Let's go again!

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What if it’s your spouse on one side and family members on the other…
 
gregoryphealy said:
What if it’s your spouse on one side and family members on the other…
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I’d pull out my rocket launcher, blow the train up and save everyone. Except the conductor. But he deserved it due to poor train maintenance.
 
In all honesty it would depend on the family members.

My mother and father? Save my spouse.
Cousins? Still spouse.

Now, my very young nieces and nephews? I’d save them.
Same if I had my own children.
 
gregoryphealy said:
What if it’s your spouse on one side and family members on the other…
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If she gives me a hard time about going out with my brother and brother-in-law and having a few beers and watching the European Cup final on Saturday (followed by a curry), then I won’t be held responsible for any lever I might pull.
 
Although I wouldnt mind if it rolled over Lady Elaine.
That was one scary puppet…
 
Could the person at the lever move on to the tracks to save all of the people?
 
Does Superman (or Clark Kent) exist in this hypothetical world? If so, I would call for Superman.

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This is supposed to be a “moral dilemma”-type of challenge? Oh please.

You the let the trolley run over the greater number of people. That’s called efficiency, and you get more gore for the same amount of kinetic energy. Therefore more fun.

Duh.
 
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That would just result in another fatality added to the whichever way the train goes.
 
From your picture, pull out the lever (fortunately, I had the required tools in my purse), and toss it under the trolley wheels. Thus the trolley is derailed. This saves the 5, the 1, and the people in the trolley, as well as me. The people in the trolley are likely to be shaken up, though. Some might even need to be treated in the hospital. Fortunately, it’s off screen, just to the right in your picture.

Now, what if the 5 were the posters detaining the pregnant lady, and the 1 was the anti < include your choice of ethnic group > poster?
 
I’d use my hypothetical gun to shoot the hypothetical wheels off the hypothetical trolley.
 
I would switch the lever so that the train hits the single man rather than the group of people. Five lives are more valuable than one.
 
What if the five people just went to Confession and the one did not, and has a mortal sin on his soul? Seems to me that the sinner has an infinitely greater need to stay alive just a little bit longer.
 
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JanSobieskiIII said:
Since the last one was so fun and got closed, I now pose a different, much simpler question.

The trolley is headed towards the larger group of people, there is no time to cut the ropes for any of them.

Do you pull the lever and save the larger group at the expense of the single man?
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Pull the lever and the loner is dead. Better to save many lives than one.
 
Morally, you can’t pull the lever and kill the one person, saving the five. The reason is that your act is inherently ordered not only toward the end of saving five lives, but toward the killing of the one life. If you cannot act, because acting is a sin, then refraining from acting is not a sin of omission. This does not seem like the right answer, because it is a pure hypothetical. But consider a real world example:

A patient is terminally ill, and will die in a few weeks. Five persons need that patient’s organs, in order to survive. Of course you would not kill the one patient to save the five. But terminally ill persons, in a lot of pain, are given strong pain meds that will shorten the number of weeks or days they have left, depending on the dosage. Give the patient enough meds so that he or she is very comfortable, and the remaining days will be few. Give the patient a dose of meds that is moderate, so that the pain is tolerable, and they live for more days.

Do you give that patient a dosage that will relieve all pain, but not directly cause death, and also result in the shortest length of time until death, so that the five patient will get organs in time?

I would say No, because you should not make decisions for one patient that are not in that patient’s best interest.
 
Ron_Conte said:
A patient is terminally ill, and will die in a few weeks. Five persons need that patient’s organs, in order to survive. Of course you would not kill the one patient to save the five. But terminally ill persons, in a lot of pain, are given strong pain meds that will shorten the number of weeks or days they have left, depending on the dosage. Give the patient enough meds so that he or she is very comfortable, and the remaining days will be few. Give the patient a dose of meds that is moderate, so that the pain is tolerable, and they live for more days.
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Good example and point there, I really don’t know now, you would have to apply the four rules of double effect on the situation.
 
Ron_Conte said:
then refraining from acting is not a sin of omission
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Doing nothing in this situation is a conscious decision to let the others die. Inaction still results in an action.

Idk if it’s sinful, but it’s still a decision.
 
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