Double Effect: Trolley problem and loop varient

[pivisota]

This is the classic Trolley Problem:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by the mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?

I know we can flip the switch via the double effect catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=33215

But then there is the loop variant:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. As in the first case, you can divert it onto a separate track. On this track is a single (fat) person. However, beyond that person, this track loops back onto the main line towards the five, and if it weren’t for the presence of that (fat) person, who will stop the trolley, flipping the switch would not save the five. Should you flip the switch?

does the loop varient violate the principal " the good effect must not be obtained by means of the evil effect; the evil must be only an incidental by-product and not an actual factor in the accomplishment of the good" and therefore in the loop variant is it immoral to flip the switch?

if it is immoral to flip the switch how might we persuasively explain why it is so?

 

[SVP]

Since in both scenarios at least one individual would be killed, it matters not whether you flip the switch, but how you decide whether one or many live.

Catholic culture article:

An example of the lawful use of the double effect would be the commander of a submarine in wartime who torpedoes an armed merchant vessel of the enemy, although he foresees that several innocent children on board will be killed. All four required conditions are fulfilled: 1. he intends merely to lessen the power of the enemy by destroying an armed merchant ship. He does not wish to kill the innocent children; 2. his action of torpedoing the ship is not evil in itself; 3. the evil effect (the death of the children) is not the cause of the good effect (the lessening of the enemy’s strength); 4. there is sufficient reason for permitting the evil effect to follow, and this reason is administering a damaging blow to those who are unjustly attacking his country.

As to the second “loop” (switch track) variant, is there any actual assurance that the (fat) person will stop the trolley? Perhaps it is a rather light trolley, in which case the trolley hits the (fat) person, derails and kills the passengers on board; an unexpected outcome. Are the other five skinny and therefore inherently worth saving due to a bias favoring skinny people?

In both of the trolley cases, the situation is unresolveable because a third factor, the “mad philosopher” who seems to revel in the death of (presumed) innocents at the hands of the scrupulous.

 

[pivisota]

this senario came up in my philsophy lecture at my secular university…in the case it’s a given that the fat person is 100% guaranteed he’s going to die if the trolley runs over him.

these two senario’s were divised by Judy Thomson in her attempt to disprove the validity of the double effect.

Hence its a bit hard for me to defend the double effect prinicipal when i don’t even know what the double effect principal would advocate in this situation.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

pivisota,

Is it a case of Thomson trying to disprove the value of the principle of double effect? Or does she agree with the outcomes but proposes an alternate method of analysis?

PDE can be difficult to apply, and is often misapplied, so some see a limit to its practical value. In the scenarios you listed above, I think you are right that the first case could be permissible under PDE and the second would violate PDE’s rule that the good effect cannot be had though the evil effect.

Essentially, in the second scenario you intend to kill the man because but for his death you cannot accomplish your further intent to save the five others. Intentional killing of an innocent person is a moral evil.

Is that any help? Or are we missing something?
VC

 

[Doc_Keele]

It’s a question of what constitutes “intention”, and complaints that someone is trying to disprove the principle of double effect are missing the point! It’s not just an academic point, as this has relevance for the treatment of ectopic pregnancy.

There is a fiction surrounding the use of salpingectomy for ectopic pregnancy which relies on accepting now disproven observations of Bouscaren from the 1940s.

 

[o_mlly]

This is the classic Trolley Problem:

A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 5 people who have been tied to the track by the mad philosopher. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?

I know we can flip the switch via the double effect catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=33215

But then there is the loop variant:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. As in the first case, you can divert it onto a separate track. On this track is a single (fat) person. However, beyond that person, this track loops back onto the main line towards the five, and if it weren’t for the presence of that (fat) person, who will stop the trolley, flipping the switch would not save the five. Should you flip the switch?

does the loop varient violate the principal " the good effect must not be obtained by means of the evil effect; the evil must be only an incidental by-product and not an actual factor in the accomplishment of the good" and therefore in the loop variant is it immoral to flip the switch?

if it is immoral to flip the switch how might we persuasively explain why it is so?

Isn’t the phrase “mad philosopher” redundant?

I believe it is moral to flip the switch if trolley driver’s intention is to use the fat man’s mass to stop the trolley. The fat man’s death is an unintended consequence and not the means of saving the five.

The case is similar to the heroic soldier who throws himself on the live grenade in the trench with the exception that the fat man plays no part in the decision which puts him in harm’s way. But the only role the decision maker has in the DE criteria is good intention and prudential judgement as to future events being in conformity with the other DE criteria. The trolley driver meets that criteria.

 

[Thing]

I think you should flip the switch repeatedly to try and derail the trolly and save all the people.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

I believe it is moral to flip the switch if trolley driver’s intention is to use the fat man’s mass to stop the trolley. The fat man’s death is an unintended consequence and not the means of saving the five.

O mlly,

The difficulty, though, is that your choice isn’t simply one of using a man’s “mass” to stop the trolley as if mass is simply an accoutrement of the man, like a watch-fob. Rather, your choice is to hit a man (an innocent man) with a trolley. An act that carries with it the moral certainty that the man will die as a result.

The case is similar to the heroic soldier who throws himself on the live grenade in the trench with the exception that the fat man plays no part in the decision which puts him in harm’s way.

But it diverges from the heroic soldier because risking one’s own life is a different act than risking (or condemning) another. It would be the difference between a fireman bashing his own shoulder in trying to open a door to a burning building to save the occupants and a fireman using a bystander’s shoulder to bash the door in.

But the only role the decision maker has in the DE criteria is good intention and prudential judgment as to future events being in conformity with the other DE criteria. The trolley driver meets that criteria.

But, intention encompasses not only the final end but the intermediate ends as well. And in this case “man getting hit by trolley” seems to be an intermediate end which one intends.

When PDE forbids the good effect from being a direct causal result of the bad effect it is essentially forbidding willing an evil intermediate end. In this case, willing that a man get hit by a trolley.

Thoughts?
VC

 

[o_mlly]

O mlly, The difficulty, though, is that your choice isn’t simply one of using a man’s “mass” to stop the trolley as if mass is simply an accoutrement of the man, like a watch-fob. Rather, your choice is to hit a man (an innocent man) with a trolley. An act that carries with it the moral certainty that the man will die as a result.

I respect your interpretation. However, I believe the intent is to simply stop the trolley; not kill the man. The former is the good effect; the latter is the permitted and unintended bad effect.

But it diverges from the heroic soldier because risking one’s own life is a different act than risking (or condemning) another. It would be the difference between a fireman bashing his own shoulder in trying to open a door to a burning building to save the occupants and a fireman using a bystander’s shoulder to bash the door in.

In the heroic soldier scenario, it is the soldier’s body’s mass (exactly like the fat man) that saves his comrades; not his death per se. While the effect on the character of the heroic soldier may indeed be different than the fat man (unless the fat man can but chooses not to exit the track), I do not think the principles (rightly so) distinguish that the morality of the actor’s choice may only allow the bad effect to fall upon him. Your fireman scenario certainly takes any heroism away from the fireman. However, the parallel I think doesn’t hold because the trolley driver cannot jump in front of the trolley as a means of stopping it as the scenario is presented. Even if he could, the DB principles do not require heroism; he can still flip the switch as his life is proportionate to the fat man.

But, intention encompasses not only the final end but the intermediate ends as well. And in this case “man getting hit by trolley” seems to be an intermediate end which one intends.

Here I think you hit on the critical issue. Intention is limited to the desired effect only by definition. If intention included all effects, there could be no DB principle to justify any action which has good and bad effects.

When PDE forbids the good effect from being a direct causal result of the bad effect it is essentially forbidding willing an evil intermediate end. In this case, willing that a man get hit by a trolley…VC

The good effect may not be produced by means of the bad effect. The fat man’s death does not cause the five to survive. If the trolley driver wills the death of the fat man, he may not flip the switch but that was not specified in the hypothetical. The trolley driver wills to save the five; not kill the one.

 

[SVP]

I think you should flip the switch repeatedly to try and derail the trolly and save all the people.

That would work! Flip the switch as the lead truck goes over the switch, front of trolley goes down that track, return the switch and the rear goes down the mainline. In reality defective switches have caused derailments numerous times, so the likelyhood of that outcome is well over 50/50 probability. That way you could save everyone on the tracks unless the hapless victims are too clase to the switch for such a maneouver, in which case everybody dies, though the intentions were good.The scenario doesn’t indicate if there are any innocent passengers on board the trolley.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

I respect your interpretation.

Thank you. Let’s just consider this an academic exercise, which I think is in the spirit of the OP’s question, and see if we can generate some light together.

I believe the intent is to simply stop the trolley; not kill the man. The former is the good effect; the latter is the permitted and unintended bad effect.

Yes, I agree that the intent is to stop the trolley. But there can be more things intended.

In PDE there are (at least) two effects, a good and an evil. The good effect is intended as an remote end. But the evil effect can’t be intended at all (i.e. as a proximate end), but only merely permitted.

One way PDE is used to discern whether or not the evil effect is intended or merely permitted is by asking if the good effect is caused by the evil effect. If the good effect is caused by the evil effect that is an indication that the evil effect isn’t simply permitted, but is willed as a means to the good effect.

In this scenario you can’t overcome this problem by saying that the death of the fat man isn’t the cause of the trolley stopping, and therefore you don’t will his death. It is true that the death of the fat man isn’t the cause of the trolley stopping, he could live and stop the trolley. But him getting hit by the trolley is the cause of the trolley stopping, and the first evil effect of throwing the switch is hitting an innocent man with a trolley. He may die later, but his death doesn’t stop the trolley.

In the heroic soldier scenario, it is the soldier’s body’s mass (exactly like the fat man) that saves his comrades; not his death per se.

Yes. And as in the trolley scenario above it’s not the death of the fat man we are concerned about (at this juncture of the PDE analysis anyway – it could factor in the proportionality consideration later). In neither scenario does anyone’s death cause anyone to be saved. But, that is only a superficial similarity between the two scenarios I would say.

In order to make the soldier scenario identical to the trolley scenario the heroic soldier would have to throw a comrade onto the grenade.

Here I think you hit on the critical issue. Intention is limited to the desired effect only by definition. If intention included all effects, there could be no DB principle to justify any action which has good and bad effects.

Exactly. But that is why the question is asked in PDE whether or not the bad effect causes the good effect. Because, if it does, then one must desire the bad effect as proximate end.

The good effect may not be produced by means of the bad effect. The fat man’s death does not cause the five to survive. If the trolley driver wills the death of the fat man, he may not flip the switch but that was not specified in the hypothetical. The trolley driver wills to save the five; not kill the one.

That is right in so far as one considers the death of the fat man as the bad effect. But the death of the fat man is one possible bad effect. The prior essential bad effect is that he gets hit by the trolley. The fat man getting hit by the trolley is a but for cause of saving the 5 lives. Without him getting hit you can’t accomplish saving those lives.

Your last sentence here would be applicable if this was a straight trolley problem. If there were two divergent tracks then the trolley driver electing track B in order to save 5 people on track A is permissible, because the fact that a man happens to be on track B isn’t a cause of the 5 surviving.

But this is a diverted track, not a divergent one. The fact that a man is on track B is the cause that those on track A survive. To simplify it, think of pushing the fat man onto the track to save the 5.

VC

 

[o_mlly]

…

One way PDE is used to discern whether or not the evil effect is intended or merely permitted is by asking if the good effect is caused by the evil effect. If the good effect is caused by the evil effect that is an indication that the evil effect isn’t simply permitted, but is willed as a means to the good effect.

…
VC

Thanks for the comments and explantions. Hope you don’t mind that I truncated your post to what I think divides our thinking in applying the DE.

Intention is always subjective, that is, known only to the actor and his Maker. No one can *infer *an intention to the actor by observation of the effects.

“That the good effect may never proceed from the evil” principle does not suggest anything regarding the actor’s intention. It merely proscribes the use of evil means to achieve good ends.

It is **not **true to say that the “ends never justify the means” (usually they do); it is true to say that “evil means may never justify any end.”

 

[Doc_Keele]

There is such a thing as objective intention, a concept applied to criminal law - since subjective intention cannot be determined by the courts. I agree that this should not be the criterion for divine law, since God does know our hearts!

 

[Betterave]

Good answers, o’mlly. Some suggested revisions here though:

Intention is always subjective, that is, -]known only to the actor and his Maker/-] it belongs to the acting subject. No one can infallibly *infer *an intention to the actor solely by observation of the act and its effects.

“That the good effect may never proceed from the evil [means]” principle does -]not/-] suggest -]anything/-] regarding the actor’s intention that he must not will evil for its own sake, he must reluctantly accept that a lesser evil will be the side-effect of his action. It -]merely/-] -]proscribes/-] prohibits the use of evil as a means to achieve good ends.

It is **-]not/-] **true to say that the “ends never justify the means” -](usually they do)/-]; it is -]true/-] therefore trivial to say that “evil means may never justify any end.”

 

[Betterave]

I think you should flip the switch repeatedly to try and derail the trolly and save all the people.

The advantage here, too, is that you have neutralized the deliberative situation - it is no longer the case that you are going to hit one of the parties and you must decide whether or not to act, i.e., to flip the switch. The new situation is that you don’t know which way you’ll go, so perhaps you can now just decide which one would be better, knowing that your action is a neutral and inevitable (name removed by moderator)ut. It’s like you’ve created a real ‘ceteris paribus’ and thereby changed your deliberative situation.

 

[Doc_Keele]

The advantage here, too, is that you have neutralized the deliberative situation - it is no longer the case that you are going to hit one of the parties and you must decide whether or not to act, i.e., to flip the switch. The new situation is that you don’t know which way you’ll go, so perhaps you can now just decide which one would be better, knowing that your action is a neutral and inevitable (name removed by moderator)ut. It’s like you’ve created a real ‘ceteris paribus’ and thereby changed your deliberative situation.

Which is completely missing the point…

 

[o_mlly]

Good answers, o’mlly. Some suggested revisions here though:

Intention is always subjective, that is, -]known only to the actor and his Maker/-] it belongs to the acting subject. No one can infallibly infer an intention to the actor solely by observation of the **act and its **effects

I think your revisions muddle the points.

Intention is not a property but rather an attitude of the actor’s will informed by his intellect and therefore, it seems to me, the verb “knows” applies rather than “belongs.” The other modifications obscure the point rather than illuminate it. But, if it works for you, OK.

" principle does -]
not/-] suggest -]anything/-] regarding the actor’s intention that he must not will evil for its own sake, he must reluctantly accept that a lesser evil will be the side-effect of his action. It -]merely proscribes /-]prohibits the use of evil as a means to achieve good ends.

In this revision, I am not OK. Your revision changes the particular principle of the DE in question. In fact the revision creates a principle that is **not **a principle of the DE.

Evil means (acts) are covered universally rather than conditinally in another principle – **the act itself must always be good or indifferent **regardless of the moral quality of the ends. To conflate these two priniples is to confuse the criteria of the DE.

It **is -]not/-] **true to say that the “ends never justify the means” -](usually they do/-]); it is -]true/-] **therefore trivial **to say that “evil means may never justify any end.”

Again, I disagree. Most human acts are morally indifferent and are justified or not based on their intended effects – the ends do justify the means.

And,** the ends are never justified by evil means**. To state that this principle is trivial suggests that all reasonable men would agree. If you’ve been following the posts, you’ll find many who do not agree. Trivial? I don’t think so.

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Again, I disagree. Most human acts are morally indifferent and are justified or not based on their intended effects – the ends do justify the means.

o mlly,

I think you’ll forgive BetterAve for taking you to task over your phrasing because I don’t think you were as clear the first time around that you were talking about morally indifferent objects of an act, i.e. acts which therefore have to take their moral quality from the intention.

Could we backtrack for a moment? When I was speaking of intermediate ends what I was trying to get at (perhaps in clumsy manner) was that one chooses that which has a character of a means.

If we look at the two trolley problems side by side there is a difference in them, right? In the first the driver switches the track from a track with 5 persons to 1 person. The fact that there is 1 person on that second track is incidental to the fact that there are not 5 people under the trolley.

But, in the second problem, the driver switches his route to hit the fat man first before hitting the 5 persons. The fact that he hits the fat man first isn’t incidental to the fact that there are not 5 people under the trolley – its cause and effect.

In the first, the fat man getting hit is foreseen and permitted, but it isn’t willed (you’d be happy if he jumped off the track at the last moment). But in the second, the fat man getting hit is foreseen and willed (your objective would be frustrated were he to jump off the track at the last moment).

Any thoughts on the differences between the two?

VC

 

[Doc_Keele]

o mlly wrote

Again, I disagree. Most human acts are morally indifferent and are justified or not based on their intended effects – the ends do justify the means.

Yes, I totally agree with this,

 

[o_mlly]

o mlly wrote

Yes, I totally agree with this,

Would you agree on the complete statement: The end can justify the means, but it cannot justify any means; it cannot justify evil means?