Hypothetical Cases In Judith Jarvis Thomson's The Trolley Problem

In Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “The Trolley Problem” two hypothetical cases are presented to the reader. The track in which trolley is running must stop to avoid running five men down whom are repairing the track. Due to failed breaks the trolley couldn’t stop and loses control. A second spur of track appears and unfortunately on this track has one worker on it and there is no time to warn both the five workmen and the single workman on the alternate track. If the trolley continues it will kill the five men on the track. The reader must decide to pull the leaver to change tracks and with the trolley on its course must kill only one person or stay on track and it will kill five people. The second hypothetical case called “The Fat Man” the reader

Utilitarianism or the Greatest Happiness Principle, accounts actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness (The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, Page 752). The morality of an action depends solely on the consequences of the action. According to Mill no amount of physical pleasure can replace mental pleasure. Every act is permissible once it serves as a means for pleasure and denounces pain. An Action’s consequences are measured and valued according to the number of individual’s happiness. All persons’ happiness is accounted for, happiness is communal, and all citizens must be treated impartial, equal without any and “benevolent behavior.” Deciding to do nothing would constitute as an immoral and unlawful act because saving only one life compared to five is not a greater means for pleasure of the majority because failure to act will consequently result in the trolley killing the five workers. In the first case no worker has any rights that is superior to other as a means to survive, all six lives are looked at as equal. In the second case the decision to push the obese man is not permissible because it violates his rights to

A Kantian would know killing a person is wrong but feels it is their moral duty to do what is necessary to benefit others not themselves, the action is only right when done of out good will. Due to the identity of the workmen and obese man being unknown to the reader there is a disconnect, the reader has no personal emotional connection to either victim than if it were a loved one, so making the decision to sacrifice one life to save the five is one may find the decision relatively easy. Nonetheless a Kantian would not pull the leaver and intentionally kill the one person to save the five and would not push the man off the footbridge to stop the trolley. Kant argues that morality is based on practical reasoning is not principle of utility or laws of nature. The will is nothing other than practical reason. If reason determines the will without fail, then the actions of such a being that are recognized as objectively necessary are also subjectively necessary; i.e. the will is ability to choose only that which reason, independently of feeling, recognizes as practically necessary. (The Norton Introduction to Philosophy (Page 763). To push the obese man is viewed this as