M1 Disc. Kill one or five

Like the trolley car, we have another many vs few question:
Sandel says
" Suppose you are driving through a narrow tunnel and a worker falls onto the road in front of you. There is not enough time for you to stop. If you keep straight, you will hit the worker and kill him, but if you swerve left into oncoming traffic, you will collide with a school bus and kill at least five children. What’s the right thing to do? Does utilitarianism have the right answer?"

In this case, you are taking an action willingly to cause greater harm when you could do nothing and minimize it. Further, we have the same issues of risk assumption that were mentioned in my first trolly problem response. So I feel it best not to act in this case. Utilitarianism in this situation sides with me as to quote Spock the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

You could also attempt to drive to the right and risk damaging yourself but making it more likely that the person in the front will survive.

But, I agree with MadHatter in that if it's willing and you had to make the decision, heading straight forward is the best course.

This is very much similar to handling a deer, when a deer jumps in front of you, don't swerve. Foot off the gas, let it get hit, and come to a stop. Outside of the needs of the many, we can also consider the futures of the children as well. The best bet you can make is to minimize the damage over all.

Now, to turn that question on it's head, what if the person falling is a child and the bus has five elderly people? Does that change responses as we are conditioned to want to protect children?

This is also a fun little test for you to explore as well:

http://moralmachine.mit.edu/

Nakis wrote: Now, to turn that question on it's head, what if the person falling is a child and the bus has five elderly people? Does that change responses as we are conditioned to want to protect children?

First of all thank you for the link. Its an interesting one

As for your question from an emotional and utility standpoint, we must save the child. Morally we are choosing to kill five people when we could accidentally kill one so I would still say its wrong to turn the wheel.

Ah, but just to throw the wrench into the gears, if those elderly people had, collectively, 20 years left on the planet, is that worth more than the possible 80 of that child?

Of course, we begin to stray into specifics, which is what makes things so much more interesting. :laugh:

Nakis wrote: Ah, but just to throw the wrench into the gears, if those elderly people had, collectively, 20 years left on the planet, is that worth more than the possible 80 of that child?

So, in this case, arguing from the totally utilitarian point of view then yes the childs 80 out values the 20. The reason being is that by that point these people have done their prime work, passed on much if not most of what they could pass on to others and will require more and more resources to sustain while giving less and less back. The child, on the other hand, has a host of potential to give back and to even generate resources for the rest of us.

From the emotional view, the potential personality and life of a child to most will likely always feel more important than the final years of the life of the elderly.

Ethically I still do not think it matters. Willingly killing five innocent people will always be worse than accidentally killing one.

Nakis wrote: Now, to turn that question on it's head, what if the person falling is a child and the bus has five elderly people? Does that change responses as we are conditioned to want to protect children?

Yes we are conditioned to protect children, and for some damned reason, many cultures seem to value Youth above all things.

What I actually wanted to say was (and this is in response to another answer as well) you can't "value" a "future", and, honestly, most people hugely overestimate the potential of any given meatsack to do much of any interest at all in this world.

but, if we are in the business of "valuing" futures, and for the sake of pointless "what-ifs" to the scenario - what if the children all had heart disease and would die in two weeks anyway?
what if they were all from abusive, poverty stricken families and were statistically most likely to become criminals or burdens on the welfare system?
what if they were neo nazis?
What if they were foreign, didn't speak your language, and their education, and bus fares, are being funded by you?



Anyway, I'm all up for swerving and hitting the schoolbus full of kids.

They "potentially" have a lot more "future" to damage the world, they might breed and create more children, and the worker has every right to a safe work place (especially considering his work appears to be maintaining a tunnel that YOU are getting value from), and (since we are arguing intangibles outside the scope of the question) may very well already have a family, children, sick old mum, whathaveyou that he supports in some fashion. I've already invested (lets say) 20 years of taxes on this man's education, healthcare, and so on. The children have cost me far less. In a world of Pox and war, children might be more useful, at the moment, I need skilled tradesman far more than I need kids.

Kill 1.

In terms of quantity of souls taken, one is always better than five, regardless of the age of the souls or the assumed date of departure of said souls. I prefer to focus on quantity because quality cannot be known.

Either way the car goes, the life/s lost will weigh on the one who took it. As for the ages- we cannot see into the future and have no way of knowing if, had we spared the one to kill the five, if the one wouldn't have died tragically the next day or not. That applies the other way as well- we can't know that killing the one to spare the five will actually mean longer more productive lives for them.

We can only focus on what is directly in front of us, and directly in front of us is one life or five.

Kehta Nier wrote: Kill 1.

In terms of quantity of souls taken, one is always better than five, regardless of the age of the souls or the assumed date of departure of said souls. I prefer to focus on quantity because quality cannot be known.

Either way the car goes, the life/s lost will weigh on the one who took it. As for the ages- we cannot see into the future and have no way of knowing if, had we spared the one to kill the five, if the one wouldn't have died tragically the next day or not. That applies the other way as well- we can't know that killing the one to spare the five will actually mean longer more productive lives for them.

We can only focus on what is directly in front of us, and directly in front of us is one life or five.

But in other areas of life, we do not focus on what is directly in front of us. In the field of law, we consider the past and take it into account in sentencing. In medicine when it comes to organ donation we consider statistics and how likely a person is to get the most use of an organ in ranking them on the list etc. Should that not play into account here? The greatest odds of the greatest good?
Does making a choice to kill vs killing no matter what and choosing to minimize damage make any distinction for you?
Not disagreeing per say as such ethical situations are highly personal but I find your view to be interesting and would like to understand more.

As operator of the vehicle, you've got to keep control and follow the rules and etiquette as much as practicable. That's the job, but you cannot fairly be held responsible beyond that. If you get in an accident, it doesn't mean its your fault necessarily, so avoiding causing an accident is more important then being in an accident - from that perspective &IMO. Obviously the passengers might disagree

Braking in the most efficient manner depends on the vehicle, but these days with ABS it's pretty much meant to give some steering control under maximum braking effort while pulling the car up as quick as the road surface and braking dynamics allows. Trying something 'different' and outside the vehicles design for safe operation is just asking for trouble, you could flip, you could flip the bus, the bus could hit something else etc etc.

Basically the dude had an accident and got hit by traffic. By hitting the bus, your creating an accident by trying to avoid a dude having an accident - and only then do you become responsible IMO.