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[Teneb]

Prof had the entire class write their response on a piece of paper and put it in the box and they'd be tallied up after.  Supposedly most of the class would rather be responsible for 5 deaths than 1.  And I just don't see why.

Because real life isn't a numbers game.

In order to save five people... You have to intentionally kill/murder one other person. It is essentially murder.

On the other hand, to save that one person you are murdering five others. If they are all strangers, it doesn't make too much sense. If the one person is someone you know, things are different.

[Greiger]

Yet if you had the means to save 5 at the cost of 1, and chose not to act you may as well have taken a gun to their head and shot those 5 people yourself.

EDIT:

Five people fell off a bridge and are going to flatten someone below them. They will definitely kill the person they land on, but they will be fine so long as it happens. You, however, can yell out and stop the person from walking and thus saving them from being crushed.

Do you?

In the revised version.  I don't think there would be time to do much of anything meaningful one way or another.  But I'd let the one person keep walking.

[Neonivek]

Prof had the entire class write their response on a piece of paper and put it in the box and they'd be tallied up after.  Supposedly most of the class would rather be responsible for 5 deaths than 1.  And I just don't see why.

Because real life isn't a numbers game.

In order to save five people... You have to intentionally kill/murder one other person. It is essentially murder.

On the other hand, to save that one person you are murdering five others. If they are all strangers, it doesn't make too much sense. If the one person is someone you know, things are different.

You aren't murdering anyone. You are doing nothing. You aren't choosing for them to die, only to not make a choice.

Yet if you had the means to save 5 at the cost of 1, and chose not to act you may as well have taken a gun to their head and shot those 5 people yourself.

Ahh yes! The psycho-killer mentality!

"If a murderer was holding you at gunpoint and told you he was going to kill one of two people... Who do you save?"

"I chose neither"

"Ohh, so you just killed two people"

[TheBiggerFish]

Choosing to not choose is a choice.

[Frumple]

Eh, the argument is agency, grei. Something along those lines. With the five, your act is just inaction -- you didn't do anything save do nothing. With the one, you actively kill them. Lot of folks don't really see the former as leaving you responsible.

Don't much agree, personally. Murder by neglect is still murder, heh. You're going to be responsible for killing someone one way or another, so all else being equal it might as well be the fewer amount.

[Neonivek]

Eh, the argument is agency, grei. Something along those lines. With the five, your act is just inaction -- you didn't do anything save do nothing. With the one, you actively kill them. Lot of folks don't really see the former as leaving you responsible.

Don't much agree, personally. Murder by neglect is still murder, heh. You're going to be responsible for killing someone one way or another, so all else being equal it might as well be the fewer amount.

The scenario is psychotic mentality though. Putting responsibility of inaction in a situation where the person had to actively kill someone in order to make the save.

It isn't murder, it isn't even murder of neglect. (Heck neither would... changing the tracks really be murder... would be unfortunate either way though).

It is only the psychopath mentality that someone imposes that morality on the situation by giving you arbitrary responsibility.

Heck in what way is "switch the track and run to the single person to try and save them in time" or "Try to jump onto the train and hit the brakes" also not appropriate answers? Right Psycopath mentality!

Though the Psychopath Mentality is mostly that someone else who isn't you is doing something... and you are responsible for their actions because they give you a choice that you SOMEHOW inherently know they will keep.

[Greiger]

Yea I suppose I do see some of the point I suppose.  In the class example the professor pretty clearly sided with the people who chose inaction, and kinda failed to explain the reasoning adequately.

I suppose for some people causing deaths through inaction could be seen as 'not as bad' as actively causing a death.   I am not one of those people, but clearly there are other views.

(In the case of the whole choose which to die out of 2 thing I would likely choose one, by some method I do not know.  Like 'kill the one on the right' if I can't see them.  Or kill the older of the two, or kill the one that's name is first when alphabetically sorted or something.  Sorry all the Adams out there.)

[Neonivek]

Yea I suppose I do see some of the point I suppose.  In the class example the professor pretty clearly sided with the people who chose inaction, and kinda failed to explain the reasoning adequately.

I suppose for some people causing deaths through inaction could be seen as 'not as bad' as actively causing a death.   I am not one of those people, but clearly there are other views.

It honestly depends on the scenario. You can seriously change things just by altering details slightly. It is so hilariously variable that it almost makes the whole scenario moot (I consider it more of a mental exercise really).

But yeah, it really is up to the person who make a decision... and I think the actual mistake in the scenario is it implies a sort of responsibility that doesn't exist (Would you send a person who made either of these binary choices to jail?)
---

The only one that pisses me off to this day is the one where someone is going to shoot one of two (or more) people... and you have to choose... because the person who will give this to you ALWAYS puts the morality of the situation on you.

Which is actually what a psychopath might do. They would give you that choice... Why? Because that removes their responsibility. They didn't chose to kill that person... You did.

[Frumple]

Yeah, that's basically it, grei. It's a degrees of separation thing, by and large. For a lot of folks, just the causal distance provided in the scenario (by only controlling where the train goes, rather than having started it moving to begin with) is enough they feel justified their actions lead to more people dying. They didn't "do" anything, ergo they deny responsibility for the deaths. It be interesting if that applied to other stuff, like not paying taxes or putting on breaks or somethin'. It certainly doesn't in regards to dependants, heh.

Though yeah, changing the tracks would be murder, too. Sometimes the ethical solution is only really the least unethical, and you end up killing someone regardless.

[Neonivek]

Sometimes the ethical solution is only really the least unethical, and you end up killing someone regardless.

I am not sure this is covered under Ethics.

Even Utilitarianism talks about how you also have to think about a society should run and not the situation on hand. You can argue that a society based on killing people if it would "save lives" would be a worse society then one that believes that it will never purposely kill someone in order to make people's lives better.

So you could argue either one ethically.

---

Actually that is one of the oddest things about Utilitarianism. Its biggest criticism? Yeah... they have it covered.

I think it is because people understand the jist of utilitarianism but not the nuance.

[Frumple]

... no, it's definitely covered under ethics. It's one of the common scenarios used in introduction to the field.

E: Also something certain professions occasionally have to address in a very non-hypothetical manner. Emergency response, trauma care, military, just for some of the obvious ones.

[Neonivek]

... no, it's definitely covered under ethics. It's one of the common scenarios used in introduction to the field.

Sorry I mistook the difference...

I thought it was like the difference between manners and etiquette...

And Morality and Ethics

Though to admit... they are VERY VERY similar...

Manners is general, and etiquette is specific. Morality is foundation, and ethics is application.

[Frumple]

Ethics and morality are interchangeable terms, mostly. Functionally there's almost never a difference, especially in casual usage. The times there are it's most used to differentiate between secular and non-secular ethics, near as I've noticed. Mostly just a case of english being english, though.

[NJW2000]

There's certainly a distinction somewhere, but its vague as heck, and terms like "normative", "situation" and "descriptive" are way more useful anyway. Just use one. Preferably "ethics" if you're using those terms.
Morality if you're talking about where it comes from (e.g. God, etc)

[Neonivek]

Ethics and morality are interchangeable terms, mostly. Functionally there's almost never a difference, especially in casual usage. The times there are it's most used to differentiate between secular and non-secular ethics, near as I've noticed. Mostly just a case of english being english, though.

Typically Ethics is the application of morality.

Which is easy to see why they would be used interchangibly. Something that is ethical is moral (assuming they are using the same moral base)