How Trolley Problems Work

The trolley problem is an ethical dilemma that proposes a difficult decision about choosing whether a group of strangers lives or dies. Learn more about ethics and the nature of sacrifice in this HowStuffWorks podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from how stuff Works dot Com? Hi, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, as staff writer here how
stuff Works dot Com and with me as always is
my trustee editor Chris Pallette and his fantastic goatee Chris. Today,

(00:22):
I want to talk about how the trolley problem works.
Very cool article that I wrote and you edited. So
do you want to give some background on the trolley problem?
What is it? Well, it's every San Franciscan's worst nightmare. Um.
Imagine if you will, that there's an out of control
trolley speeding down the tracks and if nothing stops it,

(00:44):
then it's it's going to go out of control. It's
gonna flip and kill the people on board. Five people, right,
Well that's yeah, five or you know fifteen? Hey, you
know it could be fully loaded? Who yes? Um? But
the problem is these people are gonna die unless you
do something to stop it. But you know it's speeding alley,
what are you gonna do? Um? Until you notice that
the track has a switch in it and that you

(01:06):
could actually switch the the the track with this lever
that you happen to be standing next to. Well, that's great, right,
You're you're gonna switch it to another track. You're gonna
save the lives of people in the trolley because it's
going to give them a chance to slow down and stop.
Except there's somebody on that other track, and if you
pull that switch and save the lives of all the
people on the trolley, then it will kill this other man.

(01:28):
So it's an ethical dilemma. What do you do? It
is an ethical dilemma. And there's the second part. What's
the what's the second part? Well, the second part is this,
there's no switch. There's just one track with an out
of control trolley and several people on it who are
going to die unless you do something. Um next to
you stands a a person. Um you know, probably not

(01:50):
a diminutive person. It would have to be somebody big
enough to stop a trolley. But if you push them
on top, on in front of the trolley onto the tracks,
then you could stop the trolley and you know by
slowing it down. But obviously you know the trolley would
run over this person and kill them. That as a
door nail, that is, so, what do you do? Do

(02:12):
you sacrifice one life for many? That is a an
excellent question and it's one that's been plaguing people since
it was first produced in the sixties. UM. This this
philosophical problem. It shows the distinction between allowing to die,
which is, you know, pulling that lever and sending the

(02:34):
man on the auxiliary track to his death, and actually
actively killing somebody, which is pushing the less than diminutive
man in front of the trolley. UM. What would you do, Chris?
You personally, would you pull the lever? You know, it's
one of those situations, UM, where you never know what
you're really gonna do until you're actually thrust in that situation,

(02:56):
and it's easy to say one way or the other,
you know, based on I've got all the time in
the world to make the decision. If I you know,
sitting right here right now, I would say yes, I
would I would uh sacrifice one person's life for the
people on the trolley. UM. But you know, there's always
the option of standing there horrified and watching it all
happen and then realizing afterward that you know, would you late,

(03:19):
would you push the man in front of the trolley. UM.
That is much much tougher, UM, because then I would
actively be killing somebody, uh to save the lives of
someone else, you know. I I saw another article since this,
uh this has been published that suggested, you know, there
there are many ethical dilemmas like this. It's it's funny
how the study of these kinds of questions has exploded

(03:43):
in in UM colleges and universities. UM. And I saw
this this additional one where what would happen if you
had a trap door and you could drop the person
to his death instead of you know, making pushing actually
pushing him on the tracks. I don't know if I
could actually kill somebody to save the lives of someone

(04:05):
else if I were accent, you know, if it was
an act of saving a group of people and it
was a passive thing, you know, it would be much
easier than if it was active. Your response is actually
pretty much fall in step with the majority of people.
Most people answer that they would pull the lever uh ergo.
They are okay with dispatching someone to their death as
long as they don't have to get their hands dirty.

(04:27):
Most people draw the line at pushing the large man
in front of the trolley. Um, and I can understand that.
But what that talks about, What that that this closes
is the our society's view of utilitarianism. Now, I mean,
doesn't it make sense that under any circumstance you push
one man to his death to save five or fifteen.
You're you, you've saved four more than you've taken. It

(04:51):
just makes sense. But we draw the line at that,
And um, we've actually developed we've we've used that kind
of philosophical view to develop rules in our society. Take,
for example, transplants patients. Um, if you have somebody who
likes to beat up kittens and they have a bunch
of great organs, Uh, why don't we just kill those people,

(05:11):
take their organs and deliver them to five people who
don't beat up kittens. You know, it's these kind of
dilemmas that that were faced with every day. And thank
God for philosophy, is all I have to say. Read
How the trolley problem works on how stuff works dot
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(05:33):
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