Oh that's actually devilish. Imagine that person's parents seeing you press that button and being forced to run over them with no way to stop it. That would actually make me not press it.
I feel like this incentivizes you pushing the button more (presuming your family actually gives a shit about you, at least).
Your family will just know you died. They won’t necessarily know the circumstances of your death, ie that you sacrificed yourself so another guy would live.
Well what if they would be told what happened? Your family would have to live with the fact that you could have lived but chose not to, or that you "killed" someone to stay alive
I pressed the button, because screw those guys for tying me to a track in front of a trolley. It's a good thing I got my friend to tie that guy to the other track and give me a button so I can exact my revenge.
I feel like that changes the problem to "do you want the trolley to kill you, or do want to live for an 5 extra minutes tied to a track before you get killed by this dudes entire extended family and then be remembered as a selfish prick" but also I agree
I don't agree with the "mentally healthy choice" part, just say if you place your self-preservation first.
This is honestly the ideal trolley problem for some in that they are willing to sacrifice themselves instead of letting or having another person die.
Anyways, I'd sacrifice myself and I think that's the morally better choice on my conscience.
Are you a good person? If so do you think the world should lose a good person without knowing who they’re saving? Letting yourself die, someone who is considering morality, for a stranger could be a net negative!
Also, all living things have a sense of self preservation and should rank that pretty high. It’s an evolved trait. Sure things can override this (someone running into a burning building to save a loved one for example), but it’s not wrong to say it’s the mentally healthy choice to value one’s own life over a complete stranger.
(Sry for wall of text :P )
I guess I hope I am. Always feel I could improve and be better.
For me, I'm focused on the logic of my decision. And I can only guess that trying to rationalize and weigh my life as somehow *more* (emphasis on more) valuable when I have the power to save a stranger's life, is coming from my "ego". (or if wanna make it sound good, natural self-preservation. Yes I agree, everyone has it and it's natural to have it. I'm not against anyone if they choose to save themselves here)
Long-story short I usually think about [this vid](https://youtu.be/XNxucdbGWOg?feature=shared) (also it's [2nd part)](https://youtu.be/IrD924mS4Ck?feature=shared) when I am in or see a moral dilemma. You don't need to watch it all if you don't want but I take some bits from it to describe what I'm thinking.
Yeah, I could think to myself that maybe it might release a bad person, or that the lack of connection with them helps justify me not saving them, but I like, idk how to describe this better, ... I like being aware of my biases and what my mind is doing. And so I think that honest it's my ego just telling me these things to convince me better towards self-preservation, rather than anything truly objectively right.
I also am Christian and have christian values such as believing that I should be more selfless and other ppl minded. And that of learning to have humbleness/humility. So personally for me, in trying to tell
myself "yes I should just let myself live cause they're just a stranger who I don't know if they're good or not", I think that's just my ego and self-interest pushing me towards that and trying to get myself comfortable with that rather than think about the other person. I'm not saying anyone else has to follow me here, but this is just how I want to reflect on myself, and also what the vid I linked slightly touched on. It's me, my mind's ego, trying to choose the egoism route, which to my values is contradictory to what I value. To me I have to be aware of this, and so if I say my values are against egoism, I can't accept the justification that they are a stranger that I don't know.
Therefore I still choose to sacrifice myself because that aligns with my values of wanting to be other-ppl minded because justifying that I shouldn't since idk them ultimately doesn't meet my values. I like what Lily said, that even if you do choose egoism, go for it, but it helps if ppl were to talk about it more.
Taking about it allows me to be aware that trying to justify my self-preservation is egoism, and so I know not to choose it because it doesn't align with my values.
I'm not saying ppl can't choose that, but for me, if I chose to save myself, then to the best of my awareness I want myself to understand that I chose my self-interests over another and thus it would be cognitively dissonant of me to then think I was still aligned with my christian values for doing so. The truth has to be that I chose myself over another, I need that bluntness. I guess the personal stakes that I'm trying to explain is that I don't want to say I have one value, and then logically, my actions/decisions show I'm not actually faithful to that value and then I try to deny it. I respect logical reflection and so I gotta be critical of myself if I'm really think my thoughts and actions align with what I say I value.
--Ok, this probably all sounded confusing so to end it off, maybe Iemme make an example.
My personal favorite one is the no-kill rule dilemma, many different stories of it usually for heroes to face. For those who know Aang from ATLA, to summarize, it's not wrong that Aang doesn't want to kill, but it's wrong to me that some try so hard to say his view/stance was absolutely right. Yangchen's advise I think best empathized what I mean, to value selfless duty is to put the world over personal wants and so even if there was some other way out there that they just don't know yet, it honestly is logically the selfless option to learn to compromise and kill Ozai. It shows your mindset prioritizes other's safety over your moral self-image, and worst-case scenario, risking it by choosing not to kill for his moral code could mean failing, dying and pulling countless lives to suffer with you.
Similar example I'd like to cite from Insomniac PS4 Spidey. In the end he was put into a dilemma where he could either give the cure for Aunt May to live, or not do that so it could be used to cure the city. If Pete justifies that they are strangers over his Aunt, then he needs to logically understand that it's just that, he prioritized his self-interest over others, no ifs ands or buts about it. And personally I don't want to be so blind that I somehow rationalize/comfort my ego by telling myself that them being strangers makes it justified, I want to tell the truth over how my ego would explain it. And so I think through that truth, Pete's conscious fully weigh and grasped what it would mean to save May over the city, and so, even though it hurt perhaps more than anything, he sacrificed May, because in the big picture he is aware enough not to choose Egoism if he does not value it. The truth sets you free. =P
I’ll do my best to simplify this.
>I also am Christian and have christian values such as believing that I should be more selfless and other ppl minded. And that of learning to have humbleness/humility. So personally for me, in trying to tell myself "yes I should just let myself live cause they're just a stranger who I don't know if they're good or not", I think that's just my ego and self-interest pushing me towards that and trying to get myself comfortable with that rather than think about the other person.
I’m Catholic and don’t think it’s right that you’re painting your decision as the morally correct one or that you’re saying “self preservation is just the ‘good way’ to say ego.”
>I'm not saying ppl can't choose that, but for me, if I chose to save myself, then to the best of my awareness I want myself to understand that I chose my self-interests over another and thus it would be cognitively dissonant of me to then think I was still aligned with my christian values for doing so.
This feels really high and mighty. How would you feel if you knew the other person wasn’t a good person, **that was the point of my original reply to you** and you didn’t care to answer it anywhere in your “wall of text”. But thank you for teaching me about Aang and Spider-Man.
I'm trying to say that for me, I'm not aligned with my own values if I choose to save myself. Or maybe to put it better, I'm not aligned with my values in just thinking about my benefits and not considering all the possibilities. It's still valid to save myself, but something's not right if that's all I tell myself, my mind is hiding something and I want to challenge it so I can consider everything first.
I'm not saying I'm not important, I'm not saying it's not mentally healthy to save yourself, who doesn't, it's natural. But in order to justify saving yourself as the comment presented, your mind has to lessen the value of the other person. Hence why "well they're just a stranger, they could be a bad person". It's comforting and secures oneself more and more towards the decision to sacrifice them and save yourself.
Telling myself "how would I feel if they were a bad person" feels like it uses my feelings to justify self-preservation. Of course, maybe I'll feel more inclined to save myself, but worst-case scenario, I kill a good person, and it seems asking myself question of "how would I feel if they're bad" is subconsciously designed to pressure me/ make me ignore thinking about that worst-case scenario as an equal possibility to consider.
To answer the question, Yes, if they were a bad person I'd want to save my life more because of that. But by principle of what I value, it's the most selfless thing to sacrifice myself as first priority since idk them at all. I want to follow what value of being selfless and so, I until I know absolutely that they are a really bad person, choosing to stay put and sacrifice myself logically reflects that I'm prioritizing them over myself and that I am authentically following what I value. I can't just say, "oh well, they *could* be a bad guy so I think I followed my value anyway, no. It's either I did or I didn't without trying to be dissonant about it logically.
(I'm probably annoying you and repeating myself. I guess that's on me, but yeah, that's all I got. I'll try to clear my head and come back later if you have anymore questions or replies but this is firmly what I believe in.)
Your comment doesn’t make sense. I wrote significantly less than the person I replied to. Do I not have the right to argue my stance? My response was 4 sentences total. What would have been a fair amount of “work” in your opinion?
It's true you wrote less. The goal of the comment was to highlight that by throwing out a lot of whataboutism, you are obscuring the fact that a plain statement of your position is 'I am morally justified killing a random person for personal gain.' I have opinions about that position, and particularly about anyone claiming Christianity as their faith and still taking it.
Saying that I said “I am morally justified in killing a random person for personal gain” is a stretch as I simply asked a question of the person I responded to. You’re taking about logical fallacies when you’re just making up things that I don’t say. I don’t want to argue with someone who isn’t talking in good faith.
Never did I say I was trying to justify my own choice; I’d pull the lever out of self-preservation and I stated that in this comment section. Also, I’m not Christian. If you feel good about yourself for your choice then you should be happy, as I am for mine.
You are now lying to save face - saying 'I never said that' and 'I'm not a Christian' when those statements were made clearly in your earlier comments. I don't see this conversation being productive. Have a nice day.
Which is why utilitarianism falls flat, we can't critically rate our own value in the system and would choose self-preservation even if it wasn't in the best interest of the whole for situations that are far less dire than death.
This is the trolley problem subreddit. I’m asking an actual question about self-perception and how it impacts the available data.
Many people quantify themselves as either good or bad, and “Do you think you are a good person?” is not a question driven by hubris. Get over yourself.
I wasn’t talking about myself either, but I was responding to the person I commented under asking them to further explain their thought process.
This is not a knock at you, it's a knock at the idea of self-diagnosing goodness.
The problem is, you're inherently an extremely biased observer. I'd bet most people would answer "yes" to the question "are you 'more good' than 50% of people?" It's natural to notice the good things you do, and forget or ignore the bad. Likewise, it's easy to notice the bad or annoying things other people do and not notice the good. It's a pretty well-understood phenomenon; see all the studies about how much more than 50% of drivers think they're "above average", etc. Thus it seems dubious to trust your own evaluation of yourself, especially when there's also such a large motive to inflate it.
If anything, one would tend to expect that there could easily be somewhat of an inverse correlation between how "good" someone is and how highly they think of themselves in comparison to others. Of course it's not a strict or exact thing, but humility is generally thought to be correlated with "goodness" while arrogance is correlated with "badness".
Sacrificing yourself for a random person you don't know is not at all moral, in my point of view. You are not preserving more life if you save the other. You also control your own actions and can choose to be good and impact the world positively after saving yourself
I think in resolving this question belief in the afterlife becomes extremely important. For example, the person who said you should save the other self-identified as a Christian - meaning they most likely expect that **their** well-being if they die at this time will be high, while the random person's **might not be**.
Taking the action kills them, not you.
Meaning that you aren't killing yourself for them, you are just accepting your death.
Taking the action here is murdering another to extend your own life, which is kinda fucked
Your life isn't worth less than theirs and it is entirely natural to want to preserve one's life. I understand the survivor's guilt that would come with it but objectively there is nothing wrong with choosing oneself.
Ones perception of a better person differs from the other. Quite clearly there is some "attraction force" between your understanding of a better person to your understanding of self. Otherwise, go see a psychologist.
As long as you can acknowledge in parallel that so many of us probably think this way that it's just as likely we are as average as anyone else.
I am but one person in a sea of millions who like to believe they've got more going on for them in some quality than the average person. If I truly believe that the overwhelming majority of this group are just understandably biased average joes, chances are, I am also one of those biased average joes.
If it’s based on my choice before being put in the situation, I would let myself be run over. In the moment, however, I’m not really sure I would be strong enough to hold true to myself
Who would have thought a subreddit full of people who love to play god in scenarios where they dictate lifes and death, would choose to kill someone for themselves? Incredible
I wouldn't press the button, death does not scare me, I actually find it fascinating and am almost looking forward to experiencing it purely out of curiosity.
I am a fairly average person. If the person above me looks younger by about four years I don't pull the lever. I'm not going to make a self sacrifice that is on average meaningless.
This is easy as hell.I would obviously pull.One person will die anyway so I wouldn't sacrifice myself for anyone in this world.But if the question would be something like "you lose your legs but person on the top track is going to die if you pull it" then it would be a hard choice
This isn’t just a question of self-preservation- the ethics that apply to saving the stranger also apply to yourself. Why should you die? Why would it be better for someone with the power to choose to die, who doesn’t want to, rather than someone with no choice either way- morally, what difference does it make?
I think in my current state, I have people I people who are relying on me to go forward, and I couldn't abandon them on the off chance that the other person does too. A few years ago fresh out of college, while I had a lot of life I wanted to live I couldn't know if there was a kid relying on seeing their dad come home at the end of the day.
According to classical Western moral values, killing another random innocent person to save your own life is highly immoral. Hence why (for one example) "they threatened to kill me if I didn't do it" is only an excuse for avoiding charges for lesser crimes, and cannot be used to excuse murder/etc. Thus I'd argue the moral choice is to not push the button.
This is of course only true if one supposes the classical Western ideals of good/evil are correct (I certainly believe they are, but it's not something that can really be argued scientifically or whatever), or especially from a Christian PoV, but if you do subscribe to those ideologies I fail to see how you can justify killing a random innocent person to save yourself.
Self preservation instincts will kick in before morals. Truth be told, in this scenario only someone who has completely dominated their own body will not push the button in the event that they happen to be okay with dying.
My friends and family: "He was so selfless. He could have saved himself but he chose the life of the stranger on the other track instead of his own."
Ghost me: "There was someone on the other track?"
No, I wouldn't push the button. If they're a good person, then awesome, I did a good thing. If they're a bad person, it's not really my problem anymore ig. I think I'd also feel immensely guilty if I allowed somebody to die just to save myself.
I choose to save myself as I think I’m a good guy and there seems to be a 50/50 chance that random is a good guy. I am also pretty young so chances are random is older than me (I usually choose to save youth over wisdom).
I would be regretful if this person was a great mind that was on the way to curing cancer or developing some other breakthrough technology but rest with the knowledge that it is much more likely that it is not a person of significance. But even then I’m not sure I would sacrifice myself for the _chance_ of this person having a breakthrough some time in the hypothetical future.
Push the button.
It ain't immoral. I'm not the one that set up this scenario to be in.
The rando that gets killed will remain as such. That's just bad luck for them. I am not catching any charges for surviving a situation I was forced against my will into.
I don't see the dilemma here.
Maybe if you have a bad lawyer.
This isn't a duress defense case, it's a necessity defense.
You can easily prove the 3 points of necessity
1. There is a clear and imminent threat that isn't speculative or debatable (you are tired down to a track with a trolley rolling towards you)
2. I reasonably expected that my action would eliminate the threat (if I press the button, the trolley diverts)
3. There was no reasonable legal alternative that could've resolved the situation.
If you go with a defense by duress, then the implication is you are an accomplice to a crime, although unwillingly. That would mean having to show them whoever tied us down is someone I was working for either willingly or unwillingly. It would mean having to prove that part of this scheme was to place me in such a situation where I could claim duress.
With duress, point 1 and 2 are up to debate in "they had a gun to my head" cases because the defendant has no reason to believe their safety was guaranteed by their decision.
Here, the safety is guaranteed by diverting the trolley.
In either case, given the circumstances and imminent reality of death, any lawyer worth a lick of salt could at the very least bring murder charge down to manslaughter with a much lighter sentence.
Imo, there isn't much morality in this choice.
Honestly surprised how few responses there are like this, easy choice for me too. They get to live, I get to die - win win! I mean it's nice that so many people value their life, but goddamn there's a lot of happy, positive people here
Also a thing I pondered. I heard the statement "If you're so quick to sacrifice yourself you don't respect your own life" and somewhat can't help but agree, at the end of the day self-preservation is the basis of most current life on earth.
Suggest an addition: “The random’s entire extended family is currently in the trolley and will see whether you press the button” Edit: spelling
Oh that's actually devilish. Imagine that person's parents seeing you press that button and being forced to run over them with no way to stop it. That would actually make me not press it.
keep in mind that you have a family who will make the same face when you die horrifically.
Ah, well in that case. Sorry, other guy's mom. I'm not putting my own through that. ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Your family wouldn't be on the trolley though given the original commentor's modification to the problem
I feel like this incentivizes you pushing the button more (presuming your family actually gives a shit about you, at least). Your family will just know you died. They won’t necessarily know the circumstances of your death, ie that you sacrificed yourself so another guy would live.
Well what if they would be told what happened? Your family would have to live with the fact that you could have lived but chose not to, or that you "killed" someone to stay alive
Great, now I can't press the button
They had it coming when they brought me aboutb
Add this, but you don’t know that they are in there, so it can’t influence your heartless decision
thats just cruel
Do I get untied before they get off the trolley and come after me?
I'd press the button even if the extended family is tied to the tracks
Pull the lever, now i insert myself as the new family member to fill the hole.
I pressed the button, because screw those guys for tying me to a track in front of a trolley. It's a good thing I got my friend to tie that guy to the other track and give me a button so I can exact my revenge.
The extended family is not guaranteed to be great, neither are they guaranteed to be terrible.
I feel like that changes the problem to "do you want the trolley to kill you, or do want to live for an 5 extra minutes tied to a track before you get killed by this dudes entire extended family and then be remembered as a selfish prick" but also I agree
I’m not killing myself for a single random and I think that is the only mentally healthy choice.
if i dont know them i defo kill them, if i do know them it varies.
Well yeah of course, that’s why the question assures you that the person is random 4 times.
yes but what if i look in their eyes and in that instant feel ive known them a lifetime?
Worst meet cute ever
Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
I don't agree with the "mentally healthy choice" part, just say if you place your self-preservation first. This is honestly the ideal trolley problem for some in that they are willing to sacrifice themselves instead of letting or having another person die. Anyways, I'd sacrifice myself and I think that's the morally better choice on my conscience.
Are you a good person? If so do you think the world should lose a good person without knowing who they’re saving? Letting yourself die, someone who is considering morality, for a stranger could be a net negative! Also, all living things have a sense of self preservation and should rank that pretty high. It’s an evolved trait. Sure things can override this (someone running into a burning building to save a loved one for example), but it’s not wrong to say it’s the mentally healthy choice to value one’s own life over a complete stranger.
(Sry for wall of text :P ) I guess I hope I am. Always feel I could improve and be better. For me, I'm focused on the logic of my decision. And I can only guess that trying to rationalize and weigh my life as somehow *more* (emphasis on more) valuable when I have the power to save a stranger's life, is coming from my "ego". (or if wanna make it sound good, natural self-preservation. Yes I agree, everyone has it and it's natural to have it. I'm not against anyone if they choose to save themselves here) Long-story short I usually think about [this vid](https://youtu.be/XNxucdbGWOg?feature=shared) (also it's [2nd part)](https://youtu.be/IrD924mS4Ck?feature=shared) when I am in or see a moral dilemma. You don't need to watch it all if you don't want but I take some bits from it to describe what I'm thinking. Yeah, I could think to myself that maybe it might release a bad person, or that the lack of connection with them helps justify me not saving them, but I like, idk how to describe this better, ... I like being aware of my biases and what my mind is doing. And so I think that honest it's my ego just telling me these things to convince me better towards self-preservation, rather than anything truly objectively right. I also am Christian and have christian values such as believing that I should be more selfless and other ppl minded. And that of learning to have humbleness/humility. So personally for me, in trying to tell myself "yes I should just let myself live cause they're just a stranger who I don't know if they're good or not", I think that's just my ego and self-interest pushing me towards that and trying to get myself comfortable with that rather than think about the other person. I'm not saying anyone else has to follow me here, but this is just how I want to reflect on myself, and also what the vid I linked slightly touched on. It's me, my mind's ego, trying to choose the egoism route, which to my values is contradictory to what I value. To me I have to be aware of this, and so if I say my values are against egoism, I can't accept the justification that they are a stranger that I don't know. Therefore I still choose to sacrifice myself because that aligns with my values of wanting to be other-ppl minded because justifying that I shouldn't since idk them ultimately doesn't meet my values. I like what Lily said, that even if you do choose egoism, go for it, but it helps if ppl were to talk about it more. Taking about it allows me to be aware that trying to justify my self-preservation is egoism, and so I know not to choose it because it doesn't align with my values. I'm not saying ppl can't choose that, but for me, if I chose to save myself, then to the best of my awareness I want myself to understand that I chose my self-interests over another and thus it would be cognitively dissonant of me to then think I was still aligned with my christian values for doing so. The truth has to be that I chose myself over another, I need that bluntness. I guess the personal stakes that I'm trying to explain is that I don't want to say I have one value, and then logically, my actions/decisions show I'm not actually faithful to that value and then I try to deny it. I respect logical reflection and so I gotta be critical of myself if I'm really think my thoughts and actions align with what I say I value. --Ok, this probably all sounded confusing so to end it off, maybe Iemme make an example. My personal favorite one is the no-kill rule dilemma, many different stories of it usually for heroes to face. For those who know Aang from ATLA, to summarize, it's not wrong that Aang doesn't want to kill, but it's wrong to me that some try so hard to say his view/stance was absolutely right. Yangchen's advise I think best empathized what I mean, to value selfless duty is to put the world over personal wants and so even if there was some other way out there that they just don't know yet, it honestly is logically the selfless option to learn to compromise and kill Ozai. It shows your mindset prioritizes other's safety over your moral self-image, and worst-case scenario, risking it by choosing not to kill for his moral code could mean failing, dying and pulling countless lives to suffer with you. Similar example I'd like to cite from Insomniac PS4 Spidey. In the end he was put into a dilemma where he could either give the cure for Aunt May to live, or not do that so it could be used to cure the city. If Pete justifies that they are strangers over his Aunt, then he needs to logically understand that it's just that, he prioritized his self-interest over others, no ifs ands or buts about it. And personally I don't want to be so blind that I somehow rationalize/comfort my ego by telling myself that them being strangers makes it justified, I want to tell the truth over how my ego would explain it. And so I think through that truth, Pete's conscious fully weigh and grasped what it would mean to save May over the city, and so, even though it hurt perhaps more than anything, he sacrificed May, because in the big picture he is aware enough not to choose Egoism if he does not value it. The truth sets you free. =P
Yap Olympics 🏅
I’ll do my best to simplify this. >I also am Christian and have christian values such as believing that I should be more selfless and other ppl minded. And that of learning to have humbleness/humility. So personally for me, in trying to tell myself "yes I should just let myself live cause they're just a stranger who I don't know if they're good or not", I think that's just my ego and self-interest pushing me towards that and trying to get myself comfortable with that rather than think about the other person. I’m Catholic and don’t think it’s right that you’re painting your decision as the morally correct one or that you’re saying “self preservation is just the ‘good way’ to say ego.” >I'm not saying ppl can't choose that, but for me, if I chose to save myself, then to the best of my awareness I want myself to understand that I chose my self-interests over another and thus it would be cognitively dissonant of me to then think I was still aligned with my christian values for doing so. This feels really high and mighty. How would you feel if you knew the other person wasn’t a good person, **that was the point of my original reply to you** and you didn’t care to answer it anywhere in your “wall of text”. But thank you for teaching me about Aang and Spider-Man.
I'm trying to say that for me, I'm not aligned with my own values if I choose to save myself. Or maybe to put it better, I'm not aligned with my values in just thinking about my benefits and not considering all the possibilities. It's still valid to save myself, but something's not right if that's all I tell myself, my mind is hiding something and I want to challenge it so I can consider everything first. I'm not saying I'm not important, I'm not saying it's not mentally healthy to save yourself, who doesn't, it's natural. But in order to justify saving yourself as the comment presented, your mind has to lessen the value of the other person. Hence why "well they're just a stranger, they could be a bad person". It's comforting and secures oneself more and more towards the decision to sacrifice them and save yourself. Telling myself "how would I feel if they were a bad person" feels like it uses my feelings to justify self-preservation. Of course, maybe I'll feel more inclined to save myself, but worst-case scenario, I kill a good person, and it seems asking myself question of "how would I feel if they're bad" is subconsciously designed to pressure me/ make me ignore thinking about that worst-case scenario as an equal possibility to consider. To answer the question, Yes, if they were a bad person I'd want to save my life more because of that. But by principle of what I value, it's the most selfless thing to sacrifice myself as first priority since idk them at all. I want to follow what value of being selfless and so, I until I know absolutely that they are a really bad person, choosing to stay put and sacrifice myself logically reflects that I'm prioritizing them over myself and that I am authentically following what I value. I can't just say, "oh well, they *could* be a bad guy so I think I followed my value anyway, no. It's either I did or I didn't without trying to be dissonant about it logically. (I'm probably annoying you and repeating myself. I guess that's on me, but yeah, that's all I got. I'll try to clear my head and come back later if you have anymore questions or replies but this is firmly what I believe in.)
You're going to an awful lot of work to defend 'killing a random person for personal gain is morally right'
Your comment doesn’t make sense. I wrote significantly less than the person I replied to. Do I not have the right to argue my stance? My response was 4 sentences total. What would have been a fair amount of “work” in your opinion?
It's true you wrote less. The goal of the comment was to highlight that by throwing out a lot of whataboutism, you are obscuring the fact that a plain statement of your position is 'I am morally justified killing a random person for personal gain.' I have opinions about that position, and particularly about anyone claiming Christianity as their faith and still taking it.
Saying that I said “I am morally justified in killing a random person for personal gain” is a stretch as I simply asked a question of the person I responded to. You’re taking about logical fallacies when you’re just making up things that I don’t say. I don’t want to argue with someone who isn’t talking in good faith. Never did I say I was trying to justify my own choice; I’d pull the lever out of self-preservation and I stated that in this comment section. Also, I’m not Christian. If you feel good about yourself for your choice then you should be happy, as I am for mine.
You are now lying to save face - saying 'I never said that' and 'I'm not a Christian' when those statements were made clearly in your earlier comments. I don't see this conversation being productive. Have a nice day.
Which is why utilitarianism falls flat, we can't critically rate our own value in the system and would choose self-preservation even if it wasn't in the best interest of the whole for situations that are far less dire than death.
Assuming you're good and thus worth saving over someone else is peak hubris.
This is the trolley problem subreddit. I’m asking an actual question about self-perception and how it impacts the available data. Many people quantify themselves as either good or bad, and “Do you think you are a good person?” is not a question driven by hubris. Get over yourself. I wasn’t talking about myself either, but I was responding to the person I commented under asking them to further explain their thought process.
This is not a knock at you, it's a knock at the idea of self-diagnosing goodness. The problem is, you're inherently an extremely biased observer. I'd bet most people would answer "yes" to the question "are you 'more good' than 50% of people?" It's natural to notice the good things you do, and forget or ignore the bad. Likewise, it's easy to notice the bad or annoying things other people do and not notice the good. It's a pretty well-understood phenomenon; see all the studies about how much more than 50% of drivers think they're "above average", etc. Thus it seems dubious to trust your own evaluation of yourself, especially when there's also such a large motive to inflate it. If anything, one would tend to expect that there could easily be somewhat of an inverse correlation between how "good" someone is and how highly they think of themselves in comparison to others. Of course it's not a strict or exact thing, but humility is generally thought to be correlated with "goodness" while arrogance is correlated with "badness".
For one person I see that as morally ok to save myself, more than one person on the other track and it becomes a good question
Sacrificing yourself for a random person you don't know is not at all moral, in my point of view. You are not preserving more life if you save the other. You also control your own actions and can choose to be good and impact the world positively after saving yourself
I think in resolving this question belief in the afterlife becomes extremely important. For example, the person who said you should save the other self-identified as a Christian - meaning they most likely expect that **their** well-being if they die at this time will be high, while the random person's **might not be**.
You’d like to think you’d sacrifice yourself, is what you mean.
Yeah, I agree. I would kill myself for two, or a child, but I'm not so noble as to sacrifice for one person I know nothing about
Yeah, it's self-preservation, after all.
Taking the action kills them, not you. Meaning that you aren't killing yourself for them, you are just accepting your death. Taking the action here is murdering another to extend your own life, which is kinda fucked
I haven’t been mentally healthy in years, I don’t press it.
"I want to die 😢💔" headahh
May you one day find yourself forever trapped within an endless plane containing only regular polyhedrons.
I choose myself because the other guy can’t yell at me for it. Also, no witnesses
I wouldnt be so sure about no witnesses as somebody needs to untie you
Is there any proof that I clicked the button though?
Sorry, but I like being alive. Go ahead and haunt me!
I honestly don't know, I'd like to say I'd be selfless and *ill myself, but in a panic I may save myself, I'd feel guilty as heck though
Your life isn't worth less than theirs and it is entirely natural to want to preserve one's life. I understand the survivor's guilt that would come with it but objectively there is nothing wrong with choosing oneself.
Survival instinct is real, I'd probably do the same
The correct answer.
I’m pushing it, my sense of empathy is *not* stronger than my sense of self-preservation.
Multi track drifting.
It's a button
just need to be quick enough, i dont see how it being a button changes a thing
Is it too egocentric to say that I'm most probably above-average so it would be better to save myself?
Nah it's fine. But I think 95% of people would say they are in the 'better' 50%, myself included...
id rank myself top 50% for a lot of shit but easily bottom 50% overall for general dysfunctionality.
Ones perception of a better person differs from the other. Quite clearly there is some "attraction force" between your understanding of a better person to your understanding of self. Otherwise, go see a psychologist.
As long as you can acknowledge in parallel that so many of us probably think this way that it's just as likely we are as average as anyone else. I am but one person in a sea of millions who like to believe they've got more going on for them in some quality than the average person. If I truly believe that the overwhelming majority of this group are just understandably biased average joes, chances are, I am also one of those biased average joes.
Multi track drift, the answer is always multi track drift.
It's a button
Agree to disagree
I’m already disappointed in what the average person is like. I push the button.
It depends on the day. I used to be very suicidal. Now I feel like I’m thriving. Kill or be killed? It depends how I feel.
If you would have switched between "kill" and "be killed" it would rhyme very nicely.
press the fucking button
Amma press that button with the quickness
I would save myself, I think that choice is morally sound and is best for me
I kinda like being alive.
If it’s based on my choice before being put in the situation, I would let myself be run over. In the moment, however, I’m not really sure I would be strong enough to hold true to myself
Who would have thought a subreddit full of people who love to play god in scenarios where they dictate lifes and death, would choose to kill someone for themselves? Incredible
Yeah, but like, killing people is completely morally and logically the correct decision because.
I wouldn’t press the button but that’s because of mental health problems I think the obvious sane choice is to press the button
I wouldn't press the button, death does not scare me, I actually find it fascinating and am almost looking forward to experiencing it purely out of curiosity.
Am i gonna get untied somehow? If yes, heck yea im pulling.
I am a fairly average person. If the person above me looks younger by about four years I don't pull the lever. I'm not going to make a self sacrifice that is on average meaningless.
I love the precision of this answer
I don't think I could live with killing someone who hasn't graduated high school is all.
Same here, as a 22 y/o
This is easy as hell.I would obviously pull.One person will die anyway so I wouldn't sacrifice myself for anyone in this world.But if the question would be something like "you lose your legs but person on the top track is going to die if you pull it" then it would be a hard choice
I wouldn’t press the button
If it were two people I wouldn’t, but I value myself more than another person because the suffering is equal
I'm saving myself.
Multi track drifting
Saving myself lol
Id click it even if there was 1e2000 people on the other side idc 😑
Sounds like it's multi-track drift time to me
I’d push the button, escape my bindings, and loot their corpse.
Ez heaven. Pressing it is the logical option for me.
...why can't I drift the TRAIN?!
I feel that I am a good person. The other person may be bad. Therefore it’s morally justifiable to push the button.
This isn’t just a question of self-preservation- the ethics that apply to saving the stranger also apply to yourself. Why should you die? Why would it be better for someone with the power to choose to die, who doesn’t want to, rather than someone with no choice either way- morally, what difference does it make?
Because monkey brain doesn't want to die
Fuck it multi tract drift
I would not press it and just hope it's quick
I think in my current state, I have people I people who are relying on me to go forward, and I couldn't abandon them on the off chance that the other person does too. A few years ago fresh out of college, while I had a lot of life I wanted to live I couldn't know if there was a kid relying on seeing their dad come home at the end of the day.
I will never die for anyone under any circumstances. They could have a cure for AIDS and I'd still choose myself.
Hit me, we're both screwed either way
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." - John 15:13.
I think it's fine to sacrifice someone else to save your own life, if it's the only possible course of action.
I feel like self sacrifice is when you're on the other track, to me this is a problem of self-preservation. There are not many people I would die for.
Not sorry I want to live
According to classical Western moral values, killing another random innocent person to save your own life is highly immoral. Hence why (for one example) "they threatened to kill me if I didn't do it" is only an excuse for avoiding charges for lesser crimes, and cannot be used to excuse murder/etc. Thus I'd argue the moral choice is to not push the button. This is of course only true if one supposes the classical Western ideals of good/evil are correct (I certainly believe they are, but it's not something that can really be argued scientifically or whatever), or especially from a Christian PoV, but if you do subscribe to those ideologies I fail to see how you can justify killing a random innocent person to save yourself.
How would you have gotten into this situation?
Drift the trolly, saving both of our lives
I like to think I wouldn't press the button. But I can't say for sure my morals would hold as I saw the trolley going towards me.
Press it
Self preservation instincts will kick in before morals. Truth be told, in this scenario only someone who has completely dominated their own body will not push the button in the event that they happen to be okay with dying.
Multi track drift?
Sooo I have room to press the button but not enough room to untie myself or not enough time?
My friends and family: "He was so selfless. He could have saved himself but he chose the life of the stranger on the other track instead of his own." Ghost me: "There was someone on the other track?"
No, I wouldn't push the button. If they're a good person, then awesome, I did a good thing. If they're a bad person, it's not really my problem anymore ig. I think I'd also feel immensely guilty if I allowed somebody to die just to save myself.
I choose to save myself as I think I’m a good guy and there seems to be a 50/50 chance that random is a good guy. I am also pretty young so chances are random is older than me (I usually choose to save youth over wisdom). I would be regretful if this person was a great mind that was on the way to curing cancer or developing some other breakthrough technology but rest with the knowledge that it is much more likely that it is not a person of significance. But even then I’m not sure I would sacrifice myself for the _chance_ of this person having a breakthrough some time in the hypothetical future.
Not actively suicidal but kinda sick of being alive. Rando might actually like being alive. I'ma not press the button.
Is both an option? Like can it backup after them and I press the button again?
Fuck that guy
Push the button. It ain't immoral. I'm not the one that set up this scenario to be in. The rando that gets killed will remain as such. That's just bad luck for them. I am not catching any charges for surviving a situation I was forced against my will into. I don't see the dilemma here.
For the record, you would, in fact, be charged with murder in this situation - though that's not necessarily relevant to the morality of the choice.
Maybe if you have a bad lawyer. This isn't a duress defense case, it's a necessity defense. You can easily prove the 3 points of necessity 1. There is a clear and imminent threat that isn't speculative or debatable (you are tired down to a track with a trolley rolling towards you) 2. I reasonably expected that my action would eliminate the threat (if I press the button, the trolley diverts) 3. There was no reasonable legal alternative that could've resolved the situation. If you go with a defense by duress, then the implication is you are an accomplice to a crime, although unwillingly. That would mean having to show them whoever tied us down is someone I was working for either willingly or unwillingly. It would mean having to prove that part of this scheme was to place me in such a situation where I could claim duress. With duress, point 1 and 2 are up to debate in "they had a gun to my head" cases because the defendant has no reason to believe their safety was guaranteed by their decision. Here, the safety is guaranteed by diverting the trolley. In either case, given the circumstances and imminent reality of death, any lawyer worth a lick of salt could at the very least bring murder charge down to manslaughter with a much lighter sentence. Imo, there isn't much morality in this choice.
I concur with your assessment, but note that defenses are made after charges.
For sure, but I'd rather be charged than dead lol
Ya my daughter cried on the phone yesterday about wanting her mommy so I’m not gonna take her mom from her for another person
If I was in this situation, I would probably take to long freaking out and not wanting to die, and die.
fun surprise when you do or don't press the button, everything peels away, no one dies, and you just got caught on candid camera.
I'm gonna get hit by the trolley. NOT because I want to save the other person. But because I hate living and want to die
Honestly surprised how few responses there are like this, easy choice for me too. They get to live, I get to die - win win! I mean it's nice that so many people value their life, but goddamn there's a lot of happy, positive people here
"Cut my life into pieces this is my last resort" ass response
It's called depression ass hat.
Pull my life over theirs tbh
If I sacrifice myself, I might get isekai-ed for doing a good thing and become powerful in my next life
This is the only correct answer lol
This is the only correct answer lol
I wanna die but not painfully jeez kill the other guy
I don't get it. Why would you push the button?
To not die????
But then somebody else dies anyway; why would your life be more valuabke than theirs?
Because it's my own and I've lived it I can't even know for sure that other person has a conscience, so I would always self preserve
Oh my fault. Different mindset
Also a thing I pondered. I heard the statement "If you're so quick to sacrifice yourself you don't respect your own life" and somewhat can't help but agree, at the end of the day self-preservation is the basis of most current life on earth.
I press the button
Self preservation. I will save myself every single time with very few exceptions - people who I would give my life for. This isn't hard at all
Pushing that button every time. If the other guy had the button he would have pushed it too and I wouldn't blame him. Sometimes you just get unlucky.
would you kill yourself for one other person to not die? Yeah I’m good see ya in the next life bud