Don't Forget your Towel

If a train were out of control, speeding down the track toward five people stuck on it, and you had a lever that could send the train down another set of tracks at a junction, would you pull it?

This is the opening question of a series of questions meant to baffle our moral sensibilities. I heard it a couple of weeks ago from one of the students at the forum who was taking a medical ethics class. I've never been a huge fan of ethics - it so often devolves into the unprovable. What's more, the philosophers involved usually write with such an air of stubborn correctness that it's almost laughable that they might truly believe there was no other way to think about the issue of what Good is.

The "correct" answer for the first question is, yes. There are some hypotheticals that could draw that into question, but answering yes leads you to the next question.

What if there was a person stuck on the other set of tracks? Pulling the lever would kill that one person. So, do you leave it and let it kill five or pull it and let it kill one?

This is a bit trickier because our mind is flustered by the prospect of losing human life - albeit imaginary people. We don't want to lose anyone, especially having to make the choice on who lives and dies. Most people, I would wager, answer that they would still pull the lever because saving five is better than saving one.

Now, the last question, and whoever came up with this must have thought themselves fairly clever -

What if the situation was in a hospital? You're a doctor with five patients who need transplants or they will die. A patient comes in with compatible organs. Do you let him die to save the others?

Supposedly, this should make you rethink your answer to the second question - is going purely on numbers correct? It doesn't seem ethical to allow that person in the hospital to die to save others, why would it be ethical on the train track?

The answer is, because the hypothetical situation is a bad one.

The best hypothetical situations are simple. That's what makes the game Would You Rather so perfect. There's little room for error. A decision must be made - it can be debated forever because the premise is so airtight. The author of this particular problem, did not receive that memo. It's long. And the worst part about it, is that it sets up a false correlation.

I assume the author would argue that it doesn't, having probably tricked plenty of students into thinking with it, and I imagine no one from the medial ethics class even noted the problem since the student that re-vocalized it seemed so enthusiastic.

(On a side note, the other reason I hate stuff like this is because it's almost always said with a wink, as if the professor or whoever is delighting in tricking you. There seems to be a definite "gotcha!" moment involved that seems a little more self-serving than to be genuine. Essentially, it seems to highlight the teller more than the story. Plus, it's just intellectually lazy.)

The problem with the correlation between the train tracks and the hospital is that one is an active choice and the other is passive. In the train scenario, death is headed for both groups, but it can only hit one. In the hospital, death is only headed for one group - the group of five - the single person coming in might not die, and in fact, if certain death was facing that person, there would be no moral quandary. You'd simply do your best to save him, knowing that he'll die, and then use his organs. But, since the guy could just have a simple, treatable illness, you would have to make an active choice to kill him to get his organs.

In one, the train is the killer - you just have the terrible power of passively manipulating it. In the other, you're the killer. You have to make an active choice to sacrifice someone for others.

So it's a bad analogy. I'm not sure why stuff like that bothers me - probably because people continue to pass it down as knowledge without realizing how silly it is. In the end, it isn't even a good enough situation to cause critical thought.

In a diner at the end of the universe, however, there's a great question. From the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Doug Adams created an incredibly great ethical question.

A vegetarian - choosing not to eat meat because of ethical objections - is eating at a diner at the end of the universe. The special for the day is pork, a very special kind of special, because its made from pigs that were biologically created to want nothing more in life than to be eaten. These pigs are born with the goal of being eaten and would desire nothing less. Since the pig wants to be eaten, the diner would be fulfilling its wishes, so the ethical qualm of eating meat is completely sidestepped.

"The Pig that Wants to be Eaten" is a great question because of its simplicity. Without set up, you could ask, 'is it alright to eat an animal that wants to be eaten?'

It's a good question.