Thought
experiments are used in philosophy and ethics, philosophy, and even science as
a way of clarifying and testing concepts and theories. For example, ethicists
can use thought experiments to present a hypothetical dilemma, and examine the
most “intuitive” response, drawing out implications for ethical issues in the
real-world.
I
thought (no pun intended) it might be fun to blog some well-known thought
experiments, hopefully as part of an occasional series. As well as examining
your own ethical reasoning processes, thought experiments are also useful as a
revision exercise: you use them to test out and evaluate the ethical theories
you are studying in your A level.
A
runaway trolley car is hurtling down a track. In its path are five people who
will definitely be killed unless you, a bystander, flip a switch which will
divert it on to another track, where it will kill one person. Should you flip
the switch?
So have a think – what would you do?
Our second thought experiment develops this scenario a little. It’s
called The Fat
Man and the Trolley Car.
The
runaway trolley car is hurtling down a track where it will kill five people.
You are standing on a bridge above the track and, aware of the imminent
disaster, you decide to jump on the track to block the trolley car. Although
you will die, the five people will be saved.
Just
before your leap, you realise that you are too light to stop the trolley. Next
to you, a fat man is standing on the very edge of the bridge. He would
certainly block the trolley, although he would undoubtedly die from the impact.
A small nudge and he would fall right onto the track below. No one would ever
know. Should you push him?
Again - have a think – what would you do?
Were your answers to the two scenarios different? If so, you’re
not alone. In a survey conducted
by the BBC, roughly 75% of respondents said they would
flip the switch in the first scenario, versus 25% who said they would not.
However, in the second scenario, these proportions were pretty much reversed: 27%
said that they would push the fat man, while 73% said they would not.
Given that the moral dilemma is, at least on one level, exactly
the same (either one person dies or 5 people die), comparing these two thought
experiments raises some interesting questions about how we make moral choices
and how (in)consistent our ethical decision-making processes are.
Questions to consider:
1) Most people understand that the issue in both thought
experiments is the same (1 person dies or 5 people die), so why do you think
that the response to the two scenarios varies so much?
2) Think about two of the ethical theories you’ve studied. If you
apply the principles of these theories, which is the “correct” ethical response
in each scenario? What might that tell you about your ethical theories and how
useful they are in making ethical decisions?
3) When I’ve tried these thought experiments with GCSE and A level
students, I find it’s very common for students to try to justify their decision
by allocating some sort of blame which is not an explicit feature of the
scenario (e.g. “it’s the people’s fault for being on the track”, “it’s the
man’s fault for being fat”, “if the man was on the edge of the bridge, he was
probably suicidal anyway”). What might these justifications tell us about the
way we make ethical decisions?
4) Do the issues raised by the two thought experiments have any
implications for any real-life ethical issues?
I don't know what I would do in such a situation, and I doubt anybody does know what they would do in such a situation, until they find themselves in it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Stephen.
DeleteYou’re right that one problem with thought experiments is that in practice what a person says they would do may bear no relation to the choice they would actually make in the real world. In any case, it would usually be impossible to prove how far a person’s response to a thought experiment corresponds to what they would actually do, since thought experiments often involve situations that would be impossible, unethical, or illegal to recreate in the real world.
If you’d set up something like the Milgram experiment purely as a thought experiment, I’m sure that very few people would respond that they would give a hypothetical volunteer a potentially lethal electrical shock, but in the simulated reality of the Milgram experiment, in practice a high proportion of people did.
On the other hand, perhaps the intention of though experiments like the runaway train isn’t to show what we would actually do, but to highlight some of the ethical issues the choice involves.
Interestingly, there have been some attempts to run thought experiments in a virtual reality environment to make the dilemma involved more “real”.
The most salient feature of the consistency of the trolley car thought experiment results is the implication that the bases of our ethical decisions are species-wide, rather than being inculcated into us. People know what is the right and wrong thing to do in each situation and mainly seem to agree about it, regardless of the seemingly illogical inconsistency between the two experiments. They do this without external guidance because there isn't any. This surely implies that, as a socially evolved species, we don't necessarily depend on such guidance.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment - it's a really interesting point. I do wonder though, how you draw the conclusion that the bases of our ethical decisions are *species* wide. The survey I refer to in the post was conducted by the BBC, so it's reasonable that the respondents were disproportionately British. As such, it would be hard to say whether respondents are influenced by the cultural and ethical baggage they bring with them or, as you suggest, by something more primal.
DeleteI haven't seen any data that compares responses to the problem between different cultures, though I'd be very interested if you know of any. It would certainly be fascinating to know whether people in Japan or members of Brazil's Tupi tribe respond in the same way as people in the UK.