this is a very brief thread about the trolley problempic.twitter.com/hGrS0XiJEQ
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this is a very brief thread about the trolley problempic.twitter.com/hGrS0XiJEQ
it is a very bad thought experiment but the memes are decent
the reason it's a bad thought experiment is because it encourages analysis of ethical problems in isolation, without their context, and with undue certainty in the outcomes of decisions
its a good example problem for illustrating how example problems of this contrived sort are not useful tools for refining our thinking on ethics
I fear that far too many people use it straight-forwardly as an example of utilitarian or consequentialist ethical decision making. I hope I'm wrong and that this group is much smaller than I think it is.
in case it needs to be spelled out, here it goes: WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS FURTHER DOWN THOSE TRACKS. what if there's another 100 people 1 mile down the track with the 1 guy in front of you right here?
secondarily we have no idea who those people are. suppose the 1 guy will invent a cure for AIDS and the 5 guys are members of your personally most reviled outgroup and they're child rapists to boot.
because the problem doesn't withstand and level of scrutiny or fleshing-out it is a bad problem and is some kind of anti-praxis for making reasonable decisions about ethics
and I think most people know this and are only in it for the memes and don't take this one too seriously. I HOPE. this concludes my very brief thread about this silly subject.
the online discussions certainly. trolley problem is still remarkably popular in ethics 101 academic curicula and entire class lectures are wasted on wondering if it makes a difference if you have to choose to pull the lever or just leave it as is
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