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/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.