[lit-ideas] Re: Trolleyology
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 17:12:17 EDT
My last post today.
Eric Yost quotes from Foot
> A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are five
> people who have been tied to the track by a mad philosopher.
Fortunately, you
> could flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track
to
> safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track.
Should
> you flip the switch or do nothing?
and writes:
"What if the five people tied to the track are the
mad philosopher's five philosophical minions, who,
assuming that you will flip the switch, plan to
repeat this "moral" experiment on other people?"
----- Exactly. The problem, as R. Paul suggests, is also operative in
Austria, where they DO have trolleys -- thus making the 'trolley' paradox not a
deterrent in Popper's Vienna (_pace_ McEvoy).
In "Foot Massage", Phatic provides yet another counterexample. The
arithmetic of it is easy enough -- as McEvoy could testify:
1 person tied to one track ------ vs. 5 persons tied to one track.
This is called an 'utilitarian calculus' of 'rational decision'. What Foot
opened the gate for is for innumerable further scenarios. In each, the
utilitarian calculus should be developed case by case ("Is 5 a greater number
than 1?", and so on). This from an online variant:
"A trolley is careering out of control – it looks like it’s going to plow
into the playground of the School For Gifted Violinists, and if it did you
don’t know what sort of injuries it might cause but there would almost
certainly be many deaths. You can sort of see how you could divert it by
pushing a fat man off a bridge, but this might work or it might not – you
can’t
be sure. The fat guy kind of looks like Goebbels, but he’s wearing a white
coat and a badge marked “Cancer Research Experts’ Convention” pop quiz
hotshot – what do you do?"
Speranza
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