them
over.
Luckily,
you
can
pull
a
lever
and
divert
the
trolley
to
another
track.
The
only
problem
is
that
the
madman
has
also
tied
a
single
person
to
that
track.
Considering
the
circumstances,
should
you
pull
the
lever?
What it
Means:
The trolley problem
was first proposed
by the philosopher
Philippa Foot as
a means of
critiquing the major
theories in ethical
philosophy, in particular
utilitarianism, the
system which proposes
that the most
moral decision is
always the one
that provides “the
greatest good for
the greatest number.”
From a utilitarian
point of view,
the obvious choice
is to pull
the lever, saving
five and only
killing one. But
critics of this
theory would state
that in pulling
the lever you
become complicit in
what is clearly
an immoral act—you
are now partially
responsible for the
death of the
lone person on
the other track.
Others, meanwhile, argue
that your mere
presence in the
situation demands that
you act, and
that to do
nothing would be
equally immoral. In
short, there is
no wholly moral
action, and this
is the point.
Many philosophers have
used the trolley
problem as an
example of the
ways that real
world situations often
force individuals to
compromise their own
moral codes, and
that there are
times when there
is no totally
moral course of
action.
“电车难题”是伦理学领域最为知名的思想实验之一，其内容大致是：一个疯子把五个无辜的人绑在电车轨道上。一辆失控的电车朝他们驶来，并且片刻后就要碾压到他们。幸运的是，你可以拉一个拉杆，让电车开到另一条轨道上。但是还有一个问题，那个疯子在那另一条轨道上也绑了一个人。考虑以上状况，你应该拉拉杆吗？
相关背景：
电车难题最早是由哲学家Philippa
Foot提出的，用来批判伦理哲学中的主要理论，特别是功利主义。功利主义提出的观点是，大部分道德决策都是根据“为最多的人提供最大的利益”的原则做出的。从一个功利主义者的观点来看，明显的选择应该是拉拉杆，拯救五个人只杀死一个人。但是功利主义的批判者认为，一旦拉了拉杆，你就成为一个不道德行为的同谋——你要为另一条轨道上单独的一个人的死负部分责任。然而，其他人认为，你身处这种状况下就要求你要有所作为，你的不作为将会是同等的不道德。总之，不存在完全的道德行为，这就是重点所在。许多哲学家都用电车难题作为例子来表示现实生活中的状况经常强迫一个人违背他自己的道德准则，并且还存在着没有完全道德做法的情况。
Mahone
Lee的解读：
该难题的第一个关键点在于道德是什么。道德是大多数人同意的一项行为准则，如果大家都同意拉拉杆，那么拉拉杆就是道德的；如果大家都不同意拉拉杆，那么拉拉杆就是不道德的。第二个关键点在于你不知道大多数人是怎么想的，或许你说可以投票，但是很明显，时间不允许。还是回到道德的定义，道德不只是大多数人同意，而且大多数人能同意，说明大多数人都会经历。而这个难题中的情境不是每个人都能经历的，所以不可能有一致意见，也就不能放在道德范畴来讨论了。Philosophy
Question:
The “Trolley Problem”
by Emrys
Westacott
Updated May 13, 2016
Philosophers love to conduct thought experiments.
Often
these involve rather bizarre situations, and critics wonder how
relevant these thought experiments are to the real world.
But the point of the experiments is to help us clarify our thinking
by pushing it to the limits.
The “trolley dilemma” is one
of the most famous of these philosophical imaginings.
THE BASIC TROLLEY PROBLEM
A version of this
moral dilemma was first put forward in
1967 by the British moral philosopher Phillipa Foot, well-known as
one of those responsible for reviving virtue ethics.
Here’s the basic dilemma.
A tram is running down a
track and is out control.
If it continues on its course
unchecked and undiverted, it will run over five people who have
been tied to the tracks.
You have the chance to divert it
onto another track simply by pulling a lever.
If you do
this, though, the tram will kill a man who happens to be standing
on this other track. What should you do?
THE UTILITARIAN RESPONSE
For many utilitarians the problem is a no-brainer.
Our duty
is to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Five lives saved is better than one life saved.
Therefore, the right thing to do is to pull the lever.
Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism.
It judges
actions by their consequences.
But there are many who think
that we have to consider other aspects of action as well.
In the case of the trolley dilemma, many are troubled by the fact
that if they pull the lever they will be actively engaged in
causing the death of an innocent person.
“电车难题”
哲学家喜欢进行思想实验。通常这些都涉及到一些奇怪的情况，批评家们想知道这些思想实验对现实世界有多么重要。但是实验的目的是为了帮助我们把我们的想法推向极限。“电车困境”是这些哲学想象中最著名的一个。
基本的电车问题
这一道德困境的一个版本是由英国道德哲学家菲利普·富特(Phillipa
Foot)于1967年提出的，他是一位著名的伦理学家。
这是基本的困境。有轨电车正沿着轨道运行，并被控制。如果它继续不受约束地继续进行下去，它将会超过5个被绑在轨道上的人。你有机会通过拉杆把它转移到另一个轨道上。如果你这样做，电车将会杀死一个碰巧站在另一个轨道上的人。你应该做什么呢?
功利主义的反应
对于许多功利主义者来说，这个问题是显而易见的。我们的责任是促进最大的幸福。挽救了五人的生命，胜过了拯救一个人的生命。因此，正确的做法是拉杆。
功利主义是结果主义的一种形式。它判断行动的后果。但也有很多人认为，我们必须考虑其他方面的行动。在电车困境的情况下，许多人都被这样的事实所困扰:如果他们拉起操纵杆，他们就会积极地介入，导致一个无辜的人的死亡。
According to our normal moral intuitions, this is wrong,
and we should pay some heed to our normal moral intuitions.
So-called “rule utilitarians” may well agree with this point of
view.
They hold that we should not judge every action by
its consequences.
Instead, we should establish a set of
moral rules to follow according to which rules will promote the
greatest happiness of the greatest number in the long term.
And then we should follow those rules, even if in specific
cases doing so may not produce the best consequences.
But so-called “act utilitarians” judge each act by its
consequences; so they will simply do the math and pull the lever.
Moreover, they will argue that there is no significant
difference between causing a death by pulling the lever and not
preventing a death by refusing to pull the lever.
One is
equally responsible for the consequences in either case.
Those who think that it would be right to divert the tram often
appeal to what philosophers call the doctrine of double effect.
Simply put, this doctrine states that it is morally
acceptable to do something that causes a serious harm in the course
of promoting some greater good
if the harm in question is
not an intended consequence of the action but is, rather, an
unintended side-effect.
The fact that the harm caused is
predictable doesn’t matter.
What matters is whether or not
the agent intends it.
The doctrine of double effect plays an important role in just war
theory. It has often been used to justify certain military actions
which cause “collateral damage.”
An example of such an
action would be the bombing of an ammunition dump that not only
destroys the military target but also causes a number of civilian
deaths.
Studies show that the majority of people today, at least in modern
Western societies, say that they would pull the lever.
However, they respond differently when the situation is
tweaked.
VARIATIONS ON THE BASIC TROLLEY DILEMMA
The Fat Man on the Bridge
The situation is the same as before: a runaway tram threatens to
kill five people.
A very heavy man is sitting on a wall on
a bridge spanning the track.
You can stop the train by
pushing him off the bridge onto the track in front of the train.
He will die, but the five will be saved.
(You can’t
opt to jump in front of the tram yourself since you aren’t big
enough to stop it.)
From a simple utilitarian point of view, the dilemma is the same–do
you sacrifice one life to save five?–and the answer is the same:
yes.
Interestingly, however, many people who would pull the
lever in the first scenario would not push the man in this second
scenario.
This raises two questions.
THE MORAL QUESTION: IF PULLING THE LEVER IS RIGHT, WHY
WOULD PUSHING THE MAN BE WRONG?
One argument for treating the cases differently is to say that the
doctrine of double effect no longer applies if one pushes the man
off the bridge.
His death is no longer an unfortunate
side-effect of your decision to divert the tram; his death is the
very means by which the tram is stopped.
So you can hardly
say in this case that when you pushed him off the bridge you
weren’t intending to cause his death.
A closely related argument is based on a moral principle mad famous
by the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804).
According to Kant we should always treat people as ends in
themselves, never merely as a means to our own ends.
This
is commonly known, reasonably enough, as the “ends principle.”
It is fairly obvious that if you push the man off the
bridge to stop the tram, you are using him purely as a means.
To treat him as end would be to respect the fact that he is
a free, rational being, to explain the situation to him, and
suggest that he sacrifice himself to save the lives of those tied
to the track.
Of course, there is no guarantee that he
would be persuaded.
And before the discussion had got very
far the tram would have probably already passed under the
bridge!
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL QUESTION: WHY WILL PEOPLE PULL THE
LEVER BUT NOT PUSH THE MAN?
Psychologists are concerned not with establishing what is right or
wrong but with understanding why people are so much more reluctant
to push a man to his death than to cause his death by pulling a
lever.
The Yale psychologist Paul Bloom suggests that the
reason lies in the fact that our causing the man’s death by
actually touching him arouses in us a much stronger emotional
response.
In every culture there is some sort of taboo
against murder.
An unwillingness to kill an innocent person
with our own hands is deeply ingrained in most people. This
conclusion seems to be supported by people’s response to another
variation on the basic dilemma.
THE FAT MAN STANDING ON THE TRAPDOOR
Here the situation is the same as before, but instead of sitting on
a wall the fat man is standing on a trapdoor built into the bridge.
Once again you can now stop the train and save five lives
by simply pulling a lever. But in this case pulling the lever will
not divert the train.
Instead, it ill open the trapdoor,
causing the man to fall through it and onto the track in front of
the train.
Generally speaking, people are not as ready to pull this lever as
they are to pull the lever that diverts the train.
But
significantly more people are willing to stop the train in this way
than are prepared to push the man off the bridge.
THE FAT VILLAIN ON THE BRIDGE
Suppose now that the man on the bridge is the very same man who has
tied the five innocent people to the track.
Would you be
willing to push
this person to his death to save the five?
A majority say they would, and this course of action seems
fairly easy to justify.
Given that he is willfully trying
to cause innocent people to die, his own death strikes many people
as thoroughly deserved.
The situation ios more complicated
, though, if the man is simply someone who has done other bad
actions.
Suppose in the past he has committed murder or
rape and that he hasn’t paid any penalty for these crimes.
Does that justify violating Kant’s ends principle and using him as
a mere means?
THE CLOSE RELATIVE ON THE TRACK
Here is one last variation to consider.
Go back to
the original scenario–you can pull a lever to divert the train so
that five lives are saved and one person is killed–but this time
the one person who will be killed is your mother, or your brother.
What would you do in this case?
And what would be
the right thing to do?
A strict utilitarian may have to bite the bullet here and be
willing to cause the death of their nearest and dearest.
After all, one of the basic principles of utilitarianism is that
everyone’s happiness counts equally.
As Jeremy Bentham, one
of the founders of modern utilitarianism, put it: Everyone counts
for one; no-one for more than one.
So sorry mom!
But this is most definitely not what most people would do.
The majority may lament the deaths of the five innocents, but they
cannot bring themselves to bring about the death of a loved one in
order to save the lives of strangers.
That is most
understandable from a psychological point of view.
Humans
are primed both in the course of evolution and through their
upbringing to care most for those around them.
But is it
morally legitimate to show a preference for one’s own family?
This is where many people feel that strict utilitarianism is
unreasonable and unrealistic.
Not only
will
we tend to naturally favor our own family over strangers,
but many think that we
ought to.
For
loyalty is a virtue; and loyalty to one’s family is about as basic
a form of loyalty as there is. So in many people’s eyes, to
sacrifice family for strangers goes against both our natural
instincts and our most fundamental moral intuitions.
