Analysis Of The Trolley Problem: Kant Vs. Mill

Kant VS Mill: The Trolley Problem The Trolley problem involves a runaway train that you are driving, but the train has breaks that don’t work. You can either chose to drive straight and kill five men working on the track or hit a switch that will divert the trolley onto a side track and only kill one worker, which would you chose? There is also a second scenario to this problem; the train can either go straight and hit the five people or a fat man can be pushed in front of the train, killing himself but saving the five people. In each problem you are forced to choose between saving five people or one person. The majority of people who are asked the first scenario question chose to kill the one person over the five. When asked …show more content…
Utilitarianism is a theory based on the principle that actions are right and moral when they promote happiness, but wrong when they create the opposite. This means that even though one has goodwill he might still be creating sadness. Good will is not enough to be moral, any action based on good will must result in happiness. Typically, when we think of an action caused by good will we think it’s going to cause happiness but that’s not always the case. This makes me think of a parent trying to help their kid study. I know whenever my dad would try to help me with homework it would just confuse me further and cause me to be upset. While my dad was tutoring me believing that it was good will, it didn’t have a good outcome. The utilitarian approach also applies to the Trolley problem. Choosing to let one man die over five because you think it’ll cause a happier outcome is technically moral according to Mill. He also believes that it is not morally right to use people as an end to a means. This relates to the obese man scenario. Mill says that it is not okay to use someone to get an outcome you want, even if it causes happiness. I agree with this because this means that pushing the obese man in front of the Trolley, even though it would save five lives is not morally correct because it’s using someone (obese man) as an end to a means. The ends don’t always justify the means. Mill also believes in free will which has its issues. People can’t be trusted, because if people were given complete freedom to decide how and when to act in attaining greater good, they would all be selfish. People would act on selfish reasons and justify their actions as if they were for the greater good. I think Mill’s moral principle is more liked and easy to follow among most people. This is because people like the freedom to do what they please. Being told what to do is just going to cause