this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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I understand what a trolley problem is.
As a materialist I don’t agree that you can simply reframe the issue this way since the two situations are not equivalent.
When you have the choice to change the trolley track then the outcome is exactly clear and certain. Either 5 will die or 1 will die and there are no broader consequences for society beyond that. Like sure it will change which family grieves etc but society itself isn’t altered.
A world in which a surgeon might randomly kill you to save 5 others is a profoundly different situation since now we live in a world where might randomly be killed.
The flaw with trolley problemists who eschew materialism is that it leads them to believe that a trolley killing 1 or 5 is perfectly equivalent to a surgeon choosing to kill 1 healthy person to save 5. Actually these problems are not equivalent since the reframed example has profound broader implications for society. In problem A it’s a straightforward forced choice and since it’s forced by the material reality of the trolley track design and tying people to it the bystander has a choice without broader social implications whereas in problem B now every human on earth needs to fear sudden murder even in the absence of being tied to a trolley track.
I agree with what you've said but I think this is all out of scope for the thought experiment
Imo it's pretty clear the trolley problem is exclusively focused on morality and only to be viewed in a vacuum without concerning oneself about stuff like broader societal implications. The reframing should thus be considered with the same purpose
But then you’re altering material reality itself to counter my materialism based response which seems to validate rather than invalidate the materialist response.
I'm not countering your response, I agree with you if we're going to tackle it with a materialist approach. I'm re-introducing the problem with a narrower, more strict set of restrictions for consideration. I don't think we're even discussing the original problem anymore, moreso the "proper" way to go about it, if there even is one
Like, to trolley problemists, the morality of the decision hinges upon the moral decision tree of the bystander while the materialist response to these questions really just becomes more or less equivalent to consequentialism.
Yea that makes sense, I just always approach this problem strictly from an ethics pov because that's what the authors intended
Well yeah but I think that’s the materialist criticism of the problem itself.
Like, the question implicitly imposes the view that the morality of a decision is centered on the decision tree we follow to reach that decision rather than upon a consideration of its consequences.
I don’t quite agree that consequentialism is what I mean by this but it’s something pretty close to consequentialism. Holistic material consequentialism maybe?
Like to the trolley problemists it’s usually a question about the moral agency of the bystander: is it right for that person to choose who lives or dies seems to be the contention. And when a materialist counters that “that’s not really what matters in terms of consequences” then the trolley problemist insists upon a vacuum of consequences which really just a denial of materialism itself.
If you have to eliminate certain consequences of a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others, then we simply aren’t talking about a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others.
Yea I'm definitely not simply talking about a surgeon being allowed to murder people to save others. This new viewpoint is supposed to dissuade people from answering "as a materialist". I'm sure most, if not all of us agree that pulling the lever IS the correct thing to do, but arguing from a materialist perspective is completely divorced from reality
How many of us up there would actually think in the moment only about the material consequences of our choices? It completely disregards all the human emotions involved in the decision process. Maybe some people are just built different but this is why I don't like the materialist approach
It's interesting to think about but doesn't actually answer the question
No well I think most of us will think “fuck 5 are about to die, only one guy over there, fuck I need to save these 5 people, time to pull that fucking lever” which is materialist.