Youtube Video Analysis: Runaway Traper

This YouTube video presents with a terrifying moral dilemma. Scenario one introduced the trolley problem as if I was a rail yard worker in control of a lever that can switch the track. When suddenly comes, a runaway trolley barreling down the track heading towards five people who are completely unaware of the runaway trolley. If this trolley continues this track all five people would be killed. I have the option of pulling the lever allowing the trolley to switch tracks and save of five people from their impending doom. Of course, I would pull the lever and save all five people. Burkhardt and Nathaniel (2014) states, “Utilitarians hold that the only factors that make actions good or bad are the outcomes, or the end results, that are derived from them (p.40). The action of pulling the

However, if I pull the lever to switch tracks there is one person on the alternate track, this time it is a loved one or family member. This scenario changes things for me. After reading the assigned reading the question that came to my mind was “Who is entitled to these goods or services?” (Burkhardt and Nathaniel, 2014, p. 82). Not knowing the other five people, how would I know if they are deserving or entitled to live. Knowing my loved ones, I would automatically know that my loved one was entitled to live. That they are a contributor to society. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche perspective could be utilized in this scenario. Per Burkhardt and Nathaniel (2014) Nietzche believed, “the choice of distribution was a clear one- to each according to his present or future social contribution” (p. 82). What if the five people on the tracks were gangsters, murderers, or just mean. I don’t think I could mentally live with myself knowing that I murdered a loved one when I had the choice. Or that five gangsters lived, while my upstanding, loving family member, was sacrificed, with my own pull of the