Morality Show from WNYC's Radio Lab
This American Life, a National Public Radio show, recently had a little segment from the WNYC Radio Lab. The Radio Lab took up morality as a recent topic for their show. I'll give you the story and then the link to the program in which morality and this story is explained.
1. Imagine you are standing next to a tunnel, in which there are five guys working on the tracks. You see a train approaching; you see that the workers won't hear or be able to avoid the train. They'll surely die.
You can do nothing at that moment except switch a lever. The lever would move this train onto another track, where there's only one guy standing. This one guy would die if the train goes to his track, but the five guys on the original track would survive. Do you pull the lever to switch the train's track?
2. The same scenario, basically. There is an oncoming train but no alternate track. Also, you are standing above the track next to a guy. The five workers on the track will die from the oncoming train if you don't do something. The only option is to push the big guy next to you onto the track, killing him but stopping the train before killing any of the other five guys.
Do you push this man onto the track?
Here's the link to the morality segment.
I'll comment soon with my thoughts. Hope to see yours, also
5 comments:
This post brings me back to the basic issues of morality that I debated in high school (minus the uncomfortable suits, brief cases, braces, and technical jargon).
In situation one, I would pull the lever to save five lives over one.
In situation two, I could not push the man to plummet to his death to save five lives.
Although the rationale is hazy, here's why:
In situation one, applying a basic utilitarian calculus is simple especially because you are standing from afar changing the course of the train. My first instinct to justify my action of killing the lone worker is 'I must save more lives.'
In situation two, the utilitarian calculus is still applicable, but with a much larger (and for me...unconquerable) hurdle: the basic instinct NOT to kill. The idea of saving five lives is secondary to the idea of killing one life because of the physical contact of pushing the unlucky dude. I just could not put my hands on his back and push him into the train. And it is that instinctual priority of a moral calculus- the moral rule against killing superceding a utilitarian standard- that makes the situations different... for me.
Another familiar facet of high school debate is eager contention. I am interested in any disagreement along with varying perspectives.
If you want another traditional moral dilemma and you have some free time on your hands, the case of the 'Speluncean Explorers' is how I introduce moral dilemmas when I teach at debate camp to middle school and high school debaters.
http://www.nullapoena.de/stud/explorers.html
we discussed this to death (ha?) in my USC philosophy class.
it's still an interesting question, though.
i get jess' logic- in one it's more like saving and in two it's more like killing... but the outcomes are the same, aren't they? they involve your intervention in the deaths of 1 over 5 or vice versa. saying you would pull the lever but not push the guy is sort-of contradictory to me at first glance... but then it gets technical- what is killing? how do you define intervention? what are the degrees of separation involved with the lever vs. you pushing? what if one of the five guys was a mass murderer? does the worth of five human lives outweigh the life of one?
i feel that in these cases, the questions that arise from the original problem are more interesting than peoples' answers and their logic behind them.
I don't answer- I just ask more questions.
jess, way to get this thing started off all sophisticated.
deb, killing can be a couple things. it can be slaughtering or it can be depriving something or someone of life.
if we're worried about not killing for the sake of not being the actor on the train track scene, we're still killing. in fact, inaction means more killing... to take the word killing to mean depriving of life.
intervention become something of a given. you've intervened simply because of your presence.
i believe that the separation that the lever provides can allow me to act in the interest of the five people while touching someone's back to cause his/her death is something entirely different.
deb, i'm glad you raised some of these questions. feel free to revisit and comment on a related post from june: http://benjamminspearsblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/when-and-how-if-ever.html
have you guys thought yet that there's no option to throw yourself onto the track in scenario 2? would you, for those five guys?
I might be callous, but in both situations I would save the lives of the five guys.
Once you start throwing different numbers around, then it starts to get fuzzy. But my gut reaction is to kill one to save five, whether or not my action is passive or active.
I kinda agree with bert and Ben, Im doing whatever I can to save those five guys (and their burgers). However in case 2 i dont think the option of pushing that guy would even come into my head. If all that is needed is something to make the driver aware enough to brake (a body would not really slow a train down any) i would try something different probably involving myself. I sont know about throwing the full body but im always in flip flops so I could kick that at the windshield, or throw my keys, maybe im holding a frisbee, I might even stick an arm out and take one for the boys.
But another side of me is definitely callous in that if they die, I feel bad but it was a function of what they did. Surely when you take a job working on train tracks the scenario pops into your head that it is fairly dangeroyus and you are compensated as such. There are plenty of jobs where people are compensated by the sheer fact that they put themselves in danger (security guard, soldier, body guard) or are compensated higher as a result of that danger (fisherman, professional athlete, construction/maintenance worker). I am not advocating that these people SHOULD die, im merely stating that they enjoy the benefits of that danger and that when it comes to fruition while upsetting it is not necessarily tragic. As compared to an event like the oklahoma city bombing, a bystander killed in a drive by shooting (even this can be argues in the same vein in that the individual enjoyed decreased rents for living in a more dangerous neighborhood), 9/11.
To poser a similar conundrum to individuals of a higher income class that may not be maintenance workers or security guards. The same is true of executives and stress. I constantly find myself tempering complaints about work because in reality I am compensated to be stressed and I desire higher levels of compensation so I make my own bed. I choose to do what I do, I could just as easily be a librarian, or teach swimming lessons, or give wilderness tours. I'm not saying that no one should complain about work, school teachers for example are not compensated to the degree that they deal with stress and provide societal value. Nor do i not complain. Im just trying to get my thoughts out there to help stimulate the dialogue.
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