3rd Solution to The Trolley Problem？ ｜ A (Light-Hearted) Critical Compass Clip
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
157.89473
Summary
The Trolley Problem is a famous thought experiment of utilitarian philosophy, where maximizing happiness or minimizing harm should be your ethical guiding principle. In the trolley problem, you have the choice to divert a runaway trolley onto your loved one, or on the other side of the track, five strangers.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
first of all i've got a solution to the i found a solution online i didn't come up with this but
00:00:08.500
i found this and uh there's a third solution so mike how about you describe what the trolley
00:00:13.660
problem is just in simple terms and then what the what the dilemma actually is okay so so the
00:00:20.560
trolley problem is a is a uh a famous uh thought experiment of uh utilitarian philosophy where
00:00:27.700
maximizing happiness or minimizing harm is should be your ethical guiding principle right so in in
00:00:34.620
the trolley problem usually it's presented as uh you have the the choice uh there's a there's a
00:00:40.860
runaway trolley and you're in control of the of the track switcher and on one side of the track it are
00:00:47.600
uh you know in this case five strangers and on the other side of the track is one family member or
00:00:53.920
your wife or your husband or something so by a strictly utilitarian lens the proper ethical
00:01:00.260
action should be to divert the trolley onto your loved one which is obviously much harder to do
00:01:05.760
than five strangers but that's the ethically correct choice so there's that that's the source of the
00:01:12.320
dilemma as i know it have i summed it up well for how you're gonna yeah those are the two choices
00:01:18.800
and there is no other choice you can either you can either go on the bottom track or the top track
00:01:23.860
um okay so i learned that there's actually a technique and this has been known for a couple
00:01:29.120
hundred years in the way that rail switches work you can slip the rail switch so what you do is as
00:01:37.660
the train passes over the switch you let the front two wheels go and then you slip the switch so the
00:01:45.640
bottom the back to the back the back side ends up on the other track the only problem with this
00:01:53.680
you take out all six of them it is supposed to derail or slow down the train but depending on how
00:02:01.280
if it if it can articulate if the the wheels are able to turn you may have a sliding train that might
00:02:07.840
just mow down and like it might mow down everybody so it is a high risk high high reward
00:02:15.520
situation so you might save everybody solution it is a third solution you're the in in that solution
00:02:24.300
you're the only one who is allowed to have any sort of uh moral satisfaction or dissatisfaction
00:02:31.140
because there will be no one else left yeah nobody there to witness because the train
00:02:35.160
train rolls over and it's in flames at this point so so yeah i just heard about that today and