Moral Dilemmas In The Runaway Trolley Car By Daniel Sokol

Have you ever been faced with a moral dilemma? More than likely you have at some point in your life. A moral dilemma can be defined as a conflict in which you have to choose between two or more actions and have moral reasons for choosing each action. (Dictionary) These dilemmas challenge one 's morality and on many occasions leave one torn between which action is morally the right one to act upon.
Many people have very different approaches to such dilemmas based on their ethics. Philosophers say that our ethics that we react to, these moral dilemmas are not based on our feelings, religion, law, accepted social practice, or science, but instead by five different ethical standards. (Behrens) Two of which will be mainly focused on and further analyzed. The two are The Virtue Approach and The Utilitarian Approach. These two ethical approaches are both very different to each other with The Virtue Approach focusing on the behavior itself rather than the outcome. While on the other hand, The Utilitarian Approach focuses on the outcome and less of the behavior of the action taken. When used in real situations both can have very different outcomes.
An instance of different results can be made to a higher understanding when examining the moral dilemma provided by the short story, “The Runaway Trolley Car,” by Daniel Sokol. …show more content…
With one ethical standard applying morality to the behavior and the other applying it morality to the outcome, to two ethical standards can be described as complete opposites. So because of this, one can expect opposite results most of the time both of these standards are put into use. The moral dilemma of “The Runaway Trolley Car” being no exception. This dilemma only has two actions that can be taken and two resulting outcomes in regards to them. Both actions fit proper corresponding ethical standards. Opposite standards ended up with opposite