Trolley problem

The first Dilemma is The Runaway Trolley. In short, The Runaway Trolley deals with a complex situation where Molly needs to push a stranger onto the tracks to prevent the trolley from killing five workmen. If she does not push the stranger the five workers will die. According to the Utilitarianism, a philosophical school of thought, Molly should push the stranger onto the tracks to save the five workers. Utilitarianism would argue that five lives is greater than one. Therefore, Molly would have…

morals, The Trolley Problem. He lays two main scenarios that both involve an uncontrollable trolley heading towards five men working on the track with the opportunity to save those men by sacrificing the life of an…

I will argue that Utilitarianism will never be seen as the correct moral philosophy and with good reason. Throughout this paper, I will be talking about the Trolley Problem developed by British philosophy Philippa Foot in 1967. This problem, in its simplest form, is deciding whether it is more morally correct to passively kill five people or actively kill one person. For the purposes of my depiction of it, the notion of actively versus passively killing someone will not be relevant for the…

A runaway trolley will kill five people if it stays on its current path. I have the option to pull a lever and divert the trolley to an alternate track. In this case, it will only kill one person. What should I do? This is the trolley problem, a classic thought experiment whose outcome has numerous applications. For example, I may ask whether it is morally permissible to kill one person and harvest his organs to save five other people. Using the teachings of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant,…

The Trolley Problem, the author delves into the concept of what is morally permissible by introducing an interesting problem brought initially to life by Philippa Foot, where the reader is compelled to choose between two options. Imagining being the driver of a trolley, with broken brakes and a steep road, the reader must decide whether to save 5 people on the track or turn the trolley and kill one person on the other side. According to Thomson, it is morally permissible to turn the trolley and…

someone to better yourself because they simply did not give their consent to you, making your actions disrespectful to the others. The trolley problem is a prime example on how Kant implements his rule by allowing one to test their moral intuitions by also using his formula to increase utilitarianism in the most ethical way. For many variations of the trolley problem allows one to see how the rule is applied and how it affects the…

The trolley problem is a very important concept that philosophers explore. The trolley problem describes a situation that involves a trolley approaching five people that have been tied down to a track by some villain. As it happens you are standing right next to the switch that can divert the trolley onto another track. Sadly you do not have enough time to free them and save them. Unfortunately, the second track has one person tied down to it. What should you do? Save the five people and let the…

the fat man in the trolley problem as presented by Thomson in “Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem.” The situation with the fat man is essentially as follows: There is a trolley whose breaks have suddenly stopped working, and is zooming towards five people who do not have enough time to get out of the way. The only way to prevent the trolley from killing the five people is to push a fat man off a bridge — and in the process, kill him — to block the path of the trolley. If…

about dealing with death, how a death comes about, whether die of natural causes, suicide, accident, or murdering, matters a lot. The trolley problem proposed by Judith Jarvis Thomson in 1976 gives me an opportunity to make a distinction between cases with similar situations but opposite results. I agree with Judith Jarvis Thomson’s opinion about the trolley problem which was presented in her later paper published in 1985. Thomson (1985) attempts to show that it is morally permissible to divert…

The trolley problem is a thought problem created by Judith Thomson, asking whether, while on a trolley with broken brakes, to save one man on the track or turn the trolley and save five men on the other track (Thomson 1395). There are various schools of ethics that argue both sides of the issue and its variants, but this paper addresses the arguments of utilitarianism and deontology. Utilitarianism focuses on the idea of utility, or happiness, that is created as a product of our actions. On the…