Ethics
Today in Philosophy Club we skimmed the surface of the broad and touchy subject of morality and ethics. The main topic that was being discussed was what one would do if placed in a certain situation. The situation at hand was that there was a train track. The train track came to a fork, in which the train could either go straight or could be switched and go to the side. The problem with this situation, is that ahead of the train is an ominous cliff, anything really, but it means certain doom for the car of people. And tied to the side tracks is a person. The individual is standing at the switching machine for the track and must decide whether to let the car crash, or let the person on the tracks die.
This situation holds an obvious dilemma. Either way, one loses. Using the Modern Utilitarianism point of view, as the purpose of human existance is to minimize suffering/maximize happiness, then because the car of people has more people then letting them die would create more suffering than letting one person die, therefore the person on the tracks must be sacrificed.
This raises an interesting question, however. The suffering of the car of people would be great when dying, but would they feel greater guilt cumulatively over their life in knowing that their car killed someone then that of what could possibly be a short and painless, but inevitable death? Along with this, what even allows someone to judge and weigh the sufferings of one person to another?
Others have raised the idea that because 10 lives are greater than one, then the car should be saved. But this raises another interesting question. What if the person on the tracks were someone extremely important, or someone that was extremely close to the individual making the decision? Would their effect and place in that person’s life constitute sacrificing more lives just to save that one person? And not just this, but what gives the individual the right to make the judgement that one person is more meaningful and useful to the world or society than another? Who is to say that a 24 year old woman with a promising career and fiance is more “worthy of living” or has more “meaning” in their life compared to say a 50 year old bachelor. Who can say that that 50 year old man wasn’t going to in his later years write a revolutionary book that changed the world while the promising young woman ended up getting divorced and losing her job? Not to say that either would happen to them, but what gives a person the right to judge the potential and meaning in the life of someone? Just existing a person effects someone, whether it be their mother, reletives, or just a person on the streets. Even a child that is born and dies from complications has an impact on the parents. Even a fetus in the womb that is aborted has an effect on the parents or people around them. There is no one alive that does not have meaning.
There was more to the debate, but the question that got to me was addressed above, and I suppose my answer would be that no one should, although of course others may think differently.
