But switching requires an action that will cause the death of another.
Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else.
People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.
> Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else.
Whether or not the action is rational depends on the underlying principles. If the most important thing is to minimize lives lost, then the moral math of causing harm to one for the benefit of many is simple. However, not everyone would agree with this principle. It's not necessarily more emotional.
Inaction vs. action is an important distinction to some.
By rational I mean the traditional "by the numbers" type of people, not if the action (or inaction) is a rational choice. Pulling the lever is the obvious choice for the rational type due to loss of less lives, a strictly numeric calculation with no regards to feelings.
Discussing this problem with my G/F showed me a side which is from what I would call a "non-rational" or emotional person. Their choice not to pull the lever is just as rational to them, but not in the cold, hard, numeric way of the rational person. To them it is rational to not cause harm to others if they would never have been harmed, even if more people will be harmed in the end.
It was a bit of a heated discussion that really made me stop and think about why this is such an important question. There is no right answer and each side is quick to justify exactly why their choice is the "right" choice. And the more you think about it the more you realize why both sides can think the way they do; a perfect philosophical question :)
The comment about sociopaths pulling the lever was due to the test being given in prisons to people that were diagnosed as sociopaths. That was the choice that the majority of them took when given the test.
That makes sense and I mostly agree. But if you look at it from another perspective, pulling the lever is emotional too in a sense, because the puller feels that less deaths is the better outcome. Ethics is fundamentally about what we feel is right (which is influenced by the society a lot).
I originally heard of the Trolly Problem in an episode of the The Brain Series on Charlie Rose where the guest neroscientists presented that viewpoint. I personally don't belive it, but that was the messaage they were presenting.
The series is both fascinating and frightening in way. I reccomend watching it to see the current ideas in brain science presented by the people creataing them.
In addition to the aforementioned Charlie Rose episode, I recently saw Kevin Dutton talk about this in a short Big Think video [1] (or rather, the converse). I have no idea if it's valid.
Rational people look for a lower number of deaths and the less rational (emotional) look to avoid action creating the misery of someone else.
People that pull the switch are thought to have more sociopathic tendencies even though doing the action would result in a lower overall number of deaths.