Food for Thought (3): to Do or to Not Do

Image credit: Pixabay

Supposedly there is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks, heading straight for five people that had been tied on the tracks.

Then imagine you are near to a lever by the railway tracks. By pulling that lever you can switch the track on to a split. However, there is also a man tied on this split section.

Please choose your action.

This the first thing came to my mind after I have finished watching Eye in the Sky. Its a movie about drone warfare, where general and lieutenants wrestle with ministers and lawyers, about the legality and ethics of the decision they are about to make: Should they agree to blow up the house full of terrorist, killing an innocent child in the process, or to stand down.

How would you choose?

• Pull the lever, it was right to save five life.
• Don’t pull the lever, it was not right to kill someone.

OR WOULD YOU TURN AND WALK AWAY, because you have nothing to do with that switch?

Image Credit: Pixabay

To Do

We all are being educated that we shall hold responsible for our conscious action that bring tangible effects on people around us. To make it clear what should be done and what’s not, we have our constitutions, laws, guidelines and other rules to ensure the member of the community to understands where is the line defining okay and what's not.

This is the easy part of our world, where as long as you understand and able to obey these rules and regulation, you will be fine. Most of the stuff we agreed that we don’t like, such as stealing and killing, we prohibits these actions and penalize anyone that dare to try it out. Then, we have rules about things needed to be done so that the society able to function as we designed it to work in such way, things like paying taxes and jury duties.

Our character are shown in the choices we made when the path is split and and the options are open, especially when we choose to obey those rule that we don’t like and we don’t have a say about them. This feat requires dedications and commitment, to those promises we made when we agrees to become a part of this society.

To Not Do

Staying true to oneself is undeniably a difficult path to follow, especially when turning a blind eye is always the easier choice to make especially when there is nobody paying attention.

Human being the only few beings capable to process problems with logic and rational have the tendencies to itemize each and every scenario we had in our life and try to come up with SOP for the said situation. Yet in this vibrant and dynamic universe, there is always some surprise around the corner awaiting you to be triggered.

Our excessive desires, easily displeased when disappointed and coupled with an irrational sentiments will then slowly erode our dedication to stay true with our original intentions. We then lost our way when we are weaving through those difficult situation. Some of us will then abandon station, turnaround and flee then turn a blind eye on the situation, pretending that everything is just fine, not knowing that such decision will ultimately yield even more displeasure.

What’s the Point?

Most of us are pragmatic utilitarian. We will almost certainly agrees that five life out weights one, not to mention that letting go a bunch of terrorist will almost certainly causing hundreds of death. It’s an obvious choice to make, no matter how difficult, one shall make that decision. It’s always easy to argue that something it’s not right to do, yet these individuals certainly never propose any solution to the problem.

Image Credit: Tyler Lastovich

Remember: Opposing doesn’t make one right, honor to those that make the hard decision.

As always, stay curious.