This is the actual answer. Don’t look at them in the face and try to leave ASAP. Philosophical questions are usually very simplified to illustrate a point, and there are usually more than two choices.
In a real life “trolley” scenario, you should wave to the driver and get them to stop. There should be zero people tied to the tracks. And that’s only what should happen if you think quickly enough. In real life you may actually just freeze and do nothing.
IRL we typically do what we feel and justify it later, but then IRL there is no right or wrong, except what we construct in the process of organizing with each other to cooperate against outward threats such as predators and the elements. We have agreed to poor conditions because our lords were kinder than the winter and the bears, but then we’ve also overthrown our lords when we worked out they need us more than we need them.
But yes, if you want to pretend that moral philosophy is just cerebral masturbation, that’s valid. All of our philosophy is about the opinions of past thinkers about the perimeters of right and wrong. It will give you a clear answer about as well as religious philosophy might tell you which patheon of gods is the true one.
These scenarios are less about what is right or wrong, but about how you, individually and personally, decide ad hoc what is right or wrong. You might distrust the soldiers, but then if they were inclined to betray your trust with a lie, they might have never intended you to go free either, and the whole story becomes irrelevant.
Another Trolley-like features a stranger come to town who is a perfect match for five transplant patients waiting organs. The surgeon / hospital administrator has a friend in organized crime who can abduct the stranger and harvest his organs quietly and cleanly so that the authorities won’t notice he disappeared. Although IRL, having a transplant is a mortal condition. Having the organ buys more time than not having the organ. Also this doesn’t get into the risks of other complications of transplant surgery that can occur even when an organ is a good match.
These scenarios are not about real life, but about becoming more self aware of how you’d consider these. And yes, this may mean looking for third options, hoping to find one better than the two obvious ones.
There are almost always better options than the given ones. I remember an answer to the “Ship of Theseus” problem a friend gave; he recommended calling it a different ship once more than 50% was replaced. I asked why and he said that all definitions are just made up, and you have to draw a line somewhere.
That’s what people do in real life. They don’t just sit there perplexed by a “paradox”.
Firstly, if we’re talking about the Trolley Problem, that’s not a behavior paradox, that’s a morality paradox. Animals, including human beings, commonly act first and rationalize their behavior later. We can decide after the fact it was ethical after all, decide that it wasn’t but was justifed due to circumstances, decide that it wasn’t and wasn’t, but we’ll reconcile it after the fact. Examples like the Trolley problem are not meant to reflect real life and how we behave, rather are contrived in contemplation of the logical mechanisms we use to determine ethical options can become problematic. (Utilitarianism has its own paradoxes.)
Secondly, in fact, human beings are susceptible to paradoxes that can cause decision paralysis, but they tend to be about either survival or high-stakes situations with incomplete information. A common one is when a green, low ranking enlisted person is given a direct order that is illegal. In the US army, our soldiers are educated as to the rules of war, and what constitutes a war crime, and while they are legally obligated to not act on illegal orders, they also know well before they get out of boot they’ll be jolly sorry if ever they do disobey an order. Command them to commit an atrocity on the field and they lock up by the dozens. Hence squad commanders know that if they issue an illegal command – even one based on incomplete information – it risks unit cohesion. Getting caught in a SNAFU like this is still common, and the enlisteds seldom come out of them well, so it’s on the list of counter-recruitment bullet-points.
The same kind of thing also appears in game shows (where its contrived) and in the strategic command chain of command, because a lot of officers do not ever want to be a guy who nuked two million people, even if they’re the enemy. And yet those officers routinely got to serve as key-turners to arm (or launch) our nuclear arsenal. (I don’t know how the situation is since the new century, if those stations are even manned at all times anymore.)
In the end, we are animals, and typically when we’re confronted with moral choices, it’s a matter of survival or high stakes, in which case we often don’t have the time for measured contemplation on what we’re doing. Moral philosophy questions what behavior may be right or wrong according to a given standard, but it doesn’t get into how people actually behave. For that, consider psychology and sociology.
This is the actual answer. Don’t look at them in the face and try to leave ASAP. Philosophical questions are usually very simplified to illustrate a point, and there are usually more than two choices.
In a real life “trolley” scenario, you should wave to the driver and get them to stop. There should be zero people tied to the tracks. And that’s only what should happen if you think quickly enough. In real life you may actually just freeze and do nothing.
IRL we typically do what we feel and justify it later, but then IRL there is no right or wrong, except what we construct in the process of organizing with each other to cooperate against outward threats such as predators and the elements. We have agreed to poor conditions because our lords were kinder than the winter and the bears, but then we’ve also overthrown our lords when we worked out they need us more than we need them.
But yes, if you want to pretend that moral philosophy is just cerebral masturbation, that’s valid. All of our philosophy is about the opinions of past thinkers about the perimeters of right and wrong. It will give you a clear answer about as well as religious philosophy might tell you which patheon of gods is the true one.
These scenarios are less about what is right or wrong, but about how you, individually and personally, decide ad hoc what is right or wrong. You might distrust the soldiers, but then if they were inclined to betray your trust with a lie, they might have never intended you to go free either, and the whole story becomes irrelevant.
Another Trolley-like features a stranger come to town who is a perfect match for five transplant patients waiting organs. The surgeon / hospital administrator has a friend in organized crime who can abduct the stranger and harvest his organs quietly and cleanly so that the authorities won’t notice he disappeared. Although IRL, having a transplant is a mortal condition. Having the organ buys more time than not having the organ. Also this doesn’t get into the risks of other complications of transplant surgery that can occur even when an organ is a good match.
These scenarios are not about real life, but about becoming more self aware of how you’d consider these. And yes, this may mean looking for third options, hoping to find one better than the two obvious ones.
There are almost always better options than the given ones. I remember an answer to the “Ship of Theseus” problem a friend gave; he recommended calling it a different ship once more than 50% was replaced. I asked why and he said that all definitions are just made up, and you have to draw a line somewhere.
That’s what people do in real life. They don’t just sit there perplexed by a “paradox”.
Firstly, if we’re talking about the Trolley Problem, that’s not a behavior paradox, that’s a morality paradox. Animals, including human beings, commonly act first and rationalize their behavior later. We can decide after the fact it was ethical after all, decide that it wasn’t but was justifed due to circumstances, decide that it wasn’t and wasn’t, but we’ll reconcile it after the fact. Examples like the Trolley problem are not meant to reflect real life and how we behave, rather are contrived in contemplation of the logical mechanisms we use to determine ethical options can become problematic. (Utilitarianism has its own paradoxes.)
Secondly, in fact, human beings are susceptible to paradoxes that can cause decision paralysis, but they tend to be about either survival or high-stakes situations with incomplete information. A common one is when a green, low ranking enlisted person is given a direct order that is illegal. In the US army, our soldiers are educated as to the rules of war, and what constitutes a war crime, and while they are legally obligated to not act on illegal orders, they also know well before they get out of boot they’ll be jolly sorry if ever they do disobey an order. Command them to commit an atrocity on the field and they lock up by the dozens. Hence squad commanders know that if they issue an illegal command – even one based on incomplete information – it risks unit cohesion. Getting caught in a SNAFU like this is still common, and the enlisteds seldom come out of them well, so it’s on the list of counter-recruitment bullet-points.
The same kind of thing also appears in game shows (where its contrived) and in the strategic command chain of command, because a lot of officers do not ever want to be a guy who nuked two million people, even if they’re the enemy. And yet those officers routinely got to serve as key-turners to arm (or launch) our nuclear arsenal. (I don’t know how the situation is since the new century, if those stations are even manned at all times anymore.)
In the end, we are animals, and typically when we’re confronted with moral choices, it’s a matter of survival or high stakes, in which case we often don’t have the time for measured contemplation on what we’re doing. Moral philosophy questions what behavior may be right or wrong according to a given standard, but it doesn’t get into how people actually behave. For that, consider psychology and sociology.