What Everyone Gets WRONG About THE Trolley Problem | The Trolley Problem Explained

The Trolley Problem Explained:
The Trolley Problem is an interesting case of philosophy gone mainstream. From memes, to TV shows, and discussions by famous Youtubers, this dilemma has taken on a life of its own.

This video is about The Trolley Problem and how it relates to the Trolley CASE. The Trolley Problem is not about what you would do in an isolated, hypothetical situation, but rather how to explain and reconcile conflicting judgements between similar examples. The Trolley Case turns out to have an intuitive and widely agreed-upon solution. However, the Trolley Problem presents all kinds of difficulties, highlighting how difficult thinking about ethics can be, but also providing a method for thinking and communicating about ethics more clearly.

The video also discusses what The Trolley Problem tells us about how philosophers reason and argue about ethics.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
0:29 - A Short History of Trolleyology
1:11 - Solving the Trolley Case
1:40 - The REAL Trolley Problem
2:49 - The Value of Stupid Questions
4:27 - Conclusion (What Are We Doing?)

#trolleyproblem #ethics #philosophy

[mythyrox]

2:58 cleverly cutting out the point where the toddler ran over all 6 people. i see

[jish]

What most people also ignore when bringing up the Trolly question is that there are multiple parts to the question where each time, the choices become a lot more difficult. For example, the first one is kill 1 or kill 5, where everyone chooses the 1. Next one, kill your spouse or kill your parents, siblings, and the family pet. Right here, it suddenly becomes a horrible dilemma where you're now forced to choose to either kill the person you love, or your closest family members. Then it goes into would you much rather kill Adolf Hitler or 5 pedophiles, now making which one is the lesser of 2 evils.

[YourBoyTrue]

I'm going to call it: it's not the fact that lives are at risk. Lives are at risk either way. It's whether you choose to be directly responsible for one or indirectly responsible for many.

[sassylittleprophet]

To me it's not about making a choice one way or another, it's about recognising the consequences. Life is lost regardless of which way you go.

[charlesco]

He said he would solve the "real" trolly case but he never got to the solution? Instead he changed the question. (He pulled an Captin Kirk in a Kobayashi Maru test)

[TimoteoTheOsprey]

Beautifully written. Discovering “the shape of our disagreement” is a phrase I’ll be stealing and a perfect way to describe whats going on with thought experiments. Subscribed.

[approachableactive]

It was never 5 lives vs 1. It was always about letting life play out vs active intervention and its consequences. If you don't act 5 people die but you are not to blame. They would have died due to factors beyond your control cresting the situation. The point is that If you choose to save them you will have actively murdered the 1 person. By actually taking that control and getting involved do you have to be held accountable. The 1 person was in no danger until your intervention. You become a murderer he died solely because you chose to make it happen. The question of the trolly case is should you be held responsible for that murder. Does the saving of 5 lives warrant the ending of another.

This question is as relevant today as it ever was. Look to animal testing, organ harvesting, ethnic cleansing, hostile takeovers, wars of liberation etc. Does the need of the many out weigh the needs of the few? And should anyone have the power to make that call?

[Archone]

Everyone seems to have missed the obvious trick inherent to the trolley problem. By definition, this is not a situation that arose by happenstance. The person proposing the dilemna has already kidnapped YOU, and locked you in the control room. You can't get out to physically save the people they've tied to the tracks. They have taken steps to prevent you from finding a third option to save all six lives - lives which they themselves have placed in danger.

Now the questioner is attempting to force you to participate in their sick game. If you do nothing, they will taunt you and accuse you of being responsible for the deaths of five people - people who were placed in danger by the questioner. If you pull the lever they will taunt you and accuse you of being responsible for the death of one person - who was placed into that position by the questioner.

It is a false dilemma. The options have been artificially reduced by outside forces to create a climate of helplessness, guilt, and despair. To use a pop culture reference, this is the Joker wanting to prove everyone else is as ugly as he is.

[rurururururururururu]

3:15 Truly a good documentary to watch at 3 AM eating fistfuls of shredded cheese

[FredrickTesla]

To me it's an attempt to force communal responsibility where there is none. The realistic look at the situation is this: There's some fucking maniac running around tying people to trolley tracks, yet instead of focusing efforts on trying to stop them, academia is at the tracks trying to find a way to blame innocent bystanders for what's happening instead. If you didn't force the people on the tracks or set the trolly in motion, you're not to blame, period.
My favorite way to answer the question is this: What happens if I have a heart attack before I can pull the switch? Who's to blame then? Cause their answer to that typically shows that the actual purpose of the exercise is about them being able to blame someone else for something they didn't cause and have no responsibility over.

[horsebadorties]

I reject that question entirely. The false implication, that to kill one person than to kill five is any better may persuade utilitarians that think one could measure suffering or the value of lives in quantified units. The value of human lives is equally infinite for every individual human and thus not measurable in any way. One life's value equals the value of all the other human lives. In relation to the death of human beings numbers only can reflect the tragic of catastrophy or the barbarism of a crime. Yet the individual tragedy remains infinitely tragic. There is no way I could eliminate death and suffering in this hypothetical moral problem, so my answer would be horribly irrelevant.

[DanDownunda]

I hadn't realised that the "Trolley Problem" was so basic as described here. I read in Kevin Dutton's book The Wisdom Of Psychopaths of a different version. He visited criminal psychopaths in Britain's Broadmoor Prison and asked them something along these lines. "You're on a bridge and you can see a train coming and it is going to kill five people, unless you push the person beside you off the bridge onto a track switch and save the five people in the path of the train. Would you kill the person on the bridge?" All the psychopaths said "Yes!" Emphatically and immediately.

[NotANameist]

“Of course you kill 1 to save 5”

I mean not obvious to lots of people but OK

[chriskroutil]

I find it baffling that people even discuss the morality of the person pulling the lever when somebody else TIED THESE PEOPLE TO THE TRAIN TRACKS

[BASED.]

I hate these kinds of problems because I have little to no hesitation answering them and people think I’m a psycho.
We did this problem in a behavioural communications class in college and I was the only one who said my answer was dependent on who was on the tracks. Obviously I’d save 1 person I know over 5, 10, or even 50 people I don’t know... obviously my biases will influence my decision.
Maybe I’m not really a psycho, maybe I’m just the only honest one about the problem.

[BreadApologist]

Actually if you arm the trolley with a automatic grenade launcher turret, it can kill both the 5 or so people on the initial track and the one on the other track as well. Greatly increasing the killing potential of the trolley.

[shondmichael]

Attempt to save everyone. Pull the lever enough to cause the train to derail from either track. Chance/Fate will have to determine whether it works or not. Your intent was to save everyone.

[johnnynick]

The answer to this dilemma is a value determination that must be made solely by the subject. The person with access to the trolly lever has to make a value judgement, weighing not only the value of the lives impacted, but also the effects his decision will have on his own life. If, for example, his young daughter is on one track, and two horrendous criminals are on the other, the choice is determined by who holds more value to him. Clearly, the life of his innocent daughter holds more value, so his choice is simple. That choice becomes more difficult if the options are closer in value to each other; i.e. his son is on one track and his daughter is on the other. There is NO standard correct answer to this question. It is a value choice.

[jaimelugo]

The trolley problem is the perfect example of the state of ethics in the world, believing that answering a controlled isolated case can be used for actual decision making. You make a good point that this is a conversation starter... but I am afraid it doesn't bring forward the conversation in the right direction.

[rainerwahnsinn]

The more you know the less u can decide...
What if the one person is your loved brother 20 yo and the 5 are 75yo?

He would live much longer then those 5 added would do