicine-in-a-life-boat. It was the trolley problem.
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HeDa
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Trolley solution according to a two-year-old boy. 
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Gorgias
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Oh, the irony! I’m pointing out that you yourself were the one who made the case that inaction was an action, and then, when I quote to you that you just made the assertion that one “had no other option [but to act]”, I reminded you that you were the one who said inaction was action! (And therefore, by your own standard, there are at least two options!) “Bad faith”?!? Pot, meet kettle!
Now you’re getting confused. That’s the intent. Moreover, the discussion doesn’t have “means” in it: the analysis of the moral act has “object”, “intent”, and “circumstances”. “Send the trolley down the other track” is the object; the intent is “save five people”. However, the object itself is the direct act which kills an innocent person. Keep up, man…
Oh, boy. One paragraph earlier, you wrote “the OBJECT is to save five people”, and now it’s “[the] INTENT is to save the five”? I think you might want to proofread more closely – or at least, think about what you’re trying to claim.
And yet, that’s precisely the grounds upon which the decision is being made (and being justified). Look: the whole point of this kind of thought experiment is to try to dislodge a person from the idea that they believe in an objective moral standard. Here’s the way it goes:
- “Would you kill an innocent person, against his will?”
- “Oh no! Never!”
- “Well, what if it were to keep a person from harm? Then?”
- “Kill an innocent to save one person from harm? No way!”
- “Well, what if you were saving many people from harm?” (BTW, this was Foot’s original formulation.)
- “Kill one or save many from harm? Nope! That’s unthinkable!”
- “OK… would you kill one to save another?” (i.e., the “Sophie’s Choice” scenario, if memory serves)
- “Kill one to save one? That’s monstrous!”
- “Hmm… what if the ‘one’ were a president, or king?”
- “Still one for one – no way!”
- “Hmm… well, then… would you kill one to save five?”
- “Umm…”
- “Or kill a hundred to save thousands?”
- “Umm…”
Somehow, I’m beginning to see that this really is the case with you.
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Gorgias
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It’s a nice dodge, but nevertheless, the direct action kills an innocent against his will. How many innocents are you willing to kill, anyway?
Not true. What we can’t know is the subjective consideration – that is, whether it’s mortally sinful.
As I pointed out above, that’s really the game we’re playing here. The whole thought experiment is just asking “at what point – if any – do you break down and say ‘yes, I’d allow innocents to be killed against their will’?”
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o_mlly
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You contradict yourself. As I wrote, one cannot know the sin of another as sin is always in the will and intellect. If one cannot know the subjective consideration – the state of the other’s will s it applies to full consent and the state of one’s knowledge as it related to full knowledge – then one cannot know the sin mortal or venial of the other.
The offense may remain gravely evil as in objective sin but not necessarily any kind of personal sin.
The truth of your assertions would be better supported if you practiced citing the relevant authority.
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Gorgias
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Certainly not. I think you might want to re-read what I wrote:
You can see that we’re saying the same thing here, right?Gorgias:
If one cannot know the subjective consideration… then one cannot know the sin mortal or venial of the other.
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Pattylt
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one final thought…The scenario already has someone dying. It boils down to doing nothing and watching five die vs flipping a switch and watching one die…in either case, someone is going to die…unless you want to stretch the scenario such that the train may jump the tract before hitting the five…which is changing the scenario as stated.
The fact is that I’m going to watch death happen and it’s either five or one. I fail to see any better morality in not flipping the switch.
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Pattylt
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Nope, doesn’t quite work.
Pilate had the power and ability to change the outcome. We, in this scenario, do not. If I could order the people off the track or stop the train, then you’d have a point. I don’t.
Pilate had the power and ability to change the outcome. We, in this scenario, do not. If I could order the people off the track or stop the train, then you’d have a point. I don’t.
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o_mlly
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Either what I wrote is “Not true” or we’re “saying the same thing”. Which is it?
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goout
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I’d just like to point out that morality is not hypothetical.
Morality evaluates human actions…real human actions…concrete human actions. However you’d like to say it.
…which is why these silly scenarios are about as satisfying as thinking about a piece of pie as opposed to eating it “in the real”.
Morality evaluates human actions…real human actions…concrete human actions. However you’d like to say it.
…which is why these silly scenarios are about as satisfying as thinking about a piece of pie as opposed to eating it “in the real”.
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1Lord1Faith
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Well, the question in the OP was “What’s the Catholic perspective on this?”
@Gorgias has pretty much provided an exhaustive answer. The same answer would apply to your question:
It might be easier to digest the Trolley Problem’s answer by applying it to that ‘pick A or B’ scenario.
- You have to start with the proposition that the person who has been asked to pick room A or B hasn’t done anything immoral…yet. The same can be said for the person standing by the trolley switch. So the evil which is about to unfold is in no way attributed to them. And can’t be unless they join in to take a life. Which is exactly what picking a room or throwing a switch would be. In Catholic thought that wouldn’t be saving lives…it would be taking lives.
- There is no way to know for certain that any action taken will have the desired effect. There is also no certainty that something won’t happen to mitigate whatever the evil is that someone thinks is about to happen. For example people in rooms A and B could suddenly be saved by a Special Ops force just after a pick is made, or the Trolley could derail without killing anyone.
- When that innocent bystander makes the choice of picking a room or throwing a switch they have gone from observing evil, or trying to stop it, to participating in evil. They’ve chosen to take life. They aren’t involved in setting up these scenarios, and aren’t a participant until a choice is made to be involved in the taking of life.
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Elf01
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I think it’s more likely that one person can get free than five.
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goout
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What’s your point in adding hypothetical details?goout:
Shall we organize a few runaway trolley scenarios with different number of possible victims? Or a few lifeboat dilemmas? So we can “experience” the solutions in real time? If you are not interested, you are free to stay away from thinking about the different problems.
I made a point. Hypothetical scenarios are not real moral decisions, and the use of them is limited. Many times the addition of hypothetical details is done with an eye to undermining good moral evaluation…as if complexities derail morality.
Nope.
Thinking about situations is a good thing.
And
Practicing virtue in real life is what leads to a…moral life.
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