The Answer to the Trolley Problem

The trolley problem is one of the most widely cited thought experiments. The trolley problem for those who have never heard of it goes like this: You are in control of a trolley when suddenly the brakes have stopped working. There are two (and only two) possibilities--you do nothing and let nature take its course and you end up killing five people, or you can go down a side-street and actively murder one human being. What do you do? If you do nothing and whatever will be will be then five people will die. Or you can decide to actively murder one person and save the five people. Which do you choose?

When it comes to the trolley problem most people answer that they would murder one person to save the five. After all five is greater than one and it's better one should die than five should. Most would not follow the Biblical commandment of "thou shall not murder," (no matter how religious they claim to be), but instead would murder one to save five. Most people view the world as zero-sum and view man as a sacrificial lamb. Man's interests and what is good for society are naturally antagonistic and when it comes to choosing which side to support, the average person says, "Fuck the individual, I'm on society's side."

Let's forget for an instant that the trolley problem is not a realistic scenario. That no one in the history of the world has ever actually been faced with such a problem is irrelevant. The trolley problem is a thought experiment designed to reveal one's thinking and question one's ethics. Its purpose is not to describe a realistic situation many of us will face.

There are two issues it is worth addressing. One is what should one do? And what should the consequences be if one chooses to murder one person to save five?

If one person lets nature take its course (que será, será) and does nothing, five innocent people will die, but they will not be murdered, since there is no person actively killing them. In such a case if you do nothing, a tragedy of five people dying arises, but a murderer one is not. If one decides to murder the one to save the five, the next question becomes, what should happen to the person who makes such a choice? Should the person just go on his merry way and continue living life, or do the heirs and loved ones of the person you murdered have a right to seek an injunction against you and charge and punish you for murder? If the heirs agree that you did the right thing and therefore decide to not press charges you are a free man, but supposing they decide to charge you for murder, do they have a right to? I say yes. Of course, one gets a trial to make their case, and if you are charged with murder you can beg the court's mercy and say, "Listen I'm not the typical thrill seeking murderer. I was faced with a choice of two difficult and bad options. The choice was to kill one person or five people should die and I chose what I think is the lesser evil. Please let me go." If the court agrees with your plea and grants you clemency then you are free to go, but if they rule otherwise then I say take your punishment since the court has every right to say, "Murder is never justified. I don't care what situation arises. You took the life of an innocent and deserved to be punished for it." After all, if you think it's justified that one person should die to save five, then why not two people should die to save five and you now become the second person? If you think it's justified for one to die to save others then live by example and offer yourself as the sacrifice instead of some other poor schmuck.

Now the second question becomes: Should you murder one person to save five people? While most people say yes, I say no. In fact, saying yes makes you an apologist for some of the worst crimes against humanity. After all, if you think it's justified to kill one person to save five then why not kill one million people to save five million people, or murder ten million people to save one hundred million people, or murder half a billion people to save a billion people, and now congrats you have just given a moral sanction to mass genocide. Now do you understand how the Nazis were so powerful? Most people have the same mindset as the Nazis: Murder millions to potentially save the rest of the human race.

What the trolley problem reveals is a difference between people's thinking. Do you think in the short-term, or do you think about the long-term repercussions of your actions? Your answer to the trolley question reveals what type of thinker you are. Frederic Bastiat, the great French economist, said the difference between the good economist and the bad economist is that the good economist looks at both what is seen and what is not seen, whereas the bad economist only looks at what is immediately visible. Which one are you?

One knows nothing about the five people versus the one person. It is possible that the one person if not exterminated, him or his future progeny he would have had if you did not run over him and murder him would discover the cure for some disease, such as cancer, saving thousands, if not millions, of lives. But now you killed him and such a cure is not available. Of course one can say, what are the odds that the person I choose to run over will discover the cure for a deadly disease, but one can respond, "and what are the odds you are driving a trolley, the brakes stop working, and your only choice is to run over five people or run over one person?" The question is not about odds, but is a thought experiment of what could conceivably be. It is certainly conceivable the person you run over, if having lived, would end up saving thousands, if not millions, of lives. Likewise, you know nothing about the five people you end up saving. It is possible that one of them, or one of their future progeny that they are now able to create since you didn't run over them, will end up becoming a mass shooter or serial killer responsible for destroying dozens of lives. Therefore since you don't know what the future brings, the real question is not, "would you sacrifice one life to save five," but rather, "are you an impulsive person that is so willy nilly over the value of human life that you are willing to exterminate a human life based on only the variables that are right in front of you, instead of taking the variables that you don't know about, but still exist, into account?" In other words, are you a short-sided thinker or do you think long-term?

It is for this reason that the only proper moral answer to the trolley problem is to run over the person who presents you with such a dilemma.