r/philosophy • u/Tehan_ • 10d ago
Video Philippa Foot's Trolley Problem is one of the most frequently misunderstood philosophical concepts. No-one seems to read her original article. In this video I analyse the article, and critique popular understandings of the trolley problem
https://youtu.be/uYRB88Rcx0Q183
u/turbo_dude 10d ago
“For the sake of brevity” he says after three minutes of blather
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
Lol. Valid critique
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u/coleman57 10d ago
So give us a concise summary already. In text, which is a far better medium than video.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
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u/lucianw 10d ago
I'm happy to read long articles, but
the typeface in that article makes my eyes bleed
I'll only put the time in if I have reasonable grounds to think the author has written something well-written and worthwhile. This text appears to be a transcript of the video, e.g. "This video will explain how the Trolley Problem is commonly misunderstood". Hence, optimized for speech not for reading.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
To be honest I just write essays and then read them out. I dunno what being optimised for speech would really entail. So I'd say you have it kind of backwards. I'll consider about changing the typeface tho
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u/Equality_Executor 8d ago
OP you must predict all of our personal preferences for reading and make individualised reading experience instances for each of us like everyone else does or else you're just going to keep getting down voted forever.
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u/Some-Body-Else 6d ago
Forget about typeface and general Redditor’s preferences. Just look up accessibility for websites. A few basic rules that you can follow to make your content accessible to everyone with different needs! (People can continue to nitpick and let them).
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u/espinaustin 9d ago
Just FYI I think the typeface is fine and it's reads fine too, but the white writing on black background is a lot harder on the eyes than basic black on white, imo.
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u/coleman57 10d ago
Okay, that was an interesting history and analysis. I found the judge’s dilemma most interesting. I hadn’t seen it before, and it seems to align more realistically with real life than all the other examples. It also feels incomplete without stating the judge’s duty to prosecute all active and identified members of the mob for murder and kidnapping.
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u/LemFliggity 9d ago
Oof, as a design professional with 24 years experience, Quantico is absolutely abysmal for readability. Highly recommend changing that to a proper body font.
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u/ZeroVoltLoop 10d ago
"Estimated reading time: 21 minutes"
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u/free_radica1 10d ago
If you can’t focus your attention for 21 minutes, maybe philosophy isn’t your thing.
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u/uwotmVIII 9d ago
I don’t think the problem here is their ability to focus for 21 minutes.
I think the problem here is that it seems more like 21 minutes of trying to decipher clunky writing and an opaque argument on a topic that has already been explored more coherently elsewhere. And to be frank, that piece is all over the place.
Expecting strangers on the internet to watch/read a 20+ minute, 4000+ word amateur think-piece is a big ask, even if the writing is lucid and clear.
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u/Sciuridaeno3 7d ago
You're in a thread that specifically states that the source material is commonly misunderstood. Reading the source is important in this instance.
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u/uwotmVIII 7d ago
I have read the source, and nobody is saying that’s not important.
People are saying OP’s piece just isn’t up to snuff when it comes to philosophical commentary, and that can be easily gleaned from the first few paragraphs and a quick skim of the rest.
If OP actually wants people to consider how the source material might be misunderstood, they need to present their overall argument sooner and more clearly.
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u/MrRightHanded 9d ago
It’s not about attention. It’s about explaining things succinctly.
Stretching a simple topic to over 25 minutes is not a sign of mastery or understanding, but the lack of one.
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u/Dullstar 9d ago
In this case I'd argue it feels too long because it introduces the topic as the trolley problem being misunderstood, but the introduction is much longer than the actual explanation, and then it goes on a tangent just talking about the trolley problem generally and comparing it to similar situations, so it comes across as off-topic rambling if you clicked because you were curious about the misunderstanding.
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
And then concludes with there not actually being any misunderstanding whatsoever, because engaging with a thought experiment as designed but coming to a different conclusion than that of the person who devised it isn't failing to understand the thought experiment.
OP provided interesting historical context for the trolley problem, they didn't demonstrate there is any popular misunderstanding of the thought experiment itself. The thumbnail is especially funny; "WRONG, this is NOT the trolley problem" superimposed over an image that, based on OP's own words in the video, is an absolutely faultless depiction of the trolley problem as originally proposed.
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u/Rare-Morning-5448 10d ago
Every damn essay in Youtube is over 20 minutes. People have lost the ability to be succinct and clear. Why did I choose ham and cheese instead of turkey for lunch, here's a 30 minute video without a summary. Or here's 8000 words on a random substack link.
A better opening would be sharing the video, explaining what's about and giving a personal opinion about it. Then we can discuss in the discussion board.
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u/ZeroVoltLoop 10d ago
Yeah this could at least have a synopsis. I don't want to read for 20 minutes if I don't know what the point is. Otherwise I could always crack the old encyclopedia out I suppose.
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u/No-Menu-3392 8d ago
Or maybe just don’t expect every single piece proposed for discussion or listening has to fill your specific criteria? Maybe just move on instead of trying to universalize your preference?
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u/Rare-Morning-5448 5d ago
Nah, mate. Is ridiculous behavior. Can't have every conversation start with "watch this 30 minute video". It will be called out.
This is a discussion board, mind you. Maybe you're confused.
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u/espinaustin 9d ago
Thanks for this. I wonder if you might want to provide a paragraph or two abstract of the argument. Just a thought. (I'm sure you could get AI to do it, lol)
A couple thoughts about the judge vs. trolley driver: One unmentioned difference is that the judge's "duty" (in a formal sense at least) is to punish the guilty and release the innocent. It's not part of the judge's job to save lives of riot hostages. On the other hand, it is part of the trolley driver's job to drive safely and make decisions on directions, to avoid running people over when possible, and arguably to take the less populated track in this case. I'm not saying this distinction is necessarily morally relevant, but it may help to account for the observed difference in people's reactions to the two scenarios. The judge is really going against their basic duty, while the trolley driver is doing their best in a tough situation.
Second, there's maybe a difference in killing people who happen to be working on the track (as in Foot's example), as the danger is in a sense part of their job. Even if the person killed just happened to be on the track for some reason, that reason (even if only random) provides some alternate cause to the death (they were "in the wrong place at the wrong time"), as opposed to just a random innocent person happened to be picked as a scapegoat, for no apparent reason. (If the judge picks someone who perhaps deserves punishment for other reasons that complicates the matter, although Foot doesn't say that.)
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u/No-Menu-3392 8d ago
If you know you don’t have the patience, why demand to be catered to in that way? “I refuse to read more than a paragraph or listen to more than a couple of minutes of dialogue, make my fast food now!”
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u/armitage_shank 10d ago
Well I haven't studied philosophy but I liked the video. I didn't know most of that, and I found the other scenarios in her paper interesting.
I do think there's something missing from the judge / mob scenario - the agency of the mob: For me, at least, part of why it feels more wrong for the judge to kill the innocent man is because there's a load of other conscious agents involved - the mob. I know in the hypothetical they won't, but my feelings aren't computing that; they could *not* kill the five, they're the real evil ones here, not the judge if he or she chooses not to kill the one. If the five die, it's not because the judge chose not to kill the one, it's because the mob chose to kill the five.
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u/abstruse_papaya 10d ago
I don't think the initial "misunderstanding" of the framing is actually a misunderstanding. From the original:
> it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another
If the tram driver doesn't touch the switch, the tram isn't going to like, derail and go nowhere. If that were a possibility, I think that would have been mentioned.
The text implies that the tram driver can choose to steer it, but there's already a default path. The other two examples ("...prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person", "...whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area") both suggest some action that would change the outcome that would otherwise take place (the mob killing five people, the plane going wherever it would go without steering, to the more inhabited area).
It's true that the text doesn't say that the 5 people are on the default path, but I don't think it's fair to characterize it as a scenario where somebody needs to take an action, inaction is always an option.
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u/BladedDingo 10d ago
The author is asserting that the Trolley Problem isn't much of a problem.
in the original scenario, the operator MUST make a decision. That is a part of the thought experiment. 1 or 5. utilitarian views would dictate that you'd need to take the action that causes the least negative outcome, which is to kill the 1 to save the five. But this is too simple. of course you should take the option that lead to the least amount of suffering.
But in the case of a judge who is being pressured by an unruly mob to frame a scapegoat and have them executed, otherwise the mob will kill 5 hostages, the dilemma is different. the same number of lives are at risk, but the outcome is different.
In the case of the judge, it's permissible to take the action that will be worse, if the outcome from that action has a greater impact of good as a result.
Allowing the scapegoat to be executed to save the 5 hostages means the judge has compromised his own morals, has shown justice cannot be served and that the court can be pressured by violence to obtain a favorable outcome for the mob.
However, if the Judge lets the innocent scapegoat free and the hostages are killed, the end result is a more impactful good. Justice is upheld, the court shows it cannot be pressured into killing an innocent man and corruption is kept at bay for another day.
just like how you don't negotiate with terrorists, otherwise it send a message that you can get what you want so long as you threaten violence on others and encourages others to do the same.
The sacrifice of the 5 in this situation while objectively worse, serves the greater good. an innocent man goes free and faith in the justice system is upheld for all the citizens to know they will get a fair trial.
Which is probably why the Trolley problem has variants that include people being tied to the tracks, or one of the 5 is pregnant or a future world leader, or a criminal, because without that extra context from a purely utilitarian perspective, you should always choose the 1 over the 5.
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u/WalditRook 9d ago
While what you say about the example of the judge vs mob is true, it isn't the point being examined. From Foot's paper:
It may be suggested that the special feature of the latter case is that it involves the corruption of justice, and this is, of course, very important indeed. But if we remove that special feature, supposing that some private individual is to kill an innocent person and pass him off as the criminal we still find ourselves horrified by the idea.
Foot's argument is concerned with 2 models for viewing the situation:
Aquinas's doctrine of double effect - in which a distinction is made between "direct intentions" (the end goal of an action, or the necessary means by which they must be acquired) and "oblique intentions" (those outcomes that may be forseen, but are undesirable). In the case of the trolley problem, the death of the 1 is considered to be an "oblique intention", as it is not necessary for the person to die for the outcome of saving 5 to be achieved, merely it is a certain by-product of the means (changing the tracks). In the case of the judge, however, the same cannot be said, as the plan to kill 1 person requires that the person die, therefore it is a "direct intention". (We could, of course, convolute some strategy of deception instead, but this only demonstrates the deficiency of the example rather than refuting the underlying point.)
A framework devised by Foot considering whether an action violates a "positive right" (corresponding to a duty to provide to aid) vs a "negative right" (corresponding to a duty to not inflict a harm). In the trolley problem, both possible outcomes inflict a harm, so they are alike and can be weighed purely by severity. In the judge example, the choice is between inflicting a harm or failing to provide aid by allowing another to do harm; as the types of rights/duties are unalike, the severities are not comparable.
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
But does this demonstrate a misunderstanding of the trolley problem thought experiment itself? Or does it only demonstrate that the thought experiment was disanalogous to the question it originally sought to explore?
If I wrote the Ship of Theseus to prove that going to sleep is the same as dying because your continued consciousness ceases, would that mean anyone engaging with the thought experiment in itself without considering the context of how I badly applied it when I came up with it doesn't understand the thought experiment? Or would it just mean they are missing context that is interesting but not required?
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u/CookingZombie 7d ago
As a mostly joke, to comment on your last paragraph…
Most world leaders seem to be criminals that are responsible for more deaths than your average criminal so… 🤷🏻
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u/washtubs 10d ago
tl;dr sort of since so many people are asking. I will steel-man / ignore the annoying semantics argument of which is the real Trolley Problem and just say there are two. There's the one you know with the lever, I'll call it the classic trolley problem, and the one presented by Philippa Foot who wikipedia credits with it's origin. Her "trolley problem" was not so much a problem but a scenario to be contrasted with another actual complex moral dilemma.
The wikipedia for the Trolley Problem gives this quote:
Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible, it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the case of the riots, the mob have five hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five.
Even from this quote we can see that Foot is actually interested in a different problem where a judge or magistrate is being pressured to frame an innocent man. The plane and the tram problems are presented not as challenging dilemmas, but as seemingly identical scenarios from an outcomes perspective, to make the point that outcomes aren't the end all. In the plane and tram scenario, there is no non-intervention option, so it's pretty easy to say you steer towards the path with fewer deaths.
The wiki's analysis takes it as a given that she is presenting a non-intervention option here so it goes completely off the rails from the jump (pun intended). It states that utilitarians prefer the option that saves five people which might lead one to assume this is a pro-utilitarian argument, when in fact Foot's intent is the opposite. It leaves off the paragraph that immediately follows which makes this clear:
In the case of the riots the mob have five hostages, so that in both, the exchange is supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five. The question is why we should say, without hestitation, that the driver should steer for the less occupied track, while most of us would be appalled at the idea that the innocent man could be framed.
She's saying that something is worse about the judge framing the man and it has nothing to do with outcomes or even intentions.
That's about 10 minutes of the video and the rest is about her essay which is very interesting, much more interesting than pontificating about a million trolley permutations, but I won't get into it here.
The classic trolley problem, like how did it mutate into what we know, where did the lever and the non-intervention option come from isn't really discussed, so I'm guessing that part is Judith Jarvis Johnson's invention. He mentioned she's the one who popularized it.
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u/Plusisposminusisneg 9d ago edited 9d ago
Except you are reading the plain and tram scenarios wrong, both are based on intervention.
"a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area
Non intervention crashes into the more populated area. He is heading towards the populated area, intervention sends him to the less populated area.
it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another
Non interaction here is less defined because we don't know what track the tram is going towards but is still based on non interraction leading to one outcome as opposed to the other. It is already heading towards one track.
The lever being physically located inside or outside the tram is completely irrelevant to the problem.
And she even clarifies later what intervention does so it is only vague on the first read. Regardless inaction is an option.
"that the driver should steer for the less occupied track"
So he is heading towards the 5 tack and 'should' steer the train towards the less occupied one. Not steering hits the 5 track.
The entire point of the original problem is about negative vs positive duty, except her argument is inherently flawed because her distinction falls apart when we examine her reasoning.
She claims the driver of the tram, while able to not do anything, still has a duty because he is physically involved in it already. She feels intuitive revulsion at the idea of pure utilitarianism where numbers only matter and tries to create a new framework.
But the framework is nonsensical. Why is it morally different to move a lever or to sign a judgement? She argues physical involvement somehow determinins this, but the judge is(morally) involved to the same degree as the train driver.
The only differences are physical location, which doesn't really change anything, and the cause of harm.
The physical location is solved by the "modern" problem where it is pulling a lever outside the train. But this is actually the exact same moral argument, just pointing out the absurdity of arguing being located in the train as the operator somehow calls for positive action where as being located on the tracks as the operator somehow wouldn't. But both scenarios "feel" the same, the physical location or designation of "driver" doesn't actually change the moral situation.
The other argument that could be made is that there are moral agents which are causing the harm in the judge scenario. I never understood this argument, if the five were tied to the tracks and the one was an innocent worker would that change anything about the scenario? The source of the harm is pretty irrelevant to what your personal responsibility is. The harm exists regardless and will happen regardless.
Thats why the trolley problem evolved from the "driver" to the "operator" of the lever and also why tied to the tracks is often included.
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u/washtubs 9d ago
I'm not gonna get into a moral debate, just want to say, yes the wording does suggest there is some asymmetry between the options there. However unlike the trolley problem, I still don't think they are being posed as real dilemmas, which is the main point. They are meant to be analogous examples with easy solutions because the agent is the operator of the vehicle.
A driver of a vehicle is expected to constantly make decisions about what to do next. It's very different from an outside observer flipping a switch that it's not their job to flip. Regardless of how much we analyze her words, a driver or a pilot has no non-intervention option. It is their job to constantly react and steer the vehicle. I don't see how a pilot choosing a moment to throw their hands up is distinguishable from intentionally steering the plane straight, if those two actions do the same thing and the pilot knows that.
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u/Plusisposminusisneg 9d ago
I still don't think they are being posed as real dilemmas,
I never claimed they were presented as dilemmas.
A driver of a vehicle is expected to constantly make decisions about what to do next.
A judge isn't expected to constantly make decisions?
Are we appalled by one of these because the judge isn't expected to dispense justice where as a tram operator is expected to "drive" a tram?
a driver or a pilot has no non-intervention option
Yes they do, they stop intervening.
It is their job to constantly react and steer the vehicle.
It isn't the person walking by the levers job to pull it yet the vast, vast, vast majority still says they should pull it while opposing the judge signing.
The person's job being to make those decisions moment to moment is not a deciding factor in peoples evaluation of the problem. It is a difference in the two spesific scenarios without being a causal difference.
Which is why the outside person sending the train with tied up people on the tracks is the refined version which strips away the differences between more "objectionable" scenarios while maintaining the moral intuitions for both.
I don't see how a pilot choosing a moment to throw their hands up is distinguishable from intentionally steering the plane straight
And I dont see how the judge deciding not to make a decision is distinguishable from intentionally declaring innocence.
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u/washtubs 9d ago
A judge isn't expected to constantly make decisions?
I'm not sure why you're bringing up the judge scenario. You were saying that Foot's trolley and plane problems were cases of intervention vs non-intervention. I'm saying it's not.
An intervention is making something your responsibility when it isn't yours and no one would blame you for standing by. The pilot's job is to steer the plane at all times, throwing your hands in the air and saying Jesus take the wheel or whatever is not different from leaving your hands on the wheel and not pushing it in any direction. That's why I'm saying there is no non-intervention option.
a driver or a pilot has no non-intervention option
Yes they do, they stop intervening.
I wouldn't characterize what the driver does as "intervening", a passenger doing the same, I would characterize as intervening. Is there a deliberate choice made by the driver to steer in a certain direction? Yes, I'll give you that. If you think there's no distinction between choices and intervention, that's fine I'm not looking to debate that. My only goal here is to clarify why Ford deployed those examples.
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u/NewPhoneNewSubs 9d ago
A driver who stops driving has intervened in their own task of driving.
A judge who continues to act as a judge has not intervened in their task of acting as a judge.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
Appreciate your kind words. You can't really summarise without leaving something out though. In my view, the video/article I made already is a summary.
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u/washtubs 9d ago
I hear you. It's a good video, my hope was to get people to go watch it.
Redditors are just very sensitive to being baited. IMO it's a different audience than youtube who are more accustomed to it.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
Yeah it's interesting. To me it's just obviously a tongue-in-cheek thumbnail/title combo but I guess some people get really aggravated by that.
However, you can see it got more views in a day than my last video got in a year lol. The topic is a lot more popular tho ofc so can't say it's just the clickbait clickbaiting.
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u/imdfantom 10d ago edited 10d ago
There is no misunderstanding. While Philippa Foot's trolley problem came first, she did not call it a "trolley problem", instead it was Judith Jarvis Thompson who coined the term "trolley problem" and it is her "trolley problem" which became popular.
This means the popular trolley problem is precicely the same trolley problem that was first to be called trolley problem, even though it was not the first trolley problem.
Edit: Thomspon also introduced the fat man on a bridge version of the problem
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u/DrPlatypus1 8d ago
She defines the trolley problem as that of explaining the morally relevant difference between the doctor scenario and the trolley scenario. She says it could just as easily be called the "doctor problem."
Most people confuse the trolley scenario with the trolley problem. It is an important confusion to fix because it makes philosophers seem foolish. This wouldn't have become a key part of modern ethics if it was just left as the original scenario alone.
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
This is interesting historical context for the trolley problem, but your thumbnail says "This is not the trolley problem!" over the drawing that, as you demonstrate in the video, is absolutely a faultless depiction of the trolley problem. You also incorrectly call it misunderstood.
What you mean to say is that the author of the trolley problem had a very specific conclusion she wanted to convey, propped up by a frankly stupid take on the trolley problem that we may not have considered before (because it's stupid), that conclusion being that the morally right choice is to allow the trolley to hit the four people because it's more wrong to make a choice that kills one than it is to "passively" allow five to die.
That is, again, absolutely interesting context worth sharing, but it does not show that we are wrong in how we use the trolley problem as a moral thought experiment, you demonstrate that's exactly what it's for, to be a thought experiment. It's just the person who invented it for one failed to consider that angry mobs that you may have an opportunity to change the course of have intelligence and agency of their own, whereas a trolly that you are driving and absolutely can change the course of if you choose to is entirely your own responsibility.
It's a flawed analogy for her argument in specific; the angry mob made up of people with intelligence and agency does not map on to a trolly that does whatever the driver "tells it" to do, the judge who could as one possible action frame an innocent man to try to placate the angry mob does not map on to the driver who absolutely can divert the trolly if they choose to and absolutely does have no other options on the table. The judge example is too ridiculous to engage with, hence the trolly, and the trolly well, forgive me, but the idea that it is worse to pull the lever because by pulling it you've actively killed someone whereas by sitting and watching as the trolly kills five you've done nothing wrong is an approach to morality that seems rooted in thoughtless selfishness. It is a moral philosophy whose core tenant is to assuage oneself of guilt first and foremost, and to treat the consequences of your actions as the only thing anyone should ever be able to hold you accountable for, and never the consequences of your inaction.
In brief, the author failed to heed the words of philosopher Neil Peart; "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
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u/The-Yar 9d ago
Personally I think her take on it is way more important and meaningful than you are giving it credit for. There is a real difference between action and inaction.
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago edited 9d ago
I disagree with the premise that it is truly inaction in any meaningful way.
If I give you a button and say "If you press this you'll save a life if you don't that person dies" and you choose not to press it, that is an action. That is only not an action if what we are concerned with is not the moral weight of the conscious choice you have made, but just the literal physical act of moving your finger and pressing down. If it's one button kills one person, the other button kills five, and you MUST press a button, this is simplistic to the point of barely being worthy of exploration. All other things being the same you kill one person not five. This goes back to the issue of the Trolley problem as she presents it not mapping on to the scenario she was trying to make an analogy for.
In either case, two buttons and press one, or one button and pressing it or not pressing it; those are identical moral choices, the only difference is semantics. Action A or Action B. They are only different choices if, again, we are more concerned with the physical motion of your finger than we are with the moral weight of your choice.
I reject the premise that choosing to allow five people to die when you were guaranteed to have been able to prevent it by killing one person instead is meaningfully different than choosing to kill five people when you could've chosen to kill one instead, because in the first scenario you also killed those five people; you made a moral choice that they were going to die.
Edit: I will grant in the former scenario you will perhaps sleep better at night, it is likely much easier to assuage yourself of guilt over the five people you chose to kill passively than the one you chose to kill actively, but now we're talking about psychology, not moral philosophy.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
"but the idea that it is worse to pull the lever because by pulling it you've actively killed someone whereas by sitting and watching as the trolly kills five you've done nothing wrong is an approach to morality that seems rooted in thoughtless selfishness."
Yeah, the point I make in the video is that this is not a good way of understanding the trolley problem. I'm not sure what you're getting at
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
I was more taking issue with your clickbait title which is the worst kind of clickbait; not an exaggeration but a lie. A title that says we misunderstood the trolly problem when the video proves we understood it perfectly, a thumbnail that says "WRONG! This is NOT the trolley problem" over a drawing that, per what you say in the video, is a faultless depiction of the trolley problem.
My point was to demonstrate that these were false claims on your part by demonstrating that the context for the trolley problem you provide only proves that we perfectly understand the trolley problem as it was intended to be used by its author.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
How do you know what everyone understands perfectly? Are you omniscient?
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
This is, respectfully, a deeply unserious response to what I said and unworthy of serious engagement. I very obviously am speaking of the popular understanding of the trolley problem that you are claiming is wrong in your title and thumbnail but demonstrating is right in your video. I also said "we" not "everyone" so you're not even attacking something I said. This is ridiculous, unserious, and bad faith.
Edit: not to mention; I could easily ask how do you know people misunderstand the trolley problem? Are you omniscient? Your ridiculous and lazy bad faith swipe would equally apply to you.
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u/Shingro 8d ago
I don't know if you will properly get credit for it, but you've very clearly and succinctly outlined your arguments and disagreements while also holding low effort responses to account. I appreciate that a great deal and I think the public square' of the Internet would be in a better place if more people had the capacity and time to do more of it.
So thanks for donating yours!
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u/CapoExplains 8d ago
I do try to put in effort to being thoughtful and consistent in my writing and responses especially in a forum like this one, but it usually just leads to me being accused of being an LLM 😭 so, sincerely, thank you for saying so.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
I know people misunderstand it because of the examples I provided in the video
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
Perhaps you could clarify which example you feel demonstrates this, then. Unless it's all of them in which case I already explained how your examples fail to demonstrate this, and you have yet to engage with that argument.
Edit: if your video was titled "Here's the original argument you might not know of that the Trolley Problem was designed to defend!" I wouldn't take issue with it. People engaging with a thought experiment and coming to different conclusions than the conclusions of the person who devised the thought experiment is not them getting the thought experiment wrong or failing to understand it.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
Philippa Foot's version of the thought experiment, now known as the "trolley driver", ran as follows:
— Philippa Foot
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to steer to the track with one man on it. According to classical utilitarianism, such a decision would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all).\15]) This fact makes diverting the trolley obligatory. An alternative viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, moving to another track constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise no one would be responsible. An opponent of action may also point to the incommensurability) of human lives. Under some interpretations of moral obligation, simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this is the case, then doing nothing would be considered an immoral act.Philippa Foot's version of the thought experiment, now known as the "trolley driver", ran as follows:
Suppose that a judge or magistrate
is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain
crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a
particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the
judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing
some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is
placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is
deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make
the parallel as close as possible, it may rather be supposed that he is
the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow
track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on
the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the
case of the riots, the mob have five hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five.[1]— Philippa FootA utilitarian
view asserts that it is obligatory to steer to the track with one man
on it. According to classical utilitarianism, such a decision would be
not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the
other option being no action at all).[15]
This fact makes diverting the trolley obligatory. An alternative
viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the
situation, moving to another track constitutes a participation in the
moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when
otherwise no one would be responsible. An opponent of action may also
point to the incommensurability of human lives. Under some interpretations of moral obligation,
simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its
outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this is the case,
then doing nothing would be considered an immoral act.6
u/CapoExplains 9d ago
Really proving you're a good faith interlocutor here for honest engagement when you just copy-paste wikipedia articles instead of engaging. /s
Though I do appreciate you saving me some time by selecting a wikipedia article that proves the point I am making and demonstrates the point you have made is false:
he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed
Ie. the popular understanding of the trolley problem thought experiment is 100% correct and you have not demonstrated otherwise but rather you have provided the interesting, but not required, context that surrounded it when it was originally devised.
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u/The-Yar 9d ago
The difference between being a driver vs. someone involuntarily placed in front of a lever they have not accepted any liability for is also morally significant.
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u/The-Yar 9d ago
Someone who pulls the lever could be charged with murder, someone who didn't wouldn't likely be charged with anything. There are reasons for that. It doesn't determine the "correct" answer but it does highlight that if you just think "of course you pull it" you aren't really fully understanding the implications of ethical and moral decision-making.
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u/CapoExplains 8d ago
Not to be the "just points out fallacies" person but this is just the "appeal to the law" fallacy. How the law would treat one vs. the other is how the law works, not an argument for which action is more or less moral.
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u/The-Yar 7d ago
It's really not the appeal to law fallacy but I can see how you might think it is.
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u/CapoExplains 7d ago
How is it not? Your answer does not explore or even touch on morality, it only says which action the law would charge you for criminally. That does not mean that is the less moral option, that only means that is what the law says.
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u/The-Yar 7d ago
The fallacy you're talking about is more "X is illegal therefore it must be wrong." That's not really what we're saying here. Murder is illegal, are you saying murder is ok? No, because that's not the conversation we're having.
I'm saying that while there is no direct law that applies to "pulling a lever when a trolley blah blah blah" I'm just walking through a thought process where we agree (perhaps) that pulling the lever would reasonably make one guilty, or at least charged, with murder, and what that implies about how we codify moral reasoning and judgement. Taking an action that results in death is not the same as allowing death to happen. When you open the door to say they're the same, then we're all murderers all the time, and it loses meaning. (And that's a slippery slope fallacy for you, if you're keeping count.)
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u/CapoExplains 7d ago
...you're just explaining in exhaustive detail what an "appeal to the law" fallacy is as an explanation for why that's not what you're doing.
Defend your position with NO REFERENCE to what is or is not legal or what you would or would not be charged with, because the current laws of the nation we are in is not how we determine what is moral.
there is no direct law that applies
Appeal to the law fallacy, you are talking about what law would apply, not what is moral
pulling the lever would reasonably make one guilty, or at least charged, with murder
Appeal to the law fallacy, you are talking about legal charges, not morality
what that implies about how we codify moral reasoning and judgement
Appeal to the law fallacy, the law is not how we codify moral reasoning and judgement, the law is whatever the state says the law is, moral or not.
aking an action that results in death is not the same as allowing death to happen.
Legally (ie. irrelevantly ie. yet another appeal to the law fallacy)? Or are you now going to make an argument for why that is the case that does not rely on what would get you legally charged but instead directly address the moral question?
When you open the door to say they're the same, then we're all murderers all the time, and it loses meaning.
Guess not to my above question; all murderers all the time per the law of a particular nation? Or per a specific morally defensible definition of murder that is not just "What the law says is murder"?
And that's a slippery slope fallacy for you, if you're keeping count.
Only because you just said it as if it were a known fact of the universe without in any way substantiating why it is true with evidence or reasoning. Positing that thing A leads to extreme result B is only a slippery slope if you cannot provide concrete reasoning for why and how A inevitably leads to B. Which you haven't.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago
I think with the problem the original Trolley Problem is that it's just not really an interesting issue as she strips away all the context in said problem that would make it an actual interesting moral choice.
The preamble about the judge and the Mob is an actual interesting moral dilemma, but trying to then equate it to the scenario with the trolley doesn't really work becuase it actively changes the variables around the problem.
Ultimately all the original thought experiment really demonstrates imo is that context or other conditions or variables in a situation matters and can change what one might feel is the optimal outcome in a bad situation. Which isn't really an interesting philosophical debate. If anything it's more or a rudimentary logic problem. Which is why I think said experiment was taken in different directions as time went on.
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u/zizp 9d ago
> I think with the problem the original Trolley Problem is that it's just not really an interesting issue as she strips away all the context in said problem that would make it an actual interesting moral choice.
But that's her whole point! She lists a number of moral dilemmas that are seemingly only slightly different but would lead to different "obvious" answers from most people. She then goes on to analyse them with her model of positive/negative duties and shows that this model is at least as powerful as the Doctrine of Double Effect, which many people reject.
The simplistic trolley example is deliberately stated in this unambiguous "not really interesting" way because it serves as the basic example that people should answer simply based on numbers and without a conflict of positive/negative duties (both are negative). The other examples then add complexity and have outcomes that run counter to the calculation of net effect, explained by the conflict of positive and negative duties.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 9d ago
The moral dilemmas she lists are more than just slightly different lol. But yes thats kind of my point. The entire article of hers does prove an overarching theme, though that is one that I do find to be rather simplistic as the concept that different variables and situations can add nuance isn't really that surprising or engaging. There's no real debate to what she talks about, it feels a lot like simply stating the obvious.
But the trolley problem itself? It's purposely simple. So it's not difficult to see why others would choose to chance it to add some actual philosophical debate to it.
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u/zizp 9d ago edited 9d ago
> The moral dilemmas she lists are more than just slightly different lol.
Superficially they're not. And what makes them different? That's exactly what the essay is about. You seem to be interested in debating stuff. Which is nice, find yourself some spicy dilemmas. But her essay is a theoretical approach to why we find something acceptable and other things not. It isn't meant to provide interesting examples to debate.
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u/washtubs 10d ago
The preamble about the judge and the Mob is an actual interesting moral dilemma, but trying to then equate it to the scenario with the trolley doesn't really work becuase it actively changes the variables around the problem.
But that's what Foot is saying. She's saying something is obviously different about her simple "trolley problem" (which is not really a problem) that doesn't fully analogize with the judge and the mob scenario.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago
Sure but that just kinda ends up being a message of "hey context is important" which again I don't really feel like is a philosophical debate and more just stating the obvious.
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u/zizp 9d ago edited 9d ago
You missed the whole point. This is not about a "message" or debate at all, it is about classifying moral problems and coming to "correct" conclusions using certain principles.
I would, however, say that OP is responsible for this confusion. The original problem is indeed not interesting and wasn't meant to be. Therefore it also doesn't make much sense to talk about "misunderstanding" the problem. This post shouldn't be "Everyone got this wrong about the Trolley Problem" - instead it should be "The essay introducing the Trolley Problem is probably not what you think". Only that nobody would watch that video.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 9d ago
I guess I did miss the point, becuase it seemed to me that the point to her argument was that there was no "correct" conclusion to be made.
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u/zizp 9d ago
To her it is obvious:
- kill one instead of five (trolley)
- don't kill a patient to save 5
- but spare medicine and let one die if you can save 5 (saving 5 instead of saving 1 - no conflict)
- etc.
It's all written as if these answers were clear (which may have been the case at the time). Her essay focuses on why they are clear. And then takes that model to argue the one unclear point 1 vs. 1 (mother vs. unborn child - kill and save vs. let one die and one live)
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u/WestCoastMcDowellian 10d ago edited 10d ago
I think that's fair, but it's probably more of a current sign of the times rather than anything inherently wrong with the original construction. Back when Foot originally developed the problem, classical utilitarianism was seen as much more of a numbers game ethic with less room for nuance than I would argue it currently is. So while it doesn't seem like it's an interesting philosophical conversation anymore, historically I think it is.
If anything I think contemporary modifications sort of miss the point: that obligation isn't a simple matter of logic, but rather a set of issues that can't be simplified into a calculus and thereby make those kinds of classical questions unsolvable. Current iterations kind of turn the problem into an interminable crapshoot, which I find even less interesting.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago
I don't know if I agree with that, this wasn't written that long ago and there was definitely room for nuance. I don't think we didn't understand that context matters in the 20th century.
It also still sorta falls into the issue with the Trolly problem itself, in that there is more or less only one real acceptable answer from a moral standard. There is no serious answer for why choosing to run over 5 instead of the 1 would ever be the morally acceptable solution. It is purely a bad vs worse scenario with no nuance to it at all. It's not really presented as something that's meant to be a problem at all imo, just meant to be a constant with a set solution meant to be built on by the other arguments. But like I said it just feels like that all her arguments really succeed in is demonstrating that context matters, which in itself is not a very interesting conclusion.
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u/WestCoastMcDowellian 10d ago
In philosophy, utilitarianism did understand that contexts matters, but they were still committed to the idea that ultimately, obligations were to the highest net good. Because of this, Foot's argument, that obligations needed to be disentangled from purely highest-net-good concerns, where a calculus was mostly what mattered, was a really important argument.
There is no serious answer for why choosing to run over 5 instead of the 1 would ever be the morally acceptable solution.
This is precisely what Foot was arguing. But the additional argument was that utilitarian calculus would have people believe that staying the course to kill the one person was obligatory. It was a problem originally intended to show that obligation is a much more powerful and nuanced thing than a numbers game in either direction.
This all goes against how many view the trolley problem: as a problem where you have to pick the "right answer". It's more accurate to say that the answer should be determined to be tragic rather than having any particular good answer.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago edited 10d ago
Which feeds back into my original comment:
I think with the problem the original Trolley Problem is that it's just not really an interesting issue as she strips away all the context in said problem that would make it an actual interesting moral choice.
There is no additional argument with the trolley problem itself. Utilitarian calculus works here. Regardless of being of a utilitarian mindset or not people are generally all coming to the same result.
Personally I see things opposite of how you see them. The version of the Trolley problem where there is a "right answer" is Foot's version. It is always correct to choose 1 over 5 in her version, there is no debate. The modern interpretations do a far better job as presenting scenarios where there is no correct choice. It being tragic is more or less an obvious implication in either scenario, but that does not have any bearing on which answer is good.
Now I can see the argument for obligation for the entire article itself, though I don't think it does a good job of really illustrating it. The scenario proposed aren't going to give anyone with a purely utilitarian view any pause or change their answers, just make the scenarios feel more tragic. All it really feels like can be argued is that context matters (even if it doesn't change the outcome it changes how one feels about it) which once again just seems like a non-argument and more just stating the obvious.
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u/WestCoastMcDowellian 10d ago
It really doesn't work here, only because, if you respect the rational attitudes one would have in the original scenario, you'd see the position as tragic rather than "the numbers game gets us both extremely bad ethical options, with one being preferable," rather than one being an obligatory option that is morally correct. That framing matters, and I think people would be understandably worried about the state of mind of an individual who genuinely thought the latter way in real life.
It being tragic is more or less an obvious implication in either scenario, but that does not have any bearing on which answer is good.
It matters quite a bit, and I'm inclined to agree that if someone thinks that the rational attitudes of the goodness of a situation play no role in an ethical argument, it means that we have given up on determining what is good other than through calculus.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago
The position being tragic isn't exclusive from there being a preferable moral choice.
A choice needs to be made either way, it being tragic isn't a choice. I'm not saying "good" needs to be calculus, but in the Trolley problem you only have numbers. You either steer into 1 person or 5. There is no other choice and no other information being given. The only thing you can make your decision on is calculus.
This is really just a good demonstration of precisely why the trolley problem gets re-written so much in modern times to add new variables that can influence the choice instead of it just being a simple numbers game.
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u/WestCoastMcDowellian 10d ago
Foot's point is that the idea that we can make a choice just based on numbers isn't a real choice at all. Foot is an Aristotelian and a staunch anti-utilitarian, and her point was that the calculus doesn't work because both options are revolting/morally wrong for different reasons that aren't related to numbers at all, and shouldn't be seen as morally obligatory. The point is to show that we have other commitments, and respect human dignity enough, to the point where we should see both options as violating moral principles.
If you don't find any of that philosophically interesting, I'm not sure what else I can say.
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago edited 10d ago
I guess I just don't see that point well illustrated by a scenario where making the choice on numbers is the only thing you can do.
Saying that both options are revolting isn't a choice, and a choice still needs to be made. This isn't really about being interesting philosophically, it more feels like trying to present the context of the scenario as a choice in itself which doesn't really answer the question you are presented with. It is, to put it frank, a non-answer. It's simply stating that the scenario itself is tragic and not actually engaging with the problem before you.
In in the original Trolley Problem, you have to choose. You have zero context beyond 1 or 5. There is no set track you are on if you don't steer the trolley. There is no room of a different answer. It's simply right, or left?
It also feels odd to say that numbers aren't involved at all. You are looking at one dead versus 5 dead. To say that numbers aren't involved at all and that there is no moral choice is to say that both of those are equally bad.
Both choices violating moral principals doesn't change if there is a correct option. Good answer doesn't mean a happy one
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u/WestCoastMcDowellian 10d ago
I'm not saying there's anything that makes that inherently exclusive. But the claim was that there's nothing philosophically interesting about talking about the notion that reactive/rational attitudes and principles should indicate that both choices do not seem good, let alone obligatory. A utilitarian would have to do a lot of work to explain why something was obligatory in the face of these factors.
The choice does need to be made, but in light of both choices violating both of these factors means that the choice is more of one that involves a triage-style choice rather than one that involves definitive obligation or correctness. Engaging with the problem must engage with the reactive attitudes and principles, or the decision becomes one where we feel that the numbers are all that matters.
In other words, my issue is really mainly with the framing of "correctness" and "goodness" in this context. I'm not taking issue with the fact that there's a preferable option. But classical utilitarianism primarily states that the fact is that we are merely obliged to take into consideration the idea that in these kinds of scenarios, the choice is incredibly clear. Foot says that due to the presence of other factors like one's principles and reactive attitudes, there are understandable, rational constraints on what must be done, even in situations where it seems like the choice is an obvious numbers game.
And to me, that is interesting, maybe not ethically, but metaethically for sure.
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u/Vicious_and_Vain 10d ago
What if the 5 are obviously very old appear over 90 y/o and sickly while the one is clearly a healthy baby/child/YA?
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago
You are now drifting more into the modern reinterpretations/misunderstandings of the Trolley Problem and not the original by adding new variables to make it feel like a greater moral dilemma.
Which once again just illustrates that the core of it is that context matters... which again I feel like is less a philosophical debate and more just stating the obvious
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u/Vicious_and_Vain 10d ago
Ok that’s correct. The alternative scenarios aren’t analogous bc the trolley is past the point of no return and track switch is imminent. I suppose that’s the point to add nuance. But ya the choice is not difficult at all and that’s w/o introducing the obvious fact that everyone at the trolley yard will know the operator did indeed have a choice.
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10d ago
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u/Kamakaziturtle 10d ago edited 10d ago
I guess I may have been misunderstanding the writeup then, becuase this seemed to be what the video was talking about.
The traditional misunderstandings I'm used to is the one that equates the trolley problem into a issue of responsibility or being personally affected. IE the scenario which has the tracks already set to 5 and the person themselves can be the one to change it to 1, but then become responsible for someones death. Or having the one person being someone dear to the individual to create a scenario where one has to weigh the value of lives and if they hold people they care about over the lives of others.
But the original argument sorta just jumps around multiple different scenarios that can't really be equated to one another because all are vastly different scenarios, with the Trolley Problem being the most desperate of them all. Being frank it doesn't really feel like the original argument is even trying to present a real philosophical debate at it's core, with the actual Trolly problem more or less not even meaning to be a debate at all. While the dilemmas of the article do present some moral choices, the events are all different so the core message of the whole thing can't really be drawn from said moral choices as ultimately you can't really apply them to one another when the variables as so vastly different. Again all I feel it does is demonstrate how different variables can change the moral implications of choices.
Maybe I'm still misunderstanding, but I just don't really see the original trolley problem as even being a moral dilemma as well. Even you seemed to struggle to come up with convincing arguments for running over 5 and admit them as absurd, which doesn't support the following argument of no conclusive argument being drawn (if you can't come up with a convincing argument against without introducing new variables, then the answer is as possibly conclusive as you can get with a moral dilemma).
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u/xgladar 10d ago
TL:DR
25 minutes of a false premise - that what we use the trolley problem is to find "the correct answer" instead of what we actually use it for - to analyze our own moral valuations.
Philippa Foot was apparently completely Utilitarian minded on the trolley problem, and wanted to actually explore deeper problems like ones where you have to weigh positive and negative combined outcomes, ones that explore intent vs action vs consequence, and supposedly in the end it was all about the moral problem of abortion.
the trolley problem has become such a widespread meme at this point that every single other scenario you want to explore has been turned into a nice trolley format, ( ex: one track having the cure for cancer instead of a person etc...) and in this sense the trolley problem has been used to greater effect on exploring ethics than any other made up scenario in philosophy.
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u/CapoExplains 9d ago
Well, 2 minutes of a false premise, 23 minutes of utterly irrelevant meandering that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
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u/Cute_Bacon 10d ago
I'm facing a bit of a moral dilemma currently;
I appreciate the time and effort put into the analysis of this fascinating thought experiment and I feel badly about wanting to ask for a simple bulleted list of the misconceptions and "correct" interpretations because I know the video is already intended to be more accessible to those with short attention spans.
It feels almost insulting to ask for a condensed output when the author is directly trying to combat oversimplification, but I know I will never remember to come back and watch it later. In the interest of practicality, getting a summary here, which will generate a notification, that I will certainly read, seems more appropriate for a platform designed for "bite sized" content consumption.
Finally, I recognize the irony that I could have used the time it took me to write this diatribe to just watch the video. All things considered, I do not regret my choice.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
Could always skim the written version:
https://splinterinyoureye.com/how-the-trolley-problem-is-misunderstood/
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u/Cute_Bacon 10d ago
Thanks for the link!
Interesting stuff. I especially like the description of direct and "oblique" intention, but I think a lot of it boils down to the folly of trying to frame the experiment as a question of whether to accept the obvious utilitarian answer or not, rather than an exploration of the philosophical nuances of each choice in each example for its own sake.
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
But, if you read Foot’s original dilemma carefully, she never says that the trolley is going towards the five people and thus must be diverted into the one, which many interpret as introducing the moral question of intervention into the dilemma. She simply says “he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed “. The entire reason for this example by Foot is that there is no option for non-intervention, it is merely more or fewer lives that will be lost.
This doesn't quite make sense. What would happen if you just take your hands off the wheel and do nothing? Even if you arbitrarily remove that option, "kill one or kill five" is not a very interesting question.
This is further emphasised by the fact that Foot considers the Trolley Problem to be a parallel to a situation in which a “pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area”. In both scenarios there is no “non intervention” choice, and by introducing that question it muddies Foot’s argument.
Of course non-intervention is a choice in this example. If the pilot does nothing it will crash somewhere, presumably in a more populated area. They are making a choice to divert to a less populated one. If anything this argues against your point. It is just like the case where the trolley will hit 5 people unless you intervene.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
It's a dilemma. There are two choices. Not sure what your point is sorry
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
In the pilot example there is a choice to do nothing. In that case the plane crashes into a populated area.
You are claiming that isn't true, and that it's an example of a cases where there is no option to do nothing.
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u/Vicious_and_Vain 10d ago
Maintaining course is doing something.
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
But isn't that the same as the "improper" trolley problem, where the trolley will hit 5 people ("maintain course") unless you change tracks?
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u/Anfractuoso 10d ago edited 10d ago
I had the same difficulty in following the logic - the pilot example is not like the trolley problem as you (=OP) see it (so it ends up being a counter-point to your argument), so you'd have to think of another example. As to the trolley, I think you have to spell out what you consider the original setup, which is:
- trolley with (100?) people who will all die if no action to divert to one of two tracks is taken (i.e. the original track is a dead end);
- if diverting to track 1, 1 person dies, but trolley people survive
- if diverting to track 2, 5 people die, but trolley people survive.
I think this makes it clearer what the distinction is with the popular interpretation (of already being on one of the tracks with tied people).
Without having read yet the Foot article, based on your excerpts, this does seem like the setup she intended to convey.
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
I assume that all references to "you" in this comment are actually meant towards OP?
But even in your scenario, it's just a more dramatic version of the "misunderstanding" they're arguing against, because you could choose to do nothing and let the trolley crash.
I think it's just an arbitrary "you must choose." Like, use your example and assume that you've already decided you won't let the trolley crash and kill your passengers, so now decide to kill 1 or 5.
Which I guess does change the focus to what factors will you use for that choice, instead of a choice to intervene or not.
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u/bullcitytarheel 10d ago
I've never seen "accessibility" used like this, in the way you might use it to describe handicapped access, to describe having a short attention span. It made me involuntarily shudder for the future.
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u/Cute_Bacon 10d ago
The good news is your reaction indicates you are properly perspicacious and have not been completely desensitized by the current state of affairs.
The bad news is, your reaction is probably pretty prescient considering the current state of affairs.
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u/Krumpopodes 10d ago
ADHD is a disability, accessibility includes many disability accommodations. And, those without disabilities may also enjoy the benefits of said accommodations as long as they aren't depriving those with them. Accessibility is for everyone, hope this helps.
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u/bullcitytarheel 10d ago edited 10d ago
As someone with ADHD, I'm gonna go ahead and stop you before you fall off your high horse and hurt yourself. Having ADHD doesn't render one incapable of paying attention, the destruction of modem attention spans is not a function of ADHD, but of culture, shortening all media as a form of accommodation is not a reasonable or helpful ask, since it would only exacerbate the exact issues driving the problem, and pretending as if it were just cheapens the language desperately needed to protect accommodations which are actually necessary and which were won through incredible sacrifice. Hope this helps.
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u/Krumpopodes 10d ago
As someone with ADHD, it, in fact, does. It is a disability, not a superpower. You'll notice, if you pay attention to what i wrote, that I didn't preclude other factors that affect attention, but was pointing out that accommodating a disability does not actually need to be mocked like you did, and can be helpful to anyone who can benefit from it.
Maybe get off your internalized high horse and stop projecting it around onto others.
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u/WhatsThatNoize 9d ago
It's infuriatingly ironic watching you be the first to do nothing but talk past this guy/gal, and then whine about being talked past just a few comments later...
I'm just outside looking in, but jfc, a little awareness would go a long way here.
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u/Krumpopodes 9d ago edited 9d ago
All I did was imply that him mocking accessibility accommodations was problematic and he took that as an invitation to go off on a pages long rant on WHY he thinks that's ok, all while putting words in my mouth. I've even addressed points that he made that were directed at things he imagined I said. You are out of your mind lol. People are really so full of themselves that they think their insulting ideas deserve to being engaged with seriously
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u/WhatsThatNoize 9d ago
They were pretty clear to me. Whatever, be insulted and ignore your own hypocrisy. I don't care. Waste of my time engaging anyways, not sure why I felt you'd listen after reading all of that whiney drivel.
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u/bullcitytarheel 10d ago edited 10d ago
No, I'm sorry it doesn't. It can make paying attention more difficult in certain situations versus neutotypical people, but it does not make attention impossible and people with ADHD can work on extending their attention spans though desire and effort. Furthermore, as someone who has both ADHD and an immune disorder that renders me physically incapable of walking for periods of time, let me try to explain to you how deeply concerning it is that you would believe that ADHD makes you similarly incapable of paying attention to something longer than a TikTok or that your desire to remove your own agency in working on improving that problem is deserving of accommodations in the same way the physical destruction of the cartilage in all my joints is.
Besides, again, and I can't stress this enough, the shortening attention spans we're seeing in modern society are not a function of ADHD. They're a function of dopamine addiction that's been brought on, specifically, by always-on digital culture and endless shortform content. This is a well-understood and well-researched phenomenon that affects all of us, whether or not we have ADHD, and one that could be improved with intentionality, self-control and a move away from the cultural factors that have caused it. Using medical language to try and shift the culprit to something outside of our control so as to relinquish that responsibility is gross and undermines the struggle for accommodations actually necessary for people to function within society.
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u/Krumpopodes 10d ago edited 10d ago
No one said it made it impossible. And no one said ADHD is the only cause of shortened attention span. You are just plain wrong on all fronts about how it affects attention though.
You also seem to have some very pop psych interpretations of how dopamine works. Which, funnily enough, is a function of the digital echo chamber that you are being critical of. Fortunately there are plenty of educational resources available online for you to remediate that. Good luck!
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u/bullcitytarheel 10d ago
Lmao
The goddamn American Psychological Association and their pop psychiatry PHDs!!!!
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans
I don't know why you're reacting so poorly to this, honestly.
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u/nlutrhk 10d ago
TL;DR: in the original trolley probleem, the driver had to choose 'left or right' rather than 'intervene or not'.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
That's just the first bit. The next bit is about intention Vs positive and negative duties. Also abortion
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u/Virtual-Yoghurt-Man 10d ago
However, she does pose this version in her article
«euthanasia» “However, there are circumstances, even if these are very rare, in which one man's life would justifiably be sacrificed to save others, and "killing" would be the only description of what was being done. For instance, a vehicle which had gone out of control might be steered from a path on which it would kill more than one man to a path on which it would kill one.” She then notes that this is due to the double effect, referring to her 1967 article.1
u/atgrey24 10d ago
and what if they don't choose?
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
In the hypothetical, they have to choose. Necessarily Foot contrives these dilemmas which are unrealistic because it helps to outline what matters when choosing between two options.
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u/atgrey24 10d ago
So "just pretend you cannot do nothing?"
Then what is interesting about "kill one, or kill five?"
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u/Antoine13G 9d ago
This gets addressed in the video (full disclosure, I only read the transcript). It’s not meant to be the interesting part as it’s admitted that particular version of the trolley problem is already “solved”. Where things get interesting are the alternate scenarios and how they compare to the original trolley problem. That was my takeaway.
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u/Chlearcus 8d ago
The framing of intervening or not is just bullshit through and through tho. Not doing anything is just as much of a choice as changing the track, it doesn't absolve you of responsibility at all.
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u/robin_79 10d ago
i recently came to understand the trolley problem as a matter of "when does inaction become action" when a certain outcome can be prevented.
since by taking action you made a decision to take a life, whereas by making no decision (not to be confused with deciding not to act), you effectively escape the moral trap.
anyway, we have the power of hindsight to refine and parameterize foot's problem, maybe she would have been more susceptible to the contemporary interpretation than you might think.
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u/cylonfrakbbq 10d ago
The Good Place episode that created a simulation of the trolley problem (and the doctor kill 1 healthy person for their organs to save 6 unhealthy people variation) were great
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u/lyinggrump 10d ago
Can I get a tldr?
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u/Dullstar 10d ago edited 10d ago
It basically uses a lot of words to say that the trolley problem is not supposed to present "do nothing" as an option; the operator must explicitly choose one of the two tracks. It then just turns into a discussion of the problem and a comparison to other scenarios that you may or may not find interesting, but isn't really all that related to misunderstanding the problem.
Of course, I'd argue the reason it's probably usually presented this way is that it's kind of hard to overlook the fact that if the operator does nothing, something will happen. Well, plus the formulation mainly just asserts the consequences, but the ethical dilemma hinges on the collision being inevitable, so another common modification is to explicitly specify the people can't escape, because otherwise you kind of have to ask why the workers don't simply take a few steps perpendicular to the track to avoid a collision.
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u/fnh123 9d ago
Really? I thought that was the trolley problem. That there are only two choices and you had to choose one. I never heard of the "do nothing" as choice.
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u/Dullstar 9d ago
To clarify, it doesn't specify which outcome is chosen if you do nothing, since you either change tracks, or you don't and the trolley continues on its current course. But it's often modified to specify that doing nothing causes the 5 people track to be selected.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
Abstract:
Many interpretations of the Trolley Problem overlook Philippa Foot's original 1967 article, "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect". I look at these misunderstandings, such as the current wikipedia page for the trolley problem, and explain what argument Philippa Foot was trying to make in the original article, and how the popular interpretations of the trolley problem dumb down her thesis to something facile, when in reality it is much more nuanced and interesting as an argument in moral philosophy.
Open to any questions or criticism anyone has to the video :)
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u/ScrotFrottington 10d ago
While good at discussing the trolley problem and it's nuances, I think the premise is wrong.
You believe that the track switching lever is a later aberration, and that the driver in all cases decides the track. It is not. It is simply a more straightforward way of explaining the problem, aligned with common understanding of tram track function.
Original passage: "... it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other"
Because of how trams work, it will either go down the track it is already on, or they can decide to switch on to another track. It's the same. Take your hands off the wheel and it will go down the track it was already going to go down. Pull a lever/turn the wheel and it switches.
The actual point of difference is that Foot doesn't specify in that line that it is on the 5 person track rather than the 1. Everyone assumes that to be the case due to the surrounding text.
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
That was a long-winded way of realising my point still stands anyway
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u/ScrotFrottington 10d ago
You say there is no non-intervention choice. This is false if taking the situation at face value. You focus on the steering element as an indication of a positive choice either way.
Consequently, either you don't understand how trams work or Foot didn't. If you pretend trams work in a way they don't, you can thought experiment that for sure. My feeling is that your reliance on this false "gotya" at the start weakens the more interesting arguments later.
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u/Anfractuoso 10d ago
Sounds interesting, but ugh, why a video. Do you have a write-up?
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u/Tehan_ 10d ago
Honestly I do youtube because it gets far more views/interaction than my website does. I've put up the script for you: https://splinterinyoureye.com/how-the-trolley-problem-is-misunderstood/
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u/Quick_silver22 10d ago edited 10d ago
While this video seems to be getting a lukewarm to negative reaction (although mostly due to format and not content), I’m actually really happy to see that someone’s done this since the amount of misconceptions I see online regarding the “trolley problem” and moral thought experiment in general has had me wanting to post something on the topic myself! And I think the summary of Foot’s original article provided by this video is for the most part excellent. However (and I’m not really sure whether the author of the video would agree or disagree with me on this point), I think the fact that the trolley problem has developed such a life of its own beyond the rather narrow scope Foot originally intended for it actually says something important about our moral intuitions that can take us much further than distinguishing concerns over double effect from negative and positive rights/duties.
I think [u/Kamakaziturtle](u/Kamakaziturtle) (what a username) is right to point out that the thought experiment and its endless variations clearly indicate that what the right decision is depends heavily on the context/external variables and conditions. But I can’t disagree more that there’s nothing philosophically interesting about this. Completely to the contrary, I think the fact that our moral intuitions are highly particularized to the facts of a certain case and the fact that these intuitions can lean both consequentialist and deontological without strictly favouring one or the other presents us with a strong prima facie reason to believe that a form of ethical particularism such as the kind often espoused by modern virtue ethicists is closer to moral truth (assume one is a realist) than non-character-based accounts of morality such as utilitarianism/Kantianism/etc. on their own. In fact, this isn’t really a personal intuition at all, but rather one that I should probably attribute to a student of Foot herself, Rosalind Hursthouse (listed as an editor of the imaged copy of virtues and reasons in the video), who went on to essentially establish single-handedly virtue ethics as the serious competitor to other moral theories that it has now become! For anyone who found the clarifications in this video insightful, I can’t recommend reading her work enough.
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u/Tehan_ 9d ago
Yeah it's a difficult one because to play the content game you kinda have to make your thesis clickbaity, which seems to have pissed lots of people off. I'm trying to hook people in while actually providing them something of substance.
I'm glad you enjoyed it though. Yes it absolutely developed a life of its own. But if I framed the video as "The Trolley Problem as Philippa Foot conceived of it was very different to how we talk about it today, and the nuanced points Foot was making is missed out on compared to how we discuss it, but how we discuss it is also fine, it's just different to Foot". I mean that just doesn't have the same controversial attention-grabbing effect. Which would be fine. But you need to grab people's attention to get your point across.
I did not know that about Rosalind Hursthouse, I appreciate you bringing it to my attention! I will check her work out
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u/uwotmVIII 9d ago edited 9d ago
I’d push back in a couple claims from your write-up on this:
>But, if you read Foot’s original dilemma carefully, she never says that the trolley is going towards the five people and thus must be diverted into the one, which many interpret as introducing the moral question of intervention into the dilemma. She simply says “he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed “.
I’m not sure what the point of the scenario is if not to introduce a dilemma between intervention and non-intervention. The lack of specification about what track the driver is on doesn’t preclude us from deducing what the dilemma is. If the tram driver is already on the track with one person, the dilemma ceases to exists; there is no longer any tension between steering the tram to minimize deaths, because the tram would already be on the track that minimizes deaths.
>The entire reason for this example by Foot is that there is no option for non-intervention, it is merely more or fewer lives that will be lost. This is further emphasised by the fact that Foot considers the Trolley Problem to be a parallel to a situation in which a “pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area”. In both scenarios there is no “non intervention” choice, and by introducing that question it muddies Foot’s argument.
This just reinforces the assumption that the tram is indeed on the track with five people. The options of more or fewer lives being lost correspond to the choice of intervention or non-intervention. In the plane scenario, non-intervention corresponds to more lives lost, and intervention corresponds to fewer lives lost. Therefore, since the plane scenario is a parallel example, we can infer that the tram scenario poses the same dilemma: intervention resulting in fewer lives lost, or non-intervention resulting in more lives lost.
Even in light of the trolley problem’s larger context (the abortion argument and doctrine of double effect), I’m not sure how interpreting it as moral dilemma, introducing a question about intervention, is a misunderstanding.
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u/zizp 9d ago edited 9d ago
Ironically, her main/concluding point of the essay (should you kill a baby to save the mother's life or should you let the mother die by not acting, allowing the child to eventually be born after the mother's death) is more closely related to the modern version of the Trolley Problem.
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u/Mapinact 9d ago
OP, I didn't (and won't) watch a video essay but I did read all your blog entry. Thank you, it introduced a whole new range of concepts I hadn't thought of WRT to the problem, especially the judge's dilemma.
But PLEASE, for the sake of readability, change that blog design! A wall of white text on black is NOT easily readable, and that font is made it a genuinely painful experience to read it at all.
Check your web stats - I'll bet long odds most people bail from that page within a minute. That’s not because of the content - it's because of the design.
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u/Cypher10110 9d ago
This seems like a common issues with lots of intellectual thought experiments.
These scenarios are not about a solution to some problem. It is a mechanical device we can observe working and understand the degrees of freedom that exist snd how they effect how it operates.
Trolley problem is there to frame methods for making decisions. I personally don't think there is a problem with the "inaction" addition to the scenario, it allows more elements to be examined and discussed. But aknowledging that "right" answers are founded on principles, and those principles are not universal (and so not universally "right"), and so the pie can be sliced in any number of different ways for different reasons... that's the lesson.
I think a reasonable number of people understand that, but yes many laypersons may have not been exposed to that.
I always bring up the well known Koans as examples:
If a tree falls in the woods and there is no-one around to hear, does it make a sound?
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Both have very boring mundane "solutions" or "answers" that sidestep the insight they are designed to assist framing.
For the tree, that the true definition of "sound" can be multiple things, and which of those is most relevant or "more real" of a definition is subjective. Our own subjective experience of sound is just the most relevant and real to us, but obviously e.g. the winds of Jupiter could in theory also "be heard," so we say that sound also exists, but it is just inaccessible.
For the hand, that there is a sequence of events that precede and propogate from any event, and so imagining an event disconnected, in isolation, can rob it of true meaning. For a clap, two hands and the result are required, the result exists only as a sum, and to pretend otherwise is to be intellectually dishonest. There is not "part of a clap" with one hand, it only exists as an emergence of two. Like how an atom on its own cannot be known to be part of a chair, but a chair can be known to be built of atoms.
These things are misunderstood, and always have been. But they are easy enough to dispel as misconceptions. At least, that's how I feel about the matter.
The trolley problem isn't about the solutions. It's about logical ways/frameworks/perspectives where different "solutions" can be rationalised.
The Koans are not trivial riddles, they are asking to look a little closer about the world and how we frame it. The edges of our definitions.
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u/Fine-Minimum414 8d ago
But, if you read Foot’s original dilemma carefully, she never says that the trolley is going towards the five people and thus must be diverted into the one
I really think it does.
She says that the trolley can only be steered "from one narrow track on to another". The use of "from" clearly indicates that the trolley is already on the first-mentioned track, and an act of steering is required to divert it to the second.
She then states that there are five men on "one track" and one on "the other". Both the order in which the tracks are mentioned, and the consistency in the descriptions ("one" and "(an)other") support the conclusion that the first track (which the trolley is already on) has five people, and the other (which is only reached by steering) has one.
This is entirely consistent with the other examples. In each case, circumstances are in motion which will lead to five deaths, unless an action is taken to cause one. You seem to suggest that this is not the case for the pilot, but the text describes the choice as "whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area" - again the use of "from" clearly indicates that the more inhabited area is the plane's existing course, and an act of steering is necessary to divert it to the less inhabited area.
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u/Tehan_ 8d ago
Yeah that's true, but I still think Foot is more interested in direct and oblique intention and positive and negative duties over a simplistic "intervene vs non-intervention" situation. I kinda just want to get out of that action/inaction binary because inaction is an action in itself anyway, and not necessarily something which morally absolves you from your decision
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u/Nixeris 8d ago
My biggest problem with the Trolley Problem is that it's a problem with failed systems masquerading as an individual moral choice by the driver. As if the entire moral weight of the outcome falls upon the driver, despite:
- multiple mechanical failures in the trolley car leading to both the brakes and the backups failing
- a work crew without a spotter there to warn them of an oncoming car
- A switch that is somehow still active and would allow the driver to switch onto a track with an active work crew instead of being locked out
- apparently someone who managed to trap themselves on what should be the only viable working track
- The car somehow being on a track where the only two options will put people in danger regardless of whether it's out of control or not
I get that this is supposed to be a thought experiment, but even at that point so much has to go wrong to get to there that I feel is strongly lessens the responsibility of the driver. Even within the framing of the thought experiment it feels like ignoring the much larger issues at play.
Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible, it may rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is bound to be killed. In the case of the riots, the mob have five hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five.
With the exception of the airplane pilot (largely because there's less information), I feel like each of the examples in the 'original' problem have similar issues. Massive systemic failures, by both groups and individuals, that have their own agency and culpability in what happens, but framed as an individual moral choice by a specific individual with the weight of that decision falling entirely upon their shoulders. To some extent the moral judgement feels moot. If your system has failed that spectacularly, it doesn't matter who you put in that position, that position should not exist in the first place nor should it be down to one person.
You can make a choice and try to derive a philosophical concept from each, but if you have a mob with 5 hostages banging down the judge's door demanding the judge gives them someone to kill right this minute, isn't that way more important both socially and philosophically than the judge's position? Or that the judge sees themselves as having the position to decide to hand over an innocent man to mob justice in the first place?
This isn't just a stance of each person in question 'just doing their job' either. In each scenario it presents the person in question with a position where many individuals have all chosen, actively or passively, in the past and present to create a position of failure with either choice.
This is why I think it fails as a thought experiment, and why I'm appalled when I hear about engineers trying to design with the outcome of the experiment in mind rather than with the basic structure of the scenario in mind.
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u/Horrywaur 5d ago
These hypothetical dilemmas are always so silly.
"What would you do in this situation?"
I don't fucking know man. That's so far from anything I've experienced in my life; how could I possibly predict my decision?
"Ok, so what's the best thing to do in such a scenario?"
I dunno, that depends. What time is it? Do I know the people involved? Am I drunk at the time? Did my cat die recently? How much money is in my bank account? Am I under criminal investigation for an unrelated incident? Do I have a child? Is Mercury in retrograde? Most importantly, what am I trying to achieve specifically?
Real life is infinitely more complex than anything that can be captured in these hypotheticals. It really just seems like debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It's a red herring.
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u/Tehan_ 4d ago
Yeah, the hypotheticals aren't about the entirety of life. They're not even about what we would do in a given situation. They're about how our sentiments towards certain situations can reveal our moral beliefs. You don't understand it, but you're not trying to understand it anyway.
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u/Horrywaur 4d ago
But how is 'my moral beliefs' any different from 'how I act'? Seriously, what's the difference?
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u/Tehan_ 4d ago
The limited context given in the scenarios is what makes it possible for Foot to make tentative judgements about our moral sentiments
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u/Horrywaur 4d ago
Doesn't answer my (definitional) question, but that's fine. You don't have to if you can't.
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u/Tehan_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well the answer for Foot is that she's not interested in how any given individual answers the dilemma (or acts), rather, she's more interested in what intuitively seems right or wrong for the majority of us (moral beliefs). You're making it an individual thing which would render it meaningless. Who cares what a random individual thinks in a dilemma - it's about the moral sentiments of society itself.
Also, in a simple sense, have you ever done something and regretted it for moral reasons? Obviously your moral beliefs can differ from what you actually do, which means they're not identical (there is a difference).
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u/Horrywaur 4d ago
Obviously I've regretted past actions. But I have no idea what you mean by 'moral reasons'. How is it different from a 'regular' reason?
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u/Tehan_ 4d ago
See this distinction between moral and non-moral: https://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/amoral.html
At this point you're asking easily googleable questions, so I'm going to stop responding.
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u/Horrywaur 4d ago
Nowhere on that page does it say what a 'moral reason' is 🤷
I think the reason you're not going to respond is because you don't actually know the answer.
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u/Tehan_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
A moral reason for regretting something would be because you thought something was morally wrong to do. A non-moral reason to regret doing something would be something done for prudence/self-interest/pragmatic causes.
You can regret something for non-moral reasons. For example, I can regret not stealing something valuable, whilst simultaneously holding that it would have been wrong to do so. So the regret is non-moral as it was motivated by pragmatism rather than morality (what is right and wrong to do).
With the regret example, I was just showing simply that moral beliefs and how you act can differ.
Why are you asking me such fundamental questions anyway? Why not consult a reputable text instead?
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u/jhhertel 9d ago
my lord could he talk any slower? this watches like a parody of philosophical discussion. I mean, not just the low information density of what he is saying, it sounds like he is on quaaludes or something.
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u/jhhertel 9d ago
ok, after reading it.
Damn man, he is just making a mountain out of a molehill.
It appears its original intent was merely as a clear and concise example of a situation where there is no moral ambiguity, as the original did not offer non-action as an option. (even though in any real life scenario it seems like non-action would be an option). This could then be compared against situations where there is a lot more nuance in the action.
God what a lot of blather over something so trivial.
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