There are psychologists, following in the foot steps of Stanley Milgram who set up situations, candid camera style, to see what people actually do. This is very different from asking hypothetical questions.
Taking the trolley problem at face value, we recognise it as the problem of military command. Five regiments are encircled. Staring at the map the general realises that if he commits a sixth regiment to battle at a key point the first five regiments will break-out and survive to fight another day, but the sixth regiment will be trapped and annihilated. Of course the general sends the sixth regiment into battle. The trolley problem is set up to be unproblematic. Sacrifice one to say five? Yes!
So what is it probing? Why do we have difficulty with the pencil and paper exercise when the real life answer is clear cut? We are not in fact generals, chosen for our moral courage and licensed to take tough decisions. We are middle-class wankers playing a social game. If we are answering the trolley problem, rather than asking it, we have been trapped into playing a game of "Heads I win, tails you lose."
The way the game works is that the hypothetical set up is unreasonable, so the...
Your argument could be phrased as:
You should have phrased that as: Even if trolley problems are good at testing moral intuitions in theory, discussing them might make people prone to these errors in real life moral thinking.
Your argument could be phrased as ...
My argument is that putting forward a hypothetical situation with perfect foresight, ignoring secondary effects, ignoring human nature, and constraining decisions to two options leads to bad thinking.
You should have phrased that as: Even if trolley problems are good at testing moral intuitions in theory, discussing them might make people prone to these errors in real life moral thinking.
On the contrary - I don't think trolley problems are good at testing moral intuitions in theory.
I think trolley problems suffer from a different type of oversimplification.
Suppose in your system of ethics the correct action in this sort of situation depends on why the various different people got tied to the various bits of track, or on why 'you' ended up being in the situation where you get to control the direction of the trolley.
In that case, the trolley problem has abstracted away the information you need (and would normally have in the real world) to choose the right action.
(Or if you have a formulation which explicitly mentions the 'mad philosopher' and you take that bit seriously, then the question becomes an odd corner case rather than a simplifying thought experiment.)
The thrust of your argument appears to be that: 1) Trolley problems are idealised 2) Idealisation can be a dark art rhetorical technique in discussion of the real world. 3) Boo trolley problems!
There are a number of issues.
First and foremost, reversed stupidity is not intelligence. Even if you are granted the substance of your criticisms of the activists position, this does not argue per se against trolley problems as dilemmas. The fact that they share features with a "Bad Thing" does not inherently make them bad.
Secondly, the whole point of cons...
I don't think trolley problems are used to argue for policies. Rather, the point of trolley problems is to reveal that the way humans normally do moral reasoning is not shut-up-and-multiply utilitarianism.
Activist says, "We've got to take from this rich fat cat and give it to these poor people, or the poor people will starve and die. If you take the money, the fat cat will buy less cars and yachts, and the poor people will become much more successful and happy."
While activists may try to trot out utilitarian justifications for their politica...
I think you are looking at the Trolley Problem out of context.
The Trolley Problem isn't suppose to represent a real-world situation. Its a simplified thought experiment designed to illustrate the variability of morality in slightly differing scenarios. They don't offer solutions to moral questions, they highlight the problems.
But physicists don't ignore friction when performing experiments, they do so only in teaching. If philosophers used trolley problems only to teach ethics ("Push one fat philosopher onto the tracks, to save two drug addicts.") or to teach metaethics ("An adherent of virtue ethics probably wouldn't push") then I doubt that lionhearted would complain.
But we have psychologists using trolley problems to perform experiments (or, if from Harvard, to publish papers in which they claim to have conducted experiments). That is what I understand lionhearted to be objecting to.
This is actually very similar to an intuition I've had about this problem. The difference is that I compare it to a different scenario, and regard it as a reason, not to reject the trolley problem, but a reason to justify the optimality of not pushing the innocent bystander onto the tracks.
You compared it to wealth-redistribution attempting to optimize total utility, while I think a better comparison is discrimination law, something that matters close to me. (Edit: sorry for awkward phrasing, keeping it there because it was quoted.) In short, just as mil...
I believe trolley problems are fundamentally flawed - at best a waste of time, and at worst lead to really sloppy thinking. Here's four reasons why:
- It assumes perfect information about outcomes.
- It ignores the global secondary effects that local choices create.
- It ignores real human nature - which would be to freeze and be indecisive.
- It usually gives you two choices and no alternatives, and in real life, there's always alternatives.
Note that these properties are characteristic of most thought experiments, not just the trolley problem.
Take (3),...
Related - Philippa Foot, renowned philosopher and unknown anthropologist. Foot died earlier this month. She was the originator of the trolley problem, in 1967.
The point of using perfect information problems is that they should be simpler to handle. If a moral system can't handle the perfect information problems then it certainly can't handle the more complicated problems where there is a lack of perfect information. In this regard, this is similar to looking at Newcomb's Problem. The problem itself will never come up in that form. But if a decision theory can't give a coherent response to Newcomb's then there's a problem.
JoshuaZ:
The point of using perfect information problems is that they should be simpler to handle. If a moral system can't handle the perfect information problems then it certainly can't handle the more complicated problems where there is a lack of perfect information.
Suppose however that system A gets somewhat confused on the simple perfect-information problem, while system B handles it with perfect clarity -- but when realistic complications are introduced, system B ends up being far more confused and inadequate than A, which maintains roughly the same level of confusion. In this situation, analysis based on the simple problem will suggest a wrong conclusion about the overall merits of A and B.
I believe that this is in fact the case with utilitarianism versus virtue ethics. Utilitarianism will give you clear and unambiguous answers in unrealistic simple problems with perfect-information, perfectly predictable consequences, and an intuitively obvious way to sum and compare utilities. Virtue ethics might get somewhat confused and arbitrary in these situations, but it's not much worse for real-world problems -- in which utilitarianism is usually impossible to apply in a coherent and sensible way.
Trolley problems appear not just in philosophy - some psychologists are using them in experiments as well. Here is one recent example.
In this case, at least, I think that many of your objections to the trolley problem don't apply. The researchers really are not interested in the ethics of deciding to sacrifice a fat man, they are interested in how the decision to sacrifice might change when the decision maker is on various drugs. And they already have brain imaging results for the trolley problem - so of course they would want to use the same problem in this experiment.
Isn't The Least Convenient Possible World directly relevant here? I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet.
- It assumes perfect information about outcomes.
- It ignores the global secondary effects that local choices create.
- It ignores real human nature - which would be to freeze and be indecisive.
- It usually gives you two choices and no alternatives, and in real life, there's always alternatives.
I broadly agree with this, but there's another reason trolley problems are flawed. Namely; it is hard to deconvolute one's judgment of impracticality (a la 4) from one's judgment of moral impermissibility. Pushing a fat guy is just such an implausibly stupid way to st...
Yes, trolley problems are simple and reality is complex. We know this. The point of a trolley problem is not to provide a complete model for decision making in general, but to extract single data points about our preferences. imperfect information must be dealt with using probability distributions and expected utility; secondary effects must be included in our expected utility calculations. Indecision is irrelevant, in the same sense that someone facing Omega's problem with a time limit might leave someone with zero boxes. And of course, we do have to spen...
Here's better shorter version of your post:
Also, politics is the mind-killer, don't use examples like that if you can help it.
No vote; post was at +2 and that seems appropriate to me.
Trolley problems have four weaknesses: true.
It's bad that trolley problems have weaknesses: sure, but you didn't propose an alternative way of forcing people to reason about thorny moral problems. Criticizing trolley problems without proposing an alternative is like criticizing liberal democracy without proposing an alternative -- easy, valid, and pointless.
Trolley thinking seeps into politics: highly unlikely; most people-thoughts about politics are had by people who remember nothing from any philos...
I think that trolley problems contain perfect information about outcomes in advance of them happening, ...
True.
... ignore secondary effects, ...
Depends on what you mean. The problem is stated with a simple question: do you push the lever / fat man? You are not instructed to ignore whatever effects it may have. A trolley problem may be stated with some additional remark like "nobody will ever learn about your choice" which can implicitly suggest to ignore some possible real-world effects, but that isn't inherently present in every trolley ...
If you can come up with better hypotheticals, please do present one. The trolley-one is used so often most likely because there are no good alternatives.
Also, you seem to have missed the point of the trolley problem as it has been presented. The main point in thinking about it is that you notice that a), you have ethical intuitions, and b), they can change to polar opposite if the starting position is altered even a bit. That's just healthy experimentation that's supposed to provoke thoughts. I can't see how changing this example would prevent people from justifying their thoughts in politics by misguided simplifications.
An obvious third alternative to the trolley problem: If you yourself are fat enough to save the 5 people in the trolley, then you jump on the tracks yourself, you don't push the other guy.
But if you're not fat enough, then yes, of course you push the fat guy onto the tracks, without hesitation. And you plead guilty to his murder. And you go to jail. One person dying and one person going to jail is preferable to 5 people dying. Or, if you're so afraid of going to jail that you would rather die, then you can also jump onto the tracks after pushing the f...
Well, if the point of trolley problems is to gain some insight as to how we form moral judgments, I don't necessarily do even that particularly well. I suspect they don't even do that particularly well, since I suspect many respondents are going to give what they think is the approved answer, which is possibly different from what they would actually do. At best they provide insight as to why we might think of certain actions as moral or immoral.
But I sometimes see things like trolley problems used argue that there is something wrong with peoples' decision...
Your "ignore secondary effects" claim is weak - trolley-type situations would happen very rarely and there'd be no point in responding.
It's bad but necessary to get to the fundamental moral issue.
I don't think it seeps into politics. Similarity does not imply causation.
Couple of typos:
- It the global secondary effects that local choices create.
Your sentence no verb.
We've got to take this rich fat cat and give it to these poor people
Give the cat to the poor people?
I also think that you've misunderstood the significance of the trolley problem. As it happens, I was already intending to write a new post on the trolley problem when I came across this looking for related articles, so here it is, and I hope it explains why I find this post to be a worrying type of response to the dilemma.
Ceteris paribus, I cannot imagine what number of people stupid enough to be sitting about on a train track (probably violating property rights for a start) it takes before saving them becomes worth the sacrifice of the average bystander.
You make the claim that trolley problems ignore human nature and are thus conducive to sloppy thinking. It is claimed that people who know of trolley problems are more likely to be "anarchists and libertarians" and less likely to accept tyrrany. Ignoring the fact that this is orthogonal to your point, I would endorse the stronger claim that people who know of trolley problems are in general better thinkers.
On the other hand, people who know trolley problems have probably taken a university philosophy class and are thus in a totally different de...
I think that trolley problems contain perfect information about outcomes in advance of them happening, ignore secondary effects, ignore human nature, and give artificially false constraints. Do you agree with that part?
"false constratins" carries a negative connotation. Here you setup your emotional argument later. This site is about rationality and you made a mistake here. Even if it is understandable and common human thinking it is that which is "sloppy thinking". Otherwise this premise is more or less correct.
...Now, I think that's
Tangent - is there any way, like Reddit, to see how many upvotes and downvotes this has gotten? I see it yo-yoing back and forth, people don't seem neutral about this one. I'd be curious to see the exact numbers.
A trolley problem is something that's used increasing often in philosophy to get at people's beliefs and debate on them. Here's an example from Wikipedia:
As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?
I believe trolley problems are fundamentally flawed - at best a waste of time, and at worst lead to really sloppy thinking. Here's four reasons why:
1. It assumes perfect information about outcomes.
2. It ignores the global secondary effects that local choices create.
3. It ignores real human nature - which would be to freeze and be indecisive.
4. It usually gives you two choices and no alternatives, and in real life, there's always alternatives.
First, trolley problems contain perfect information about outcomes - which is rarely the case in real life. In real life, you're making choices based on imperfect information. You don't know what would happen for sure as a result of your actions.
Second, everything creates secondary effects. If putting people involuntarily in harm's way to save others was an acceptable result, suddenly we'd all have to be really careful in any emergency. Imagine living in a world where anyone would be comfortable ending your life to save other people nearby - you'd have to not only be constantly checking your surroundings, but also constantly on guard against do-gooders willing to push you onto the tracks.
Third, it ignores human nature. Human nature is to freeze up when bad things happen unless you're explicitly trained to react. In real life, most people would freeze or panic instead of react. In order to get over that, first responders, soldiers, medics, police, firefighters go through training. That training includes dealing with questionable circumstances and how to evaluate them, so you don't have a society where your trained personnel act randomly in emergencies.
Fourth, it gives you two choices and no alternatives. I firmly reject this - I think there's almost always alternative ways to get there from here if you open your mind to it. Once you start thinking that your only choice is to push the one guy in front of the trolley or to stand there doing nothing, your mind is closed to all other alternatives.
At best, this means trolley problems are just a harmless waste of time. But I think they're not just a harmless waste of time.
I think "trolley problem" type thinking is commonly used in real life to advocate and justify bad policy.
Here's how it goes:
Activist says, "We've got to take from this rich fat cat and give it to these poor people, or the poor people will starve and die. If you take the money, the fat cat will buy less cars and yachts, and the poor people will become much more successful and happy."
You'll see all the flaws I described above in that statement.
First, it assumes perfect information. The activist says that taking more money will lead to less yachts and cars - useless consumption. He doesn't consider that people might first cut their charity budget, or their investment budget, or something else. Higher tax jurisdictions, like Northern Europe, have very low levels of charitable giving. They also have relatively low levels of capital investment.
Second, it ignores secondary effects. The activist assumes he can milk the cow and the cow won't mind. In reality, people start spending their time on minimizing their tax burden instead of doing productive work. It ripples through society.
Third, it ignores human nature. Saying "the fat cat won't miss it" is false - everyone is loss averse.
Fourth, the biggest problem of all, it gives two choices and no alternatives. "Tax the fat cat, or the poor people starve" - is there no other way to encourage charitable giving? Could we give charity visas where anyone giving $500,000 in philanthropy to the poor can get fast-track residency into the USA? Could we give larger tax breaks to people who choose to take care of distant relatives as a dependent? Are there other ways? Once the debate gets constrained to, "We must do this, or starvation is the result" you've got problems.
And I think that these poor quality thoughts on policy are a direct descendant of trolley problems. It's the same line of thinking - perfect information, ignores secondary effects, ignores human nature, and gives two choices while leaving no other alternatives. That's not real life. That's sloppy thinking.
Edit: This is being very poorly received so far... well, it was quickly voted up to +3, and now it's down to -2, which means controversial but generally negative reception.
Do people disagree? I understand trolley problems are an established part of critical thinking on philosophy, however, I think they're flawed and I wanted to highlight those flaws.
The best counterargument I see right now is that the value of a trolley problem is it reduces everything to just the moral decision. That's an interesting point, however, I think you could come up with better hypotheticals that don't suffer from this flaw. Or perhaps the particular politics example isn't popular? You can substitute in similar arguments for prohibition of alcohol, and perhaps I ought to have done that to make it less controversial. In any event, I welcome discussion and disagreement.
Questions for you: I think that trolley problems contain perfect information about outcomes in advance of them happening, ignore secondary effects, ignore human nature, and give artificially false constraints. Do you agree with that part? I think that's pretty much fact. Now, I think that's bad. Agree/disagree there? Okay, finally, I think this kind of thinking seeps over into politics, and it's likewise bad there. Agree/disagree? I know this is a bit of controversial argument since trolley problems are common in philosophy, but I'd encourage you to have a think on what I wrote and agree, disagree, and otherwise discuss.