Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
the trolley problem. A classic.
A runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. You can save these five people by diverting the trolley onto a different set of tracks, one that has only one person on it, but if you do this that person will be killed. Is it morally permissible to turn the trolley and thus prevent five deaths at the cost of one?
Comments on this journal
consequentialism, while usually the reason chosen, is not what i'm using to justify this action.
Kantian ideas of morality based on duty, Jesuit principles of non-malefesence, islamic duty to work to prevent evil are what is backing my reasoning here.
it seems to me, that given this option, the duty is to act, to not do so would make one derelict of duty.
duty is not always comfortable, but innaction, while an option, seems like using the easy way out, to avoid taking some very heavy burdens onto oneself.
i would tell the family,
Ma'am, and children, i had no other choice, my intention was never to harm your father/husband, my actions have caused you pain for which i am truely sorry, but my responsibility was clear.
...
it ain't much, i know.
but to sit by and do nothing?
yes, sins of omission leave a stain on the soul... but in this case, as i said before... there is no sin! sins of omission are only applicable IF you have the chance to do good and instead, chose inaction. killing one person is not good. there is no sin of omission.
i would feel horrible that 5 people died and most likely end up in a guilt-ridden depression always wondering if there were something i could have done... but that does not make this inaction a sin.
plato, after that 1 person dies and the 5 live, how would u feel? undoubtedly horrible. when his family comes to you and asks "why him? why not let the train go on its course" - what is your reply? we are disagreeing on this because this example is NOT the same as upping the dose of morphine with the intent to ease the suffering and accidentally killing the person. here you are killing one to save 5. i do not believe in proportionalism or consequentialism, as i stated before.
ML, I am with you, to some degree. However, I believe that there would be an adverse effect on one's soul from being a bystander to evil as well. How would you respond if the choice was throw yourself on the tracks to save five people?
the action is not evul, and you are not commuiting murder, you are saving 5 lives.
??
you are not doing it to murder anyone...
Mashallah, excellent discussion on non-malafesence
we use it for pain control in terminal cases, attempting to control pain, knowingly giving a dose that has a bettr than 95% chance of depressing respiratory function (because the tolerance has developed to such a level that nay lower dose will not suffice)
the intention is to control pain, the death of the patient, is not.
and the act of giving pain medicine, is a benevolent one in and of itself.
so it is allowed.
a sin of omission is allowing evil to occur when you could have prevented it and chose not to help. for instance, if i see a woman being raped (God forbid) and i know that i can overtake this man and yet instead pretend i did not see it and chose not to help her... that is a sin of omission. In the trolley case, there is no CHANCE to help... there is no way the actor can prevent evil. either one person dies or another... either way there is the death of the innocent - which is, undoubtedly, an evil. if there were option C... sacrifice myself... or spend all my money to avoid their deaths - i'd chose C. But i CAN NOT willfully cause the death of any innocent person or it is murder.
Similar situation... you are in a war zone... a grenade comes and rests by you - soon it will go off and all the people around there will die or be injured badly. If you throw someone else onto the grenade in order to block the explosion, you are killing that person. good motive maybe, but bad action... in throwing the person onto the bomb you are intending to use that person and his death to save others. it still is murder. If, however, you do nothing and all of you die, it is not murder (by you) or suicide... or a sin of omission... it is simply an act of war and possibly murder by the one who threw the grenade. ok... so.... then, if you jump onto the grenade in order to save your comrades, is it suicide or an act of selfless sacrifice? the virtue ethics tradition would say that your intention is to save your comrades. your act is blocking the blow of the grenade and your motive is to save your comrades. suicide is willingly putting yourself to death. this act, in the virtue ethics tradition, of throwing yourself on the grenade is not suicide or in any way a sin.
Also, this is a seperate issue from the question about whether there is a difference between sins of omission and sins of comission. So that question remains open.
huge difference.
non-malefecsence (a tool jesuits use all the time in the medical field) is an important aspect of any action.
The action itself cannot be considered "evil" in the case of pulling a lever. the action is not evil and and of itself, it does have evil consequences, but the action, and the intention are not evil.
Pushing a person onto the tracks, even if it results in saving 5 others, has the problem of being an evil act.
This is a nebulous distinction i understand, especially because the results will be the same regardless. (person dies)
but if the action itself is evil, then it cannot be morally undertaken.
n'est ce pas?
i do NOT think one person's life is worth more than anothers or that this is something a human can decide (up to God in my opinion). I am not MURDERING those who are going to die by refusing to act... i am not hitting them with the trolly... rather i am allowing the trolly to hit them as it will do on its own according to nature.
i refuse to murder anyone and i do not believe that an innocent, unwilling person should be sacrificed for "the good of the many".
you flip the switch, and agonize over your desicion at a later time.
sometiems you just gotta do the job.
then restart the situation,
c'mon C, it's pretty obvious
what about you?