Runaway trolley problem

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Ender said:
We are responsible for the consequences of the choices we freely make, and choosing to do nothing and let four people die when we could save them makes us responsible for that consequence. Choosing to do nothing is a moral choice for which we are just as responsible as if we chose to do something.
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I suspect an emotional feeling rather than rational thinking is behind the decision that would lead one to kill an innocent person. Overwhelming emotion may mitigate culpability but emotion cannot change the quality of the act’s object which in this case is immoral.

If this immoral decision, kill an innocent to save four, is true then it is universally true for all people. Imagine the bystander is a mother whose infant is the one tied to the track. Would you still require a mother to commit infanticide?
 
Ender said:
It seems to me the basis of the “don’t throw the switch” argument is that a decision not to act frees one from responsibility from the consequences that will inevitably result, but this cannot be true.
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Of course one is responsible (cp) for acts of commission or omission. The bystander first obligation is to do no evil.

Examine all the consequences and rank them in order of importance. Catholic theology teaches that the ultimate evil is the loss of a soul, not a temporal life. How many extensions (we all die) of temporal lives would justify the eternal loss of one soul? None.

The eternal life of the soul of the one who tied others to the track is in jeopardy. “Throwing the switch” would not remove that person’s jeopardy. “Throwing the switch” would add one more soul to the list of souls in danger of eternal damnation.
 
o_mlly said:
Of course one is responsible (cp) for acts of commission or omission. The bystander first obligation is to do no evil.
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If we are responsible for acts of commission, and equally responsible for acts of omission, then, under your interpretation, how can the bystander do no evil? He is in a position where at least one innocent person will die as a direct result either of his act of commission or his act of omission. He cannot prevent, he can only choose, and that choice will lead to death.

How can you agree that we are responsible for our acts of omission yet claim the bystander is not responsible for the people who will die because he chose not to save them?
 
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Ender said:
How can you agree that we are responsible for our acts of omission yet claim the bystander is not responsible for the people who will die because he chose not to save them?
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Who tied the people to the tracks? He is primarily and, in this scenario, the only one responsible.

If the bystander could save the four without killing the one then, I think (cp), he would become secondarily responsible and culpable for his act of omission.

But he may not throw the switch because he also foresees that the act kills one innocent. No number of saved lives can justify killing one innocent.

But now I am only repeating myself. I’ve given the VS and Catechism sources for my argument. I don’t think I can do more to persuade you. Please let me know if you plan to visit any train yards.
 
Ender said:
How can you agree that we are responsible for our acts of omission yet claim the bystander is not responsible for the people who will die because he chose not to save them?
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Others set in train acts to kill the four. There are limits to what our hero can and may do in a bid to save them. Killing someone in their place is beyond the limit.

Think about acts of omission and resulting responsibility. People are dying unnecessarily routinely. Aid agencies save them and ask us for money to do so. If we give more, more will be saved. What is our responsibility for deaths not prevented given our choice to buy a new car?
 
This is where Ender and I agree.
o_mlly said:
the agent must have the possibility of avoiding it,
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The bystander cannot avoid complicity in the death of 1 person…and there is no possibility of avoiding one death. Therefore deciding to throw the switch or not does not involve imputability for the death of one person.

However he is surely imputible for the death of an extra four people by freely deciding to do nothing.
 
So the moral is steer clear of potential crime scenes, railway tracks/yards in particular!
 
Remote cooperation principles hold for the scenarios you describe.
This is not a remote scenario.

It is no different from the sins of ommission in the story of the good Samaritan who did not cross the road. It is not about him being a hero. It is about the others not being everyday human and failing to adequate to situations that they walked into.
 
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o_mlly said:
No number of saved lives can justify killing one innocent.
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But that is the point. Killing of an innocent does not need to be justified if both my decisions result in death of one innocent. It is not a moral act because there is no room either way to make a good moral choice.

Your analysis rests on the assumption that deciding not to throw the switch is somehow not linked to choosing the death of an innocent and therefore this example is equivalent, if I do switch, to simply shooting someone in the street.
The comparision fails.
 
I suggest slow and cool study of the principles and the real truth of the matter than attempt quick and hot rhetoric comeback :roll_eyes:.
 
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BlackFriar said:
The bystander cannot avoid complicity in the death of 1 person…
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“Complicity” through not intervening in events (for which others are fully responsible and culpable and where I am impeded from action) or “complicity” through taking deliberate action myself and for which I am culpable. I’m not sure they are the same.

Would the Good Samaritan have killed any innocents to save 4 men beaten up by brigands?
 
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Rau said:
Others set in train acts to kill the four. There are limits to what our hero can and may do in a bid to save them. Killing someone in their place is beyond the limit.
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Killing four people in an effort to evade responsibility is also beyond the limit. It is easy to specify a situation such that its conditions define what is or is not moral. Since we’re actually trying to determine what you simply assume (that throwing the switch, and randomly killing an innocent person are one and the same act), perhaps we should look for a less biased description.

If throwing the switch makes me responsible for killing one person then not throwing the switch makes you responsible for killing four. We have each made our choice, and are equally responsible for what happens as a consequence of those choices.
Think about acts of omission and resulting responsibility. People are dying unnecessarily routinely.
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You might be able to make a case that my failure to donate to charitable causes confers on me some indirect responsibility for hardship, even death, but it ought to be obvious that my unwillingness to directly aid those I am clearly in a position to help makes me directly responsible. You cannot evade that responsibility by turning away from it. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus should make the point.
 
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Ender said:
but it ought to be obvious that my unwillingness to directly aid those I am clearly in a position to help makes me directly responsible.
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And now you merely assume you are in a position to help, that is, that you may morally throw the switch. Isn’t that the very question? You abandoned the goal of identifying the moral object(s), I did not.
 
Ender said:
Killing four people in an effort to evade responsibility is also beyond the limit.
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I reject the description. The trolley (and its initiator) killed the four. It was not open to me to act to save them.
 
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Ender said:
If throwing the switch makes me responsible for killing one person then not throwing the switch makes you responsible for killing four. We have each made our choice, and are equally responsible for what happens as a consequence of those choices.
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I am not sure that it is responsible to go around murdering an innocent ;person.
 
Rau said:
And now you merely assume you are in a position to help, that is, that you may morally throw the switch. Isn’t that the very question? You abandoned the goal of identifying the moral object(s), I did not.
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Of course I’m in a position to help; that’s a given as part of the dilemma. If I can’t do anything then what are we arguing about? That I am physically able to throw the switch doesn’t assume it is morally justifiable. That’s the debate.
 
Ender said:
Of course I’m in a position to help; that’s a given as part of the dilemma. If I can’t do anything then what are we arguing about? That I am physically able to throw the switch doesn’t assume it is morally justifiable. That’s the debate.
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The claim of responsibility (culpability?) depends on what is morally permissible. You asserted responsibility.
 
Rau said:
I reject the description.
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Of course you do; it wasn’t meant to be accurate. It was meant to illustrate the problem with your description. You simply described the problem so that it confirmed your position as the right one.
The trolley (and its initiator) killed the four.
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First, if I throw the switch then the four won’t die, therefore the statement that "the trolley (and its initiator) killed them is obviously false.
Second, if you choose not to throw the switch it is you who have sealed their deaths. Your argument is “My immortal soul is in danger if I act such that a person dies, but I can evade the moral responsibility for your deaths by doing nothing, because if people die as a result of my non-overt action, I’m not responsible.”

Did the rich man act in such a way as to cause Lazarus’ death? No, he took no action at all. Was he responsible for his inaction? Yes. We are as responsible for the consequences of our failures to act as we are for the acts we elect to take. They are both moral choices.

If it is immoral to choose that one must die that four may live then it is (at least as) immoral to choose that four must die so that one does not.
 
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