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The point of the trolley problem is that it’s hard to make the right decision. Yet apparently anyone who doesn’t make a decision based on the move naive applica

The point of the trolley problem is that it’s hard to make the right decision. Yet apparently anyone who doesn’t make a decision based on the move naive application of utilitarianism is a coward.

eloff 5y ago
At a government level you have to be able to weigh bodies. Because there are often deaths or serious harm on both sides of a decision. Just because it's a hard decision doesn't mean there isn't a right choice that minimizes harm. This is also true of the trolley problem. In this case one side is clearly tipping the scales by multiple orders of magnitude more. To choose that side for political reasons is cowardice and unethical.
- staticman2 5y ago
  I don't know if "weighing bodies" is the right approach to government, but even if it is people who "weigh bodies" are not likely to remain in power very long. There aren't a lot of humans who would support harvesting the organs of a healthy patient to save 5 sick ones, for example.
  - eloff 5y ago
    I put it crudely to be dramatic, but it is the core function of a government to choose between competing harms and benefits for different segments of the population (including populations outside their borders when it comes to foreign policy.) > There aren't a lot of humans who would support harvesting the organs of a healthy patient to save 5 sick ones, for example. That's a strawman. I'm not taking the position that the right decision is always choosing the least number of bodies. Maybe that is true, there are debates to be had there, but I'm not arguing that, and that's not comparable to the decision here with the AstraZenica vaccine.
    - staticman2 5y ago
      Harvesting 5 organs from 1 healthy patient to save 5 sick patients is a variation of the trolley problem, not just a random straw man I picked. The fact that people who are surveyed are fine pulling a lever to kill 1 person to save 5 people from a runaway trolley but don't want to harvest the organs of 1 healthy person to save 5 sick people shows that these ethical problems are "difficult" as one person said up-thread.
      - eloff 5y ago
        This is the slippery slope of analogies. I'm not here to argue about trolley problems or organ harvesting. I'm here to say that there's a clear right decision to be made here that will cause the fewest number of deaths by multiple orders of magnitude - and the Danes are making the wrong choice because they left the decision to their medical professionals who are biased to first do no harm. It is the role of government to make these kinds of hard decisions, and they need to step up to the plate and do the right thing. This oversimplifies the problem because the deaths from Covid-19 tend to be older people and the deaths from blood clots, tend to be younger. But then there's still a clear right choice to be made by just using the AstraZenica vaccine in older people. This is the sensible decision most countries have taken so far. What do we do in cases where it's murky like the trolley problem or the organ problem? The government still has to choose, and not choosing is still a decision. In that case if there's no clear answer then maybe the decision doesn't matter that much - both paths are similar. The trolley problem and the organ problem have been argued about ad nauseaum. I don't expect to add anything new to that. They're different problems. The trolley problem you should pick the 1 to die - it might end up being the worst choice still, but it's the one most likely to do the least harm, so the choice is obvious - IMHO. If I recall correctly, that 1 person is not innocent, they put themselves in this situation, but the 5 on the trolley are and didn't make a bad judgment call. That seems to matter to the ethics of the thing. With the organ harvesting - all the people are equally innocent. You can't take the life of an innocent person to save the lives of 5 others, even though the math makes sense. That's crossing a line. Again, they're hard problems, not everyone will agree. But it's the job of the government to choose in hard situations, and choosing nothing is a choice too.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  For me, the difference is that people can handle the idea of getting sick and dying. It happens to everyone eventually and there's nobody to blame. People are much less happy about deaths that are directly tracable to someone's decision (e.g. continuing to use a vaccine that will kill some small number of people).
  - eloff 5y ago
    That could be part of it for sure. I think the first do no harm mentality is a very strong bias in the medical community in general. And as pointed out elsewhere, it was the Danish medical authorities that made this call. They're the wrong people to do that.

The point of the trolley problem is that it’s hard to make the right decision. Yet apparently anyone who doesn’t make a decision based on the move naive application of utilitarianism is a coward.

eloff 5y ago

At a government level you have to be able to weigh bodies. Because there are often deaths or serious harm on both sides of a decision. Just because it's a hard decision doesn't mean there isn't a right choice that minimizes harm. This is also true of the trolley problem. In this case one side is clearly tipping the scales by multiple orders of magnitude more. To choose that side for political reasons is cowardice and unethical.

staticman2 5y ago
I don't know if "weighing bodies" is the right approach to government, but even if it is people who "weigh bodies" are not likely to remain in power very long. There aren't a lot of humans who would support harvesting the organs of a healthy patient to save 5 sick ones, for example.
- eloff 5y ago
  I put it crudely to be dramatic, but it is the core function of a government to choose between competing harms and benefits for different segments of the population (including populations outside their borders when it comes to foreign policy.) > There aren't a lot of humans who would support harvesting the organs of a healthy patient to save 5 sick ones, for example. That's a strawman. I'm not taking the position that the right decision is always choosing the least number of bodies. Maybe that is true, there are debates to be had there, but I'm not arguing that, and that's not comparable to the decision here with the AstraZenica vaccine.
  - staticman2 5y ago
    Harvesting 5 organs from 1 healthy patient to save 5 sick patients is a variation of the trolley problem, not just a random straw man I picked. The fact that people who are surveyed are fine pulling a lever to kill 1 person to save 5 people from a runaway trolley but don't want to harvest the organs of 1 healthy person to save 5 sick people shows that these ethical problems are "difficult" as one person said up-thread.
    - eloff 5y ago
      This is the slippery slope of analogies. I'm not here to argue about trolley problems or organ harvesting. I'm here to say that there's a clear right decision to be made here that will cause the fewest number of deaths by multiple orders of magnitude - and the Danes are making the wrong choice because they left the decision to their medical professionals who are biased to first do no harm. It is the role of government to make these kinds of hard decisions, and they need to step up to the plate and do the right thing. This oversimplifies the problem because the deaths from Covid-19 tend to be older people and the deaths from blood clots, tend to be younger. But then there's still a clear right choice to be made by just using the AstraZenica vaccine in older people. This is the sensible decision most countries have taken so far. What do we do in cases where it's murky like the trolley problem or the organ problem? The government still has to choose, and not choosing is still a decision. In that case if there's no clear answer then maybe the decision doesn't matter that much - both paths are similar. The trolley problem and the organ problem have been argued about ad nauseaum. I don't expect to add anything new to that. They're different problems. The trolley problem you should pick the 1 to die - it might end up being the worst choice still, but it's the one most likely to do the least harm, so the choice is obvious - IMHO. If I recall correctly, that 1 person is not innocent, they put themselves in this situation, but the 5 on the trolley are and didn't make a bad judgment call. That seems to matter to the ethics of the thing. With the organ harvesting - all the people are equally innocent. You can't take the life of an innocent person to save the lives of 5 others, even though the math makes sense. That's crossing a line. Again, they're hard problems, not everyone will agree. But it's the job of the government to choose in hard situations, and choosing nothing is a choice too.
throwawayboise 5y ago
For me, the difference is that people can handle the idea of getting sick and dying. It happens to everyone eventually and there's nobody to blame. People are much less happy about deaths that are directly tracable to someone's decision (e.g. continuing to use a vaccine that will kill some small number of people).
- eloff 5y ago
  That could be part of it for sure. I think the first do no harm mentality is a very strong bias in the medical community in general. And as pointed out elsewhere, it was the Danish medical authorities that made this call. They're the wrong people to do that.