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Trolley Problems (And Why I Hate Talking About Them)
Here is the best intro ever to the original Trolley Problem. Below is why I hate Trolley problems (Rumble version here), and after that is a text version. (YouTube embedding isn’t working, but links are still clickable!)
“On Trolley Problems and Why I Hate Talking About Them”
A Trolley Problem involves some scenario, some thought experiment, where we have to decide whether to allow a runaway trolley, or train car, to kill several people, or to save them by taking some action that kills someone else.
In the standard version, we have to choose between letting several people die or saving them by switching the tracks so the runaway trolley kills just one person instead. (See the best intro above!) More advanced Trolley Problems get more complicated, more dramatic, or more ridiculous–like the one where your only way to save a few lives is to shove a fat guy off of a bridge and onto the tracks.
So now, after this intro, we have three things to talk about. First, Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill. Second, Aristotle. Third, my own reflections.
Now, what do Kant and Mill say about this stuff?
It seems that some people think that Kant thinks we should not take any action that leads to killing anyone (even if it means more people die).
And it seems that some people think that Mill thinks we should take any action that leads to fewer people dying (even if it means our actions kill some people).
I think this is a near-total failure to understand Kant and Mill.
First, Kant doesn’t say “No killing.” What he says is: Always follow what he calls the “Categorical Imperative,” for example Version 2 of the CI: Always treat human beings as ends in themselves, never as merely means to an end. And he says Version 1 of the CI: Always act according to principles that can be universalized. And always follow any principle that meets the test of CI Version 1.
Second, Mill tells us that general rules are very useful and important! Rules like “Tell the truth” and “Don’t kill innocent people” lead to much better results, and should almost never be broken. The consequences of undermining a good rule have to weighed against the supposed good results of breaking the rule. Usually, the rules should be followed.
However, I think Mill actually says you should switch the tracks in the simple version!
And . . . I think Kant agrees!
In more complex versions, if you think Mill would recommend killing, find out what is the principle behind his action; make sure the principle is articulated in enough detail to respond to the details of this particular situation and not be arbitrarily applied to significantly different situations.
I bet that principle will be universalizable! If it is, then Kant’s method of knowing right from wrong agrees with Mill!
And, if you think Kant doesn’t recommend killing, try learning how Kant actually thinks about ethics before you assume he’s in some sort of irresolvable conflict with Mill. In particular, find out whether Kant thinks the ideal of the “Kingdom of Ends,” a society where everyone recognizes that everyone has intrinsic value worthy of respect, is something we are getting closer to by following the Categorical Imperative. And find out whether getting closer to the Kingdom of Ends isn’t a net increase of happiness on earth. If it is, then Mill’s method of knowing right from wrong agrees with Kant on this point.
And what does Aristotle say about this stuff?
I guess I don’t know for sure, but here is what seems to me a pretty good Aristotelian position:
This whole thing is just silly. We’d do better to just shut up about it. The study of moral dilemmas like this is less than 1% of the study of ethics. The solution of moral dilemmas like this is less than 1% of ethical living.
This is a question for the experts–meaning people who have become virtuous.
But you’re not virtuous yet, so you’re not ready. Your job now is to become virtuous. Do that instead of thinking about this stuff.
But if you really want to think about tricky moral dilemmas, first master the concept of the proper function of the human being and learn the basics of human proper function.
Trolley Problems are like this:
Suppose you are stranded, having survived a plane crash, on a desert island with only one source of fresh water, and it’s full of snails. You can’t find any means of boiling the water. Each day is a genuine medical dilemma: Should you drink the snail water today and risk bilharzia, or wait one more day hoping to be rescued while getting closer to severe dehydration?
No, actually, Trolley Problems are really like this:
Imagine if you’re in medical school, and on the first day of class you are introduced to the medical dilemma of the desert island snail water. You are made to debate it with your classmates. You are informed that it is an open-ended question to which the experts have failed to give us any convincing answer. You are asked to opine on the merits of avoiding dehydration versus the merits of avoiding infectious diseases.
Now imagine that in the rest of medical school you are made to discuss questions like this instead of learning how the human body works and instead of learning all about things like disease and dehydration.
Now imagine they tell you that this sort of uninformed debate of tricky questions, prior to learning the basics of medicine, is what medical education is all about.
And what do I say about this?
I agree with Kant, Mill, and Aristotle.
When we study ethics we spend way too much time talking about tricky decisions and difficult situations. And way too much time with Kobayashi Maru situations, to use the Star Trek terminology—no-win scenarios. Those situations where there’s no right answer, or at least no good answer.
We talk about this stuff as if this is what it means to study ethics. But this is a tiny sliver of the study of ethics, and in any case the whole point of studying ethics is to go out and live ethically!
Last semester, I saved some text I used to respond to something a student said in an online reflection assignment. As I recall, the student had said something about Trolley Problems where all the answers are wrong, and about how we can’t help regretting the outcome no matter what we choose.
Here’s what I said (text slightly modified):
Are they all wrong? Would we have regrets if there was nothing we could do?
I could probably save more lives by donating O-negative blood under false pretenses, e.g. by taking blood pressure medication that they don’t allow so they measure my blood pressure low enough. But that would take cheating or lying, and it corrupts the system, and destroys trust, and it probably harms my character, and has a strong chance of hurting more people in the long run.
So I don’t worry about it. If sometimes I can’t donate blood as often as I’d prefer to, there’s nothing I can do, and I don’t have to worry about a life I didn’t save only because I couldn’t.
Meanwhile, I have SO MUCH moral advice that has been given to me in the philosophers. Advice about the Golden Rule, loving my wife and kids, doing a good job at work, almsgiving, practicing habits that make me virtuous, loving God and neighbor, etc. I already have enough moral advice from Confucius, Kant, Mill, Aristotle, Augustine. Enough to fill a lifetime. I know these things are my responsibility, even if I can’t save every life in every single situation.
Do you want to study ethics? Study that stuff.
And then go and live it. And, once you’re well on your way to figuring out advice from a few of the great ones—like Kant, Mill, or Aristotle—on how to know right from wrong in difficult situations, then maybe apply that to Trolley Problems.
But I don’t advise you to worry about Trolley Problems until you’re well on your way to learning the basics of ethics—the not-so-complicated, real-life lessons from the great philosophers.
Even the basics, like the negative form of the Golden Rule—Do not do to others what you want them to not do to you—can take a lifetime to put into practice, as Confucius tells his disciple Zigong.
So be good. That will be your best preparation for a real-life moral dilemma anyway. You want to face your next moral dilemma as a person with good character.
You need to become that person. Start now.
And, anyway, if more of us had good character, we’d have a whole lot fewer real-life moral dilemmas.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I think we’re traveling through time right now, and Stalin was Stalin.
Classical philosophy was a closed book for me until I read Kierkegaard and his distinction between subjective and objective thinkers. The ancient Greeks were all subjective thinkers. Indeed, all Western philosophers were subjective thinkers up until the modern era.
Then Descartes initiated the modern era with the invention of objective thinking. The objective thinker makes method primary (in the case of Descartes, the method of universal doubt), which has the effect of abstracting the thinker out of existence. “Real thinking” only happens via the method, all other ways not based in the method are suspect or “naive” – including the common sense thinking by which we make moral choices in every day life. And that holds true for Descartes as much as anyone else. Regardless of whether he’s decided to doubt everything, Descartes still has to get up in the morning, find a way to feed himself, and make moral choices throughout his day. It’s just that now that thinking will be done via the “naive” common sense thought, or what Descartes called “provisional morality.” This latter morality awaits the day when true morality is revealed via the method, after it has reconstructed the world, existence, and thought itself through rigorous application.
Subsequent modern philosophers abandoned his method of universal doubt, but not Descartes’ conviction that “real thinking” only starts with method. They just disagree on what the right method is. It might be Locke’s “plain, historical reason” or Kant’s “critical reason”, or some flavor of empiricism or rationalism, but there was universal agreement that the old philosophers were “naive” for not starting with method. In other words, we are all objective thinkers now.
The problem is, as Kierkegaard pointed out, that objective philosophy has no end point that brings it back to actual life. Once the abstraction out of existence is made, there is no way to get back to real life through thought itself. Descartes’s “true morality” developed through the method is caged up in the abstract world in which it is made and has no way to get back to real life – except of course, via an existential leap, i.e. a decision by the person himself to live within that thinking.
The old, subjective thinkers like Aristotle, dismissed as naive by the moderns, understood that philosophy must start and stay in existence to have meaning. The true ground of ethical thinking is not in method, but in the subjective commitment to live and through my thought, in the here and now.
If I am a college student, the trolley problem isn’t a problem for me. Getting drunk every night and taking advantage of girls probably is.
I never understood the fuss about these problems. There is no dilemma whatsoever.
#1 In a heartbeat I would have steered the train in the direction of the one person on the track. Once it is aiming for one person try to solve that smaller problem. Obviously stopping the trolley would be the best answer.
#2 If you had the chance to go back and kill Hitler or make him a better person the answer is again simple. Kill him. Even if it means going to hell when you die. The risk of not being able to change him is too high.
Here is a real example of this crazy lack of common sense. As an on-call fire fighter we are told to never never enter a fire without your turn out gear. I asked what if there were a small fire next door such a trash can burning? The answer is you MUST go to the station and get the truck and gear. If you go in it is grounds for termination. I told the lieutenant I would do one better and offer my resignation after I dragged the can outside.
That was part of my point. If any of the “stop Hitler” plans had succeeded, we wouldn’t remember Hitler for being Hitler.
But that doesn’t prove that time travel is never invented. It may only show that they decided not to stop Hitler because it would actually be worse to do so, long-term. By some measures that we have no concept of. Maybe having the example of Hitler is what allows for avoiding nuclear catastrophe?
Gee, it was a nice philosophy comment until you added a whole layer by turning it into a sermon at the end.
Well said. Right on.
I thought that was the exact opposite of what Descartes did.
There’s existing, and then there’s existing in the world.