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> I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god I can't understand this perspective. Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've made. You a

> I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god I can't understand this perspective. Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've made. You are "playing god" all the same if you decide to sit there and not pull the lever. There is no ethically important distinction that comes about by the mere fact that physical movement is necessitated by one of the decisions versus the other decision. If the framing of the question changes from lever-pulling to "you must press either button A or B", and that re-framing causes you to make a different decision, then I question the ethical assumptions going into the decision making. The ethical core of the trolley problem is that you're asked to choose whether you prefer one outcome versus another -- the precise physical movements you must carry out (jumping jacks, lever-pulling, blinking, button-pressing, or just sitting still) to lock-in a particular decision are irrelevant.

cainxinth 4y ago
> Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've made. Agreed. This isn’t a choice between making a decision or not making one. It’s a choice between two difficult decisions.
Helmut10001 4y ago
I agree, but how do you decide e.g. if there's one disabled person on a track, and one not disabled on the other? It's that I don't want to make these decision (and luckily, I am not forced - I didn't design this game, I did not put the people on the track in the first case - I can decide not to play the game, and in reality, I can always ask "Is there perhaps option C that saves both?").
pawelmurias 4y ago
The core ethical point of the trolly problem is that you have to take an action. In real world scenarios there are most often significant distinctions between taking an action and refusing to take one.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  The physical action is a red herring under a moral system that takes consequentialism seriously. The trolley problem shines a light on this red herring. Firstly, whichever decision you make, you have to take a real physical action. Suppose you decide not to pull the lever. You still have autonomic arousal, neurons are firing, your prefrontal cortex is inhibiting you from pulling the lever just for laughs, and so on. Lots of atoms had to move around to come to that decision, which you would label as "inaction". I disagree, it is action. Only a minority of caloric expenditure is associated with the actual lever being pulled. Not that this really matters, anyway, given that the outcome is what's ethically important. Secondly, you should consider the consequences of thinking that pulling the lever somehow matters ethically. That means that in certain edge cases, you're surrendering the choice of who lives and who dies to the arbitrary whims of the experimenter. If I was a malicious experimenter, I could maximize the number of dead people by just jury rigging the allocations. If your ethical framework leads to a situation where a maximum number of people die, I would argue that there's some faulty ethical reasoning there.

cainxinth 4y ago

> Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've made. Agreed. This isn’t a choice between making a decision or not making one. It’s a choice between two difficult decisions.

Helmut10001 4y ago

I agree, but how do you decide e.g. if there's one disabled person on a track, and one not disabled on the other? It's that I don't want to make these decision (and luckily, I am not forced - I didn't design this game, I did not put the people on the track in the first case - I can decide not to play the game, and in reality, I can always ask "Is there perhaps option C that saves both?").

pawelmurias 4y ago

The core ethical point of the trolly problem is that you have to take an action. In real world scenarios there are most often significant distinctions between taking an action and refusing to take one.

hackerlight 4y ago
The physical action is a red herring under a moral system that takes consequentialism seriously. The trolley problem shines a light on this red herring. Firstly, whichever decision you make, you have to take a real physical action. Suppose you decide not to pull the lever. You still have autonomic arousal, neurons are firing, your prefrontal cortex is inhibiting you from pulling the lever just for laughs, and so on. Lots of atoms had to move around to come to that decision, which you would label as "inaction". I disagree, it is action. Only a minority of caloric expenditure is associated with the actual lever being pulled. Not that this really matters, anyway, given that the outcome is what's ethically important. Secondly, you should consider the consequences of thinking that pulling the lever somehow matters ethically. That means that in certain edge cases, you're surrendering the choice of who lives and who dies to the arbitrary whims of the experimenter. If I was a malicious experimenter, I could maximize the number of dead people by just jury rigging the allocations. If your ethical framework leads to a situation where a maximum number of people die, I would argue that there's some faulty ethical reasoning there.