The trolly problem … do you save twenty, or kill one?

[Anonymous 2]

Isn't this like the embryos in a burning building?

[Aletheia]

There is always an alternative solution to any problem

When you've only a few seconds to make a decision, you won't always come up with an alternative solution.
And, in the case of this scenario, to hesitate or not to decide will result in the 20 people dying.

Unless you are saying that people NEVER face a situation in which they can take an action that will result in fewer people dying (but which will change the group in danger, and when both groups include innocents), you might as well run with the hypothetical situation in the original post, rather than try to pick holes in it.

[Aletheia]

Eh, they're all idiots for standing on the tracks. Does it matter if we lose 20 idiots or one?

Perhaps they are innocent hostages, who have been tied to the tracks by a criminal with a fetish for B-movie westerns?

You can always try to avoid the dilemma by attacking the hypothetical situation, but you could just as easily propose a similar (more complicated) hypothetical situation which doesn't have the flaw you're worried about.

[Aletheia]

Why can't you warn them to get off the tracks?

Here's the paper in which the problem was first described:

Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters
demanding that a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take their own bloody
revenge on a particular section of the community. The real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself
as able to prevent the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him executed. Beside
this example is placed another in which a pilot whose aeroplane is about to crash is deciding whether to
steer from a more to a less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible it may rather be
supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram which he can only steer from one narrow track on to
another; five men are working on one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is
bound to be killed. In the case of the riots the mob has five hostages, so that in both the exchange is
supposed to be one man's life for the lives of five. The question is why we should say, without hesitation,
that the driver should steer for the less occupied track, while most of us would be appalled at the idea that
the innocent man could be framed. It may be suggested that the special feature of the latter case is that it
involves the corruption of justice, and this is, of course, very important indeed. But if we remove that
special feature, supposing that some private individual is to kill an innocent person and pass him off as
the criminal we still find ourselves horrified by the idea.

The doctrine of double effect offers us a way out
of the difficulty, insisting that it is one thing to steer towards someone foreseeing that you will kill him
and another to aim at his death as part of your plan. Moreover there is one very important element of good
in what is here insisted. In real life it would hardly ever be certain that the man on the narrow track would
be killed. Perhaps he might find a foothold on the side of the tunnel and cling on as the vehicle hurtled by.
The driver of the tram does not then leap off and brain him with a crowbar. The judge, however, needs the
death of the innocent man for his (good) purposes. If the victim proves hard to hang he must see to it that
he dies another way. To choose to execute him is to choose that this evil shall come about, and this must
therefore count as a certainty in weighing up the good and evil involved. The distinction between direct
and oblique intention is crucial here, and is of great importance in an uncertain world. Nevertheless this is
no way to defend the doctrine of double effect.
For the question is whether the difference between aiming
at something and obliquely intending it is in itself relevant to moral decisions; not whether it is important
when correlated with a difference of certainty in the balance of good and evil. Moreover we are
particularly interested in the application of the doctrine of the double effect to the question of abortion,
and no one can deny that in medicine there are sometimes certainties so complete that it would be a mere
quibble to speak of the `probable outcome' of this course of action or that. It is not, therefore, with a
merely philosophical interest that we should put aside the uncertainty and scrutinize the examples to test
the doctrine of the double effect. Why can we not argue from the case of the steering driver to that of the
judge?

Another pair of examples poses a similar problem. We are about to give a patient who needs it to save his
life a massive dose of a certain drug in short supply. There arrive, however, five other patients each of
whom could be saved by one-fifth of that dose. We say with regret that we cannot spare our whole supply
of the drug for a single patient, just as we should say that we could not spare the whole resources of a
ward for one dangerously ill individual when ambulances arrive bringing in victims of a multiple crash.
We feel bound to let one man die rather than many if that is our only choice. Why then do we not feel
justified in killing people in the interests of cancer research or to obtain, let us say, spare parts for grafting
on to those who need them? We can suppose, similarly, that several dangerously ill people can be saved
only if we kill a certain individual and make a serum from his dead body. (These examples are not
over-fanciful considering present controversies about prolonging the life of mortally ill patients whose
eyes or kidneys are to be used for others.) Why cannot we argue from the case of the scarce drug to that
of the body needed for medical purposes? Once again the doctrine of the double effect comes up with an
explanation. In one kind of case but not the other we aim at the death of an innocent man.

A further argument suggests that if the doctrine of the double effect is rejected this has the consequences
of putting us hopelessly in the power of bad men. Suppose for example that some tyrant should threaten
to torture five men if we ourselves would not torture one. Would it be our duty to do so, supposing we
believed him, because this would be no different from choosing to rescue five men from his torturers
rather than one? If so, anyone who wants us to do something we think wrong has only to threaten that
otherwise he himself will do something we think worse. A mad murderer, known to keep his promises,
could thus make it our duty to kill some innocent citizen to prevent him from killing two. From this
conclusion we are again rescued by the doctrine of the double effect. If we refuse, we foresee that the
greater number will be killed but we do not intend it: it is he who intends (that is strictly or directly
intends) the death of innocent persons; we do not.

[Aletheia]

Are we messing it up or is it simply an inherently flawed hypothetical with no basis in reality to begin with?

Hypothetical situations are useful precisely because they strip away the ambiguities, helping a discussion focus on a core issue.

They don't have to be real, or even relatable, as long as both sides in the discussion are willing to accept that the core issue involved is one that crops up in some real life situations.

[Aletheia]

Ursula Le Guinn had an interesting story along these lines. In some magical world, everyone was happy and healthy-but at the cost of one lone child who had to live in horrific conditions. The people knew about the child and had gone to see it at least once; I don't think she mentioned the S*x. They can't save the child because then everyone would become ill and unhappy. The story ends with no real resolution except the narrator says some people see the child and leave the community. The narrator doesn't say why but "they seem to know where they're going." Given this Idk what I'd do. Probably panic and freeze up.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

[jas]

Depends on the one but overall, the greater good prevails, or at least, thats how it's supposed to be.

[WellPreserved]

[Pjmm]

Ursula Le Guinn had an interesting story along these lines. In some magical world, everyone was happy and healthy-but at the cost of one lone child who had to live in horrific conditions. The people knew about the child and had gone to see it at least once; I don't think she mentioned the S*x. They can't save the child because then everyone would become ill and unhappy. The story ends with no real resolution except the narrator says some people see the child and leave the community. The narrator doesn't say why but "they seem to know where they're going." Given this Idk what I'd do. Probably panic and freeze up.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

Yes! I found it very thought provoking at the time and still do.

[PoplarGrove]

Ursula Le Guinn had an interesting story along these lines. In some magical world, everyone was happy and healthy-but at the cost of one lone child who had to live in horrific conditions. The people knew about the child and had gone to see it at least once; I don't think she mentioned the S*x. They can't save the child because then everyone would become ill and unhappy. The story ends with no real resolution except the narrator says some people see the child and leave the community. The narrator doesn't say why but "they seem to know where they're going." Given this Idk what I'd do. Probably panic and freeze up.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas

That story shook me as a teenager. There's a Star Trek Strange New worlds episode that's sort of an adaptation of the the story.