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."

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Ready to grapple with tough issues!

Or space out and remember all of those teddy bears exploding.

Is there a moral obligation to intervene when you see something terrible happening, and if you do, does that make the outcome your fault?

If you have questions about the weird bunny Anakin had saved on Wednesday.

Yay.

Troy Barnes

Freya Crescent

Eleanor Shellstrop

Eleanor groaned as she munched on some shrimp flavored pringles. Did she really have to re-hash this whole thing again. And clearly Anakin was being judgey.

Of course he had every right to be judgey.

"Well clearly you're forked if you do something or forked if you don't," Eleanor said with a weary sigh. "Hey do we get to do the trolley thing with real people in that weird Danger Shoppie thing?"

Eleanor wondered if body parts flew about like the teddy bears did.

"We are not running over people," Anakin said flatly.

Adora

This is why no one liked ~~moral philosophy professors~~ ethics teachers, Anakin.

"Fine," Eleanor said rolling her eyes. "But the same thing holds true. We're running over complete strangers so who the fork knows what we're doing wrong. The five idiots in the street could be really cool and the one on the side could be another Dahmer. Or there could be five Dahmers and one Ghandi. We're really forked no matter what. Might as well just run over the one and then be done with it."

Anakin nodded. "You don't have any knowledge about any of these strangers," he agreed. "Does it become a math problem, then? Five is more than one, therefore one dies?"

Troy had already done an awful lot of thinking and decision making earlier in his economics class, which left him feeling like this amount of thinking and decision making should be pretty much illegal, but, brow furrowed, maybe trying to hear a little what other people were saying, he did try.

"Why's it gotta fall on us to have to be the potential bad guys here?" he finally managed, lifting his hand as it to emphasize the conundrum. "We're not the ones putting people on trolley tracks, I think we should really be looking towards the person who is and get them to, you know, not?"

Maeve Wiley

"You definitely have some responsibility if you can stop something from happening but choose not to," Maeve said. "Whether you're cool with that is up to you, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it."

And then she added, "Unless they're assholes who're honestly getting what they deserve."

Honestly, Freya didn't even see how this was a conundrum to begin with.

"Obviously, there's an obligation to do whatever you can to prevent as much damage as possible," she proposed. "If one has the choice to do something and chooses not to, then that person is also choosing the consequences of their inaction just as completely as if they would their actions."

"Well, if you you know something wrong is happening and you're able to do something about it, you should." Who wasn't touching that fault question with a ten-foot-pole? That would be Adora.

Wei Wuxian

"If you are capable of intervening and choose not to, then you're as responsible for what happens as the man who pulls - or doesn't pull - the lever," Wei Wuxian said firmly. He considered his options. "I'd throw myself on the track, if I were close enough. If I couldn't make it in time, I'd raise the victims as fierce corpses and send them to get revenge on those that killed them." He rested his hand on his flute without thinking about it.

Arabella Baylor

"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."

"A good point," Anakin said. "So are you going to ignore the lever in an attempt to find the person tying people to the track? What if that ends up with you also being tied to the track?"

"So if this is some kind of city-enforced punishment for jaywalking, you're okay with it?" Anakin asked.

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Ethics, Friday, September 11, 2020

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