Table of Contents
- 1 What is the central idea of the trolley problem?
- 2 How would a utilitarian respond to the trolley problem?
- 3 How does paragraph 1 contribute to the authors explanation of the trolley problem?
- 4 How would deontology respond to the trolley problem?
- 5 What is the moral difference between the Trolley Problem and the Fat Man problem?
What is the central idea of the trolley problem?
Next Stop: ‘Trolley Problem’ We have a hard decision to make. The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics about a fictional scenario in which an onlooker has the choice to save 5 people in danger of being hit by a trolley, by diverting the trolley to kill just 1 person.
How would a utilitarian respond to the trolley problem?
In the Trolley Problem, a train is hurtling down the tracks towards five men stuck in its path. The utilitarian answer is that the moral decision is to sacrifice the heavyweight man, because you’d still be killing one to save five.
What would Bentham say about the Trolley Problem?
For Bentham our trolley problem would be a ‘no brainer’: levers would be pulled and our lone protagonist squashed without regret. But an unequivocal utilitarian would be a colder fish than most of us might want to spend any time with.
Should you push the fat man?
Unless the train is stopped, it will inevitably kill all five men. However, a fat man, a stranger, is standing next to you: if you push him off the bridge, he will topple onto the line and, although he will die, his chunky body will stop the train, saving five lives.
How does paragraph 1 contribute to the author’s explanation of “the trolley problem”? A. It is designed to spark a classroom discussion about what the trolley problem represents. It shows that the trolley problem is just an exercise and doesn’t determine how someone would actually react.
How would deontology respond to the trolley problem?
A deontologist would further argue that killing is never acceptable — it would be immoral to pull the lever to kill on (in the above case pulling the lever would be considered actively killing the person) , even if that meant allowing the trolley to continue on its course to kill 100 people.
How would Consequentialists think about trolley problems?
The trolley problem is a question of human morality, and an example of a philosophical view called consequentialism. This view says that morality is defined by the consequences of an action, and that the consequences are all that matter. Take the two examples that make up the trolley problem.
What is the solution to the trolley problem?
The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to divert the trolley onto another track that only has one worker on it. If Adam diverts the trolley onto the other track, this one worker will die, but the other five workers will be saved.
What is the moral difference between the Trolley Problem and the Fat Man problem?
In numerical terms, the two situations are identical. A strict utilitarian, concerned only with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, would see no difference: In each case, one person dies to save five. Yet people seem to feel differently about the “Fat Man” case.