The Trolley Problem By Phillipa Foot

The trolley problem (originally proposed by Phillipa Foot in 1967), is a thought experiment and moral dilemma in which a person is forced between two haunting options. In this scenario you are a person walking when you stumble upon a railroad; on this railroad, there is a trolley on track to hit and kill 5 people however you can flip a lever to turn this trolley onto another track killing only one person. This experiment is all about the difference between killing and letting die. There are many different variations of the trolley problem and a lot of the time they will change a person's answer. This has been argued about intensely ever since it was proposed by everyone from just regular people to incredibly famous philosophers. The trolley

For example, the doctor and heavy backpack variations have been known to really put into perspective the difference between killing and letting die. For example, in the doctor variation you have to kill one person to get organs so that you can give them to 5 people who will die without them. How would this change your answer? In the heavy backpack variation, there is a man with a heavy backpack overlooking the tracks where a trolley is on track to run over 5 people. You could push him to stop the train. He would die but the 5 would live. All of these are essentially the same scenario: you can choose to save one and 5 will die or kill one and save 5. However, these other variations make you feel like killing the one person is the worst option since you have to be the one to kill them with your own hands. This shows that when people are put under what seem to be heavier circumstances their answers can differ from what they were originally. This is important because we can look at people's answers and what makes them change to help us better understand human psychology and moral

What would Immanuel Kant think the answer would be? On the other side of the argument, what did the person who originally proposed the trolley problem, Philippa Foot, think the answer was? Although Kant passed away before the trolley problem was proposed; we can still grasp what Kant would think of this problem using his own form of ethical theory, kantianism. Kant believed that even if an action was good if your motivation was corrupt then the action is immoral. For example, if you found a lost dog and you have wanted a dog your whole life you could just keep the dog but instead, you reunite it with its owner only because there is a reward. You turned the dog in but it was only for your personal gain. As well as the reverse of this Kant believed you should never do something wrong even if it is for a good reason. For example, stealing bread to feed your family you did something wrong even if it was for good reasons. Kant still believes that it was an immoral action. Kant also had certain actions that were considered always immoral such as killing another rational human being. In trolley problem terms kant would not pull the lever because you are doing an immoral thing. If you were to pull the lever even though it is to save 5 people you are still killing that one person. This shows that Kant, no matter how many people are on that track, would not divert the track to kill that one person. This is important