Difference Between Trolley And Trolley Problem

Decision-making is a common part of human life. Everyday people make decisions with resulting implications ranging from the mundane to possibly life-altering. The trolley and transplant problems bring up issues surrounding the morality of decisions. Most notably, they bring up questions regarding justified and unjustified killings. The trolley and transplant problems both involve the decision of killing one person to save the lives of five others. In the transplant problem, most people think that it would be permissible to kill one person in order to save five lives. In the transplant problem, however, most people would think it impermissible to kill one in order to save five people. Although the choices in the two cases are the same, some …show more content…
A person in this situation would probably only have at most five minutes to quickly decide what to do with the situation at hand. The person does not have enough time to think of a potential solution that would save everyone. Or maybe the person might not be thinking of a logical, morally acceptable solution at all. The person is probably thinking as a whole -- how does he save the majority? On the other hand, in the transplant case there seems to be more time to weigh various options and solutions. Most notably there is more time to decide on the best course of action, which leads to …show more content…
In the trolley problem, it is reasonable to believe that the person driving is on a set path. He cannot go off the set path and head in another direction. If he did decide to turn and kill one person, the cause of death on the death certificate would be that he was hit by trolley; however, in the transplant case, if the doctor killed one person, the death would be classified as homicide. This begs the question of whether the trolley or trolley driver was actually in control of the deaths in the situation. Most people would probably argue that the trolley hit the person, which ultimately caused the death of a passer. In the transplant case, there would be more guilt assigned to the doctor than to the weapon used. The doctor, if he chose to kill, would have to thoroughly plan to kill the person which makes the doctor more in control than the trolley