A train is speeding down a track towards 5 men who are stuck in place. You are stand on a bridge above the tracks next to a very obese man. If you push him off the bridge it will stop the train and save the 5 men. Do you do it?
If that dude is fat enough to stop a train, he's fat enough to bring down the whole bridge and kill us all. He's for sure big enough I won't be able to move him anyway. But no, I would not even if I could.
Still no. I'd kill a bad guy to save a good guy, but I'm not killing what as far as I know is just another good guy to save some guys dumb enough to get stuck on the tracks. Their action, their consequence.
They should've fought harder. I'm not deliberately killing an innocent just to save somebody else. The situation would exist without my presence, and my being there is not going to change it.
It's not about blame, it's about personal responsibility. It is not up to me to decide who lives or dies, or whether a few is more valuable than a one. Without a good reason to cause harm to a person, like self defense, I'm not doing it.
Because you're infringing on the rights of the fat man and also using him solely as a means by which to stop the death of the five, I'd say this is not morally permissible.
Well, I wouldn't pull the level either, but the different between the two is that the fat man is a direct means: if it weren't for his existence your plan wouldn't work. If the random guy on the secondary track hadn't been there, it wouldn't matter.
Not exactly. A court would likely make such a distinction as well. One is directly causation of an end result. The other is an indirect result of a direct action taken.
That's how I look at it.
This is not court. This is your own moral reasoning. Does the pull of a lever vs the push of a man which has the same result really change your decision?
Show of Hands
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