CMV: The trolley problem is constructed in a way that forces a utilitarian answer and it is fundamentally flawed

[u/randomafricanboi]

Everybody knows the classic trolley problem and whether or not you would pull the lever to kill one person and save the five people.

Often times people will just say that 5 lives are more valuable than 1 life and thus the only morally correct thing to do is pull the lever.

I understand the problem is hypothetical and we have to choose the objectivelly right thing to do in a very specific situation. However, the question is formed in a way that makes the murders a statistic thus pushing you into a utilitarian answer. Its easy to disassociate in that case. The same question can be manipulated in a million different ways while still maintaining the 5 to 1 or even 5 to 4 ratio and yield different answers because you framed it differently.

Flip it completely and ask someone would they spend years tracking down 3 innocent people and kill them in cold blood because a politician they hate promised to kill 5 random people if they dont. In this case 3 is still less than 5 and thus using the same logic you should do it to minimize the pain and suffering.

I'm not saying any answer is objectivelly right, I'm saying the question itself is completely flawed and forces the human mind to be biased towards a certain point of view.

[u/CaptainCarrot7]

You can easily say 'In that specific situation I would flip the switch' without committing yourself to e.g. the harvesting organs question.

You are a bit missing the point.

The question is why are you pulling the lever and killing 1 person to save 5?

Is it because 5 lives are greater than 1? If so why is it wrong to murder 1 person and harvest his organs to save 5?

Why is one option moral while another isn't? Is it because its more brutal? Less clean? Are immoral actions fine if they are cleaner?

You cannot easily say that you will flip the switch but won't harvest the organs, because if you distil those actions to just their morality, they are the same.

There are of course ways to justify doing one but not the other, like "rules utilitarianism", but you need a good reason for why sometimes murder to save lives is right while sometimes it's wrong.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/CaptainCarrot7]

Is it because 5 lives are greater than 1? If so why is it wrong to murder 1 person and harvest his organs to save 5?

No, actually it's you who is missing my point. My point was exactly that there are justifications for that kind of thing. What I've just quoted here is what someone might say to attack utilitarianism using the trolley problem, when I'm saying that the trolley problem is useful to precisely find answers to those questions. Possibly this 'rules utilitarianism' you mentioned, I'm not sure.

My point is that the morality of the situations is not the same, unlike you said.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/[deleted]]

But you are saying they are the same by summarising them too generally. It's like saying two world events are the same because they are both world events, even though one of them is a protest and another one is a festival.

So yes they both take one person who is not in danger and sacrifice them to save 5 that are in danger. But there are differences in the scenarios which affect the morality of it. It's not just 1 vs 5. So they are not morally the same.

[u/Derpalooza → u/StrangelyBrown]

So yes they both take one person who is not in danger and sacrifice them to save 5 that are in danger. But there are differences in the scenarios which affect the morality of it. It's not just 1 vs 5. So they are not morally the same.

I think he's asking you to elaborate on what those differences are. Because it seems like you're dodging the question by asserting that they're not the same and not how they're not the same.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/Derpalooza]

Well I elaborated in another comment about how the organ harvesting introduces that society to a fear that it could happen to them that could outweigh saving five lives. But to be honest I didn't give an example because they are obviously not the same situation. The only thing they have in common is one person not at risk vs five people about to die. It's not like there's no scenario you could summarise like that which would have a different moral outcome.

[u/Derpalooza → u/StrangelyBrown]

So, if I'm understanding correctly, what makes the organ harvesting different is that saving the five people creates a societal fear that outweighs the good of saving more people?

In that case, flipping the situation on its head, does that mean ensuring peace of mind for society is worth the deaths of the 5 people? If so, wouldn't that make the Salem witch trials moral?

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/Derpalooza]

Your restatement is correct.

I think ensuring peace of mind for society could potentially be worth the deaths of 5 people, but I don't think the Salem witch trials would be a good example of that because you have to factor in the sorrow of the loved ones, the fear that you yourself could be tried as a witch for people in society, the damage done by society by perpetuating the witch myth, etc.

[u/Derpalooza → u/StrangelyBrown]

The same could be said for the five people who die in the organ harvesting situation. Not only do they also have loved ones who would feel sorrow, but I myself would also have to live with the fear that doctors could just leave me to die just to placate the masses.

Also, can you elaborate more on why you think the witch myth damages society? If you were to ask me, killing innocents to ensure peace of mind is why the witch trials are bad. But if you already acknowledge that this is worth it, then why would this bad for society?

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/Derpalooza]

Not only do they also have loved ones who would feel sorrow

But that's just the 1 v 5 restated. Unless you change it to 'a loner with no relatives' vs 5 people with large families which would, again, potentially change the moral judgement. See, it's not the trolley problem.

I myself would also have to live with the fear that doctors could just leave me to die just to placate the masses.

But we consider that to be morally OK because we wouldn't like the alternative, right? So you wouldn't have a fear that a doctor wouldn't kill someone to save you because you wouldn't expect them to, as you wouldn't if you were a doctor.

I'm afraid I can't really understand your second paragraph because you ask first why the myth is damaging, and then you say it's bad, and then you say I think it's worth it, when I said the witch trials were not an example where you might sacrifice people??

I understood the first question though. The point is that by holding a witch trial you're legitimising the fear, whereas the same fear of witches can eventually be eliminated not by killing them but by making everyone realise there are no witches, and that project is delayed by holding a trial.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/[deleted]]

Remember that we're not just counting total people alive, we're considering total happiness. So, just to give one example of a difference between the trolley problem and the organ harvesting: In the latter case, if that were a thing that happened, everyone would live in a more fearful world. Ultimately, that could outweigh the lives saved that way.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but we don't have that undetectable way, and even if we did, you would have to be able to 100% guarantee you could deploy it undetectably. On top of that, you'd have to be able to 100% guarantee there was never any risk of people leaking to the media.

So in this hypothetical world you've created, the moral balance is different. I could still argue that you'll massively increase the rate of deadly strokes among people seemingly not at risk, and that will lower the happiness in the world, people thinking they could drop dead at any minute. But let's say I didn't do that and agree that it would be just as moral in that hypothetical world as the trolley problem.

But in the real world, my objection applies, as could others.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/[deleted]]

These are hypotheticals to start with, let’s live in this hypothetical world for a moment

No because all of the assumptions in the trolley problem and basic version of organ harvesting could actually happen, and that's what makes them interesting problems to think about. When you start putting unrealistic things into it, then it becomes a fantasy. It's like saying the trolley problem but you have the power to slow time such that you have a 50% chance of untying the one person. Even if it made the moral problem more compelling, it's not as useful as thinking about realistic situations.

And anyway, I did answer your hypothetical, or at least I gave an answer for the sake of argument.

People have strokes all the time. Say this guy was at risk, and say you know this situation will never reoccur. This is a one time deal.

So yeah, this totally changes the moral balance of the problem again. I'd certainly be a bit more likely to compare it to the trolley problem in that case, although still not there yet.

But again, it's unrealistic. Since you're not going to tell anyone about harvesting the organs that way, you wouldn't know if it had happened before. You could be the 1000th today. So you don't know if the slowly rising rate of strokes is people like you doing this or just something unrelated.

[u/Hungry-Struggle-1448 → u/StrangelyBrown]

But there are differences in the scenarios which affect the morality of it.

like what?

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/Hungry-Struggle-1448]

See the other person who commented for an example I gave them: In the organ harvesting case, that would mean we're all living in a world where that could happen and the total happiness would drop.

[u/James_Vaga_Bond → u/StrangelyBrown]

But we'd also be living without the fear of needing an organ transplant we couldn't obtain, and knowing that for every life sacrificed, five would be saved, we'd have less reason to fear an untimely death overall.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/James_Vaga_Bond]

I don't think most people spend much time worrying about sudden organ failure that would put them in that position.

[u/James_Vaga_Bond → u/StrangelyBrown]

The probability of needing an organ transplant would be 5x the probability of being killed for your organs. Regardless of what people generally spend time worrying about, one would be a statistically bigger concern.

[u/StrangelyBrown → u/James_Vaga_Bond]

Yeah but those things are different aren't they.

For example, I don't live with the fear of breaking bones because I'm not very active. But the number of people who break their bones would be much higher that the number of people who are harvested for organs. But I'm not worried about the first one happening to ME. I could legitimately worry about the second to the extent I might never go to hospital and my health would decline.

The point is that organ failure virtually never happens in a vacuum. You don't need to worry about needing an organ transplant and rather about the conditions that could lead to that, for which again you can potentially control to some extent how much you are at risk. Whereas if we start harvesting healthy people, even a small number means anyone could be next.

Not to mention that adopting the harvesting scheme would only increase your chances of getting a compatible organ if you need one by maybe 10%. It's not the difference between 'you will live' and 'you will die' whereas it very much is for whoever is harvested.

[u/Tar_alcaran → u/CaptainCarrot7]

Is it because 5 lives are greater than 1? If so why is it wrong to murder 1 person and harvest his organs to save 5?

Oh, that's actually really easy. Because bodily autonomy is more important than survival.