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How Trolley Problems Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from how stuff Works dot Com? Hi, and welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, as staff writer here how
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  Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com and with me as always is
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  Speaker 1: my trustee editor Chris Pallette and his fantastic goatee Chris. Today,
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  Speaker 1: I want to talk about how the trolley problem works.
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  Speaker 1: Very cool article that I wrote and you edited. So
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  Speaker 1: do you want to give some background on the trolley problem?
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  Speaker 1: What is it? Well, it's every San Franciscan's worst nightmare. Um.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine if you will, that there's an out of control
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  Speaker 1: trolley speeding down the tracks and if nothing stops it,
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  Speaker 1: then it's it's going to go out of control. It's
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  Speaker 1: gonna flip and kill the people on board. Five people, right,
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  Speaker 1: Well that's yeah, five or you know fifteen? Hey, you
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  Speaker 1: know it could be fully loaded? Who yes? Um? But
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  Speaker 1: the problem is these people are gonna die unless you
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  Speaker 1: do something to stop it. But you know it's speeding alley,
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  Speaker 1: what are you gonna do? Um? Until you notice that
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  Speaker 1: the track has a switch in it and that you
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  Speaker 1: could actually switch the the the track with this lever
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  Speaker 1: that you happen to be standing next to. Well, that's great, right,
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  Speaker 1: You're you're gonna switch it to another track. You're gonna
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  Speaker 1: save the lives of people in the trolley because it's
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  Speaker 1: going to give them a chance to slow down and stop.
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  Speaker 1: Except there's somebody on that other track, and if you
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  Speaker 1: pull that switch and save the lives of all the
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  Speaker 1: people on the trolley, then it will kill this other man.
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  Speaker 1: So it's an ethical dilemma. What do you do? It
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  Speaker 1: is an ethical dilemma. And there's the second part. What's
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  Speaker 1: the what's the second part? Well, the second part is this,
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  Speaker 1: there's no switch. There's just one track with an out
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  Speaker 1: of control trolley and several people on it who are
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  Speaker 1: going to die unless you do something. Um next to
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  Speaker 1: you stands a a person. Um you know, probably not
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  Speaker 1: a diminutive person. It would have to be somebody big
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  Speaker 1: enough to stop a trolley. But if you push them
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  Speaker 1: on top, on in front of the trolley onto the tracks,
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  Speaker 1: then you could stop the trolley and you know by
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  Speaker 1: slowing it down. But obviously you know the trolley would
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  Speaker 1: run over this person and kill them. That as a
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  Speaker 1: door nail, that is, so, what do you do? Do
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  Speaker 1: you sacrifice one life for many? That is a an
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  Speaker 1: excellent question and it's one that's been plaguing people since
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  Speaker 1: it was first produced in the sixties. UM. This this
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  Speaker 1: philosophical problem. It shows the distinction between allowing to die,
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  Speaker 1: which is, you know, pulling that lever and sending the
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  Speaker 1: man on the auxiliary track to his death, and actually
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  Speaker 1: actively killing somebody, which is pushing the less than diminutive
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  Speaker 1: man in front of the trolley. UM. What would you do, Chris?
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  Speaker 1: You personally, would you pull the lever? You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: one of those situations, UM, where you never know what
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  Speaker 1: you're really gonna do until you're actually thrust in that situation,
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  Speaker 1: and it's easy to say one way or the other,
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  Speaker 1: you know, based on I've got all the time in
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  Speaker 1: the world to make the decision. If I you know,
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  Speaker 1: sitting right here right now, I would say yes, I
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  Speaker 1: would I would uh sacrifice one person's life for the
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  Speaker 1: people on the trolley. UM. But you know, there's always
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  Speaker 1: the option of standing there horrified and watching it all
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  Speaker 1: happen and then realizing afterward that you know, would you late,
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  Speaker 1: would you push the man in front of the trolley. UM.
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  Speaker 1: That is much much tougher, UM, because then I would
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  Speaker 1: actively be killing somebody, uh to save the lives of
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  Speaker 1: someone else, you know. I I saw another article since this,
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  Speaker 1: uh this has been published that suggested, you know, there
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  Speaker 1: there are many ethical dilemmas like this. It's it's funny
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  Speaker 1: how the study of these kinds of questions has exploded
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  Speaker 1: in in UM colleges and universities. UM. And I saw
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  Speaker 1: this this additional one where what would happen if you
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  Speaker 1: had a trap door and you could drop the person
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  Speaker 1: to his death instead of you know, making pushing actually
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  Speaker 1: pushing him on the tracks. I don't know if I
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  Speaker 1: could actually kill somebody to save the lives of someone
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  Speaker 1: else if I were accent, you know, if it was
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  Speaker 1: an act of saving a group of people and it
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  Speaker 1: was a passive thing, you know, it would be much
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  Speaker 1: easier than if it was active. Your response is actually
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  Speaker 1: pretty much fall in step with the majority of people.
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  Speaker 1: Most people answer that they would pull the lever uh ergo.
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  Speaker 1: They are okay with dispatching someone to their death as
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  Speaker 1: long as they don't have to get their hands dirty.
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  Speaker 1: Most people draw the line at pushing the large man
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  Speaker 1: in front of the trolley. Um, and I can understand that.
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  Speaker 1: But what that talks about, What that that this closes
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  Speaker 1: is the our society's view of utilitarianism. Now, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it make sense that under any circumstance you push
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  Speaker 1: one man to his death to save five or fifteen.
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  Speaker 1: You're you, you've saved four more than you've taken. It
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  Speaker 1: just makes sense. But we draw the line at that,
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  Speaker 1: And um, we've actually developed we've we've used that kind
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  Speaker 1: of philosophical view to develop rules in our society. Take,
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  Speaker 1: for example, transplants patients. Um, if you have somebody who
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  Speaker 1: likes to beat up kittens and they have a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of great organs, Uh, why don't we just kill those people,
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  Speaker 1: take their organs and deliver them to five people who
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  Speaker 1: don't beat up kittens. You know, it's these kind of
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  Speaker 1: dilemmas that that were faced with every day. And thank
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  Speaker 1: God for philosophy, is all I have to say. Read
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