Does it matter that you will save many lives if you kill one?
The utilitarian perspective dictates that most appropriate action is the one that achieves the greatest good for the greatest number. Psychological research shows that in the first version of the problem, most people agree with utilitarians, deeming it morally acceptable to flip the switch, killing one to save five.
What is the correct answer to the Trolley Problem?
Foot’s own response to the Trolley Problem was that the morally justified action would be to steer the trolley to kill the one workman, thus saving a net four lives. In order to demonstrate the morality of this, she made a distinction between what she called ‘negative duties’ and ‘positive duties’.
Will you flip the switch and sacrifice the life of one person to save the lives of five persons?
In one survey, about 90\% of respondents said that it’s okay to flip the switch, letting one worker die to save five, and other studies, including a virtual reality simulation of the dilemma, have found similar results. The five lives outweigh one, even if achieving that outcome requires condemning someone to death.
Would you pull the lever leading to one death but saving five?
Therefore, according to Foot — if we don’t pull the lever, we aren’t killing anyone; rather, bad luck and unfortunate events caused five people to be tied down and killed. But if we pull the lever, even though we save five in the process; we are directly killing someone. Hence, we should not pull the lever.
Why did Philippa Foot created the Trolley Problem?
Philippa Foot had said that we had the intuition to turn the trolley in the first trolley case because it was injury/injury, and therefore we should minimize the injury to as few people as possible. Imagine there is a fat man on a bridge and the only way to stop the trolley is to throw the fat man off the bridge.