The trolley problem is a thought experiment involving ethical conflict and moral paradox. It was first proposed by Phillipa Foot in 1967 and later analyzed extensively by Judith Jarvis Thompson. The trolley problem poses a decision making challenge wherein one has to decide between two tracks in the way of the trolley, the first track has five men working on it while second has one person working on it. The first track lies in the actual course of the trolley while a lever has to be pulled to change the track of the trolley to the second track with one person. The brakes of the trolley do not work and so the trolley has to go through one of the tracks. The dilemma is whether to do nothing and let the five men die or to pull the lever and kill one person, thus saving the five men on the other track.
The broad consensus among the people, over the years, for the solution of the trolley problem has been to pull the lever which veers the trolley of its track killing one person instead of five. The popular justification for this decision is that it is morally right to kill one person to save five. This view inspired philosophers and scholars to propose other scenarios which questioned the moral righteousness of the decision to pull the lever in the trolley problem. One such scenario is the Fat Man problem which has the same premise as that of the trolley problem. The difference is that in order to save the five men working on the track, a fat man standing beside the track must be pushed in the path of the trolley to stop the trolley. The challenge posed is whether to do nothing and let the five men die or kill the fat man to save the five men.
Curiously, a vast majority of the people have opined that the fat man should not be killed, even though the result of the fat man problem and the trolley problem is the same. This change of heart is likened to the fact that people react differently to foreseeing harm and intending harm. Consequentialism, a philosophical concept has been used to explain the trolley problem. According to Consequentialism, morality is defined by consequences and these consequences are eventually all that matters (D’Olimpio). So, when people are asked to make the decision in the trolley problem and the fat man problem, they consider the consequences of both actions. While the physical result of pulling the lever in trolley problem and pushing the fat man in fat man problem is the same, people’s perception of the consequences of the two actions differ on moral grounds.
Utilitarianism, a form of consequentialism, argues that most ethical action is the one in which the outcomes are evaluated to distinguish right from wrong. It is an ideology that propounds the achievement of greater good while considering any situation. If Utilitarianism is applied to the trolley and fat man problem, the greater good is obviously saving the five men, so the one unassuming person has to be killed in both scenarios. Utilitarianism justifies the killing of fat man and deems it permissible, if not obligatory.
Another philosophy which works in stark contrast to Utilitarianism has been used to analyze the trolley and fat man problem. This philosophy is called as the Doctrine of Double Effect. Introduced by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th
century, the Doctrine of Double Effect explains why people have trouble pushing the fat man on to the track (Clark). The Doctrine of Double effect lays down criteria which have to be fulfilled in order for an action to be considered morally permissible. Firstly, the result of the action should be a positive one. Both the trolley and fat man problem have a positive result which sees the five men saved. Secondly, the result needs to be of higher or at least equivalent importance as the action taken. This criterion is also covered as five lives far outweigh one. Thirdly, an action with evil intent which gives a good outcome is wrong. This means that the lever cannot be pulled and the fat man cannot be pushed if the intent is to kill them and the unintended side effect is the saving of five people. Lastly, the good outcome must be produced as a result of the action taken and not the bad effect. This criterion gives us a clear picture on why pulling the lever is preferred but pushing the fat man is not. In the trolley problem, the lever is pulled to save the five men and the killing of the person on the other track is an indirect outcome, as the intention here is to save the five men. Whereas in the fat man problem, the intention is to kill the fat man as only his killing will save the lives of five men. So, according to the Doctrine of Double Effect, an evil act never justifies the greater good.
German philosopher Kant established another school of thought in which he believed that our sense of morality is driven by reason. He distinguished between morality and the right action. In the fat man problem, though the pushing of fat man is the right action, it is morally wrong, according to Kant. But, modern philosophers have disagreed with Kant and have held that abstaining from pushing the fat man citing personal morality is act of selfishness. They propose a school of thought which uses morality as a guiding tool and not the ultimate decision maker.
Works Cited
D’Olimpio, Laura. The trolley dilemma: would you kill one person to save five.
The Conversation, 2016
Clark, Josh. How the Trolley Problem Works. HowStuffWorks.com,
2018
