ME-ET-ET-ET-ET...

Bear with me and please read this section first before any scrolling down to the bottom.

I heard a wee morality 'thought experiment' this morning which I've heard before but the discussions after it were a bit odd to me. Would you like to take part in my altered version of it? If so, read on...

Scenario 1
A railway trolley thing is hurtling toward a group of 5 people who are unaware of it. If it hits them, they will all be killed. You are standing on a walkway above the railway, you can't contact the 5 people that are about to be killed and the only way to save them is to push a large person that is standing beside you onto the tracks which would stop the trolley. The large person will be killed but the 5 will be saved. What would you do?

There is no trick to this question, no other information required. Would you push the person?


Once you have decided, read this next scenario below.
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Scenario 2
A railway trolley thing is hurtling toward a group of 5 people who are unaware of it. If it hits them, they will all be killed. You can pull a lever which switches the tracks and sends the trolley down another sidetrack. The 5 people will be saved but there is 1 person on this alternate track that is unaware and so will be killed when the trolley hits them. The only thing you can do is to pull this lever to switch the tracks. Again, what would you do?


The only change I have made to the scenarios is that I've told them in the reverse order to way I heard them. So when I listened to it, the situation above with the large person pushed onto the tracks was second.

There is a slight difference in the detachment from the involved persons. With the lever pulling you are detached from all involved parties but with the pushing, you are physically intervening with a person at close quarters but still it is exactly the same action and result.

What is interesting is that with the lever story told first, everyone is generally easy to say straight off that you pull the lever and as Spock once said, "The needs of the many far outweigh the needs of the few or one." Your decision and action in the experiment always end up in 1 person being sacrificed but I wonder, and my reason for reversing the order, whether the order in which you hear them dictates how you feel about them as if you break it down to the decision and result. It is basically the same thing outside of emotional attachment.

Outside of the actual scenarios, there was also furthar analysis of brain activity when presented with the two descriptions and apparently different parts of the brain fire when dealing with the two situations because of the higher emotional content of the active pushing situation.

It was a very interesting article.


[edit]
Forgot to say. Anybody, non-blippers, feel free to leave a comment on Facebook if you'd like to contribute.