fandomhigh | Ethics, Friday, September 11, 2020

"Good morning, everyone," Anakin said, sweeping into the classroom. "Today we're going to re-discuss the ethical quandary offered up by our guest speakers from this week's assembly."

Since some of the reactions to it had been...clarifying.

"The Trolley Problem at its most simplified form goes like this: there is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options: Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track or pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person. Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?"

Anakin smiled. "Now our guests were unaware of many of the abilities we on the island have to manipulate the scenario in order to save all the lives involved."

Or smush everything, but...Mae.

"So that meant at the assembly we got to wriggle out of the actual moral question posed by this scenario: by being a witness to what is happening, do you have a moral obligation to intervene, and if so, does that mean pulling the lever to divert the trolley into only killing one person? Does pulling the lever make you morally culpable for that one death, where doing nothing just makes you a horrible witness to an accident?"

He shrugged. "It's an interesting discussion, so let's have it. Without the teddy bear explosions."

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"I think there's definitely an obligation to intervene to the best of your ability," Arabella said slowly, "but I don't think that makes the outcome your fault. Like, with the trolley problem, if you really can only pull the lever so one person dies instead of five, then obviously you're gonna feel bad about someone dying and your actions being involved--" or most people would, "but like Troy said, the fault is with whoever's tying people to the trolley tracks, and we need to find and stop that person."

"Do we personally need to find them or do we need to call some kind of authority who handles, say, crime?" Anakin asked.

"I think that depends on whether you're personally capable of doing something about it or you're just going to end up tied to the trolley tracks by the criminals," Arabella said. "It's important to know this about yourself."

"I agree," Anakin said. "What would your decision be?"

Arabella considered how to answer that question carefully. "I'm a do something kind of girl," she said. "My family has three rules. The most important rule is: you have to be able to look yourself in the eye in the mirror in the morning. I can't do that if I know there's some maniac out there tying people to the trolley tracks and forcing sixteen-year-old girls to decide who lives and who dies. I'd have to try to stop them.

"Also, like, if we're getting into personal characteristics, where I come from that would probably be some kind of weird attack on my House." Probably to try to force her to reveal her magic to stop the trolley, which was something she was going to have to think about and maybe talk out with her family. "So it would be our responsibility to deal with it anyway."

"I like that very first rule," Anakin admitted, smiling. "It's more difficult that it sounds on the surface."

Ethics, Friday, September 11, 2020

Re: Answer the questions!

Re: Answer the questions!

Re: Answer the questions!

Re: Answer the questions!

Re: Answer the questions!

Re: Answer the questions!