Poll of the Day: Morals

Read the topic for a described case. Would you derail the train to save an infant?

  • Yes

    Votes: 15 71.4%

  • No

    Votes: 6 28.6%
  • Total voters
    21
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alyster

alyster

Well-known member
You happen to find yourself in a scenario where a train is coming at full speed and there's no way of stopping it. The train is about to hit an infant who's couple of months old and is laying on the train tracks. 

However if you pull a lever you will send the train on a another route. On these tracks there are 5 convicts tied up: one is a rapist, one is terrorist, one is a murderer, one is a pedophile and so on. Worst kind of folk you can imagine. 

If you detrack the train from hitting the baby you will send the criminals to their grave. 

Someone has to die, will you play God? 

Will you have it in you to send 5 people to their deaths to save one?

Will you have it in you to decide over life and death?

 
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I would let the infant die and let the 5 convicts live. I believe in God the Lord our Father and if the 5 convicts died they would most likely go to hell, but by me letting them live I am giving them the chance to change that. Now if the baby died which I would let it, it would go to heaven for it has not sinned.

If you do not agree with what I say. Prove me wrong!

 
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BlackAsLight said:
I would let the infant die and let the 5 convicts live. I believe in God the Lord our Father and if the 5 convicts died they would most likely go to hell, but by me letting them live I am giving them the chance to change that. Now if the baby died which I would let it, it would go to heaven for it has not sinned.

If you do not agree with what I say. Prove me wrong!
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alyster pulls the lever and sends out Feedback questioner to all 6 participants. 

 
Either way you would be a killer, one could argue that it would be better if the convicts died but who are you to decide what a life is worth? Like BlackAsLight said above you could go with the theistic argument that the convicts will go to hell when they die anyway and if the infant dies it would go to heaven but that argument only works if you are particularly religious but for an atheist that wouldn't work. Both my heart and brain say let the convicts die because they are pieces of human waste but the baby's future is undetermined, it could go on to cure some illness or be the next Stalin. At the end of the day the question shouldn't be would you pull the switch but can you live with being a killer? 

 
If other people can live with having an abortion then I think turning a blind eye to a baby death would be no different. 

If you don't like looking at it a religious way then you should forget about there crimes when deciding who to kill. It should all come down to save 1 life or save 5 lives.

 
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True. What I am saying could be seen from that point of view, but I am not saying just because you aren't religious mean you have no moral value. My own brain would side with you and save the baby, but my heart would let the baby die and save the convicts. To some that might sound messed up. 

 
As not only a theist, but also a theology major/philosophy minor, there is no "correct" moral course of action here. If you save the five over the baby because you're saving 5 people over the one, then you're saying that the one life is ok to sacrifice for the sake of the five, but is that the case? Do the 5 make the 1 any less valuable? If you save the one because the 5 are bad people, but the one has the chance to grow up and cure cancer or something, I'd argue the baby has as much a chance (if not more chance) of growing up to become a criminal as it does to grow up to cure cancer (or make an otherwise grand contribution to society). Philosophically, it is very difficult to make a solid case one way or the other. 

As I imagine myself present in this scenario, I'm trying to think what I'd actually do in the moment. If the opportunity presented itself, I would try to get the baby off the tracks before I tried to switch the track and kill the criminals, even if it meant sacrificing my own life in the process. 

 
Is it better to end a life that hasn't even begun? Or is it better to end lives that have been led astray?

Personally, the choice is obvious. I'd save the infant and see how their life grows. I'll only ever regret my decision if that infant turns out the same as the convicts.

 
I wouldn't do anything at all. If I'm not on the train or had anything to do with it then it's not my place to play God. I wouldn't save the infant, or the convicts. I'd simply let the situation play out on its own. Maybe the infant will walk off the tracks by himself. There is no way of knowing, and a lot of times human intervention takes a ugly turn. Maybe the infant is a spawn of some evil alien warlord. There is no way of knowing.

So I simply wouldn't do anything. I technically wouldn't be killing anyone, since I didn't place the infant there and therefore isn't my responsibility.

 
Infinite Citadel said:
I'd pull the lever and kill the convicts...

Then I'd kill the baby for good measure
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OQeTRMz.jpg


 
I'd save the baby. 

The post says the 5 convicts are the worst people I can imagine, and while I believe in God, Jesus, forgiveness etc, God can and will judge the 5 however he sees fit. I believe society would be better off without those 5, God or no God I still have to live in this world, and hopefully the child would grow up understanding the importance of their life and what they could do with it. 

Then I would go on to become an advocate for better safety measures around train tracks. 

 
dakota K. said:
Either way you would be a killer, one could argue that it would be better if the convicts died but who are you to decide what a life is worth? Like BlackAsLight said above you could go with the theistic argument that the convicts will go to hell when they die anyway and if the infant dies it would go to heaven but that argument only works if you are particularly religious but for an atheist that wouldn't work. Both my heart and brain say let the convicts die because they are pieces of human waste but the baby's future is undetermined, it could go on to cure some illness or be the next Stalin. At the end of the day the question shouldn't be would you pull the switch but can you live with being a killer? 
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Actually no. If you do nothing then you are not a killer, because to kill you need to be active. You'd just be  person that didn't save the baby.

 
alyster said:
Tell that to the mother or father. 
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I'd ask why the baby was on the track in the first place. I'd say the burden of responsibility resides on those who were supposed to take care of the baby and not some passerby. 

Legally speaking the person deciding has a collision of choice as if he pulls the lever he'll kill an if he doesn't he'll look as the baby dies, so his ownly legal option is to run and try to snatch the baby from the tracks. If he fails he has tried at least, but his hands are clean.

 
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I believe that inaction is just as immoral as action. With power comes responsibility, etc. If you see a child walking into a well, and don't do anything to stop that child despite having the power to do so, then you're guilty of that child's death. I mean in this case, you don't actually have the power to move the baby off the tracks or stop the train, but what happens here is still a result of your action or inaction.

In a not-so-hypothetical situation, you might have a 0.1% chance of saving the baby and be freed of all guilt by attempting to do so, but how does that balance against the 100% chance of saving the baby by changing the path of the train? What if you have a 1% chance of dying in the process of rescuing the baby? You risk killing a noble baby savior (even if it is yourself).

It's interesting that this wouldn't a question worth of thought if it's the convicts on the main track and the baby on the alternate track. If you live in a country with capital punishment, you're already on this "murderers must die" default track.

I personally don't see a moral problem with death. Everyone dies eventually.

I wouldn't make the call based on their past actions, but on their future value to the world. Their value to the world is simply what they do with their remaining life. That value could well be negative.

Not all lives or all people have equal value. Statistically those 5 people have proven to be terrible people and all have the potential to make the world worse with their existence.

Maybe some may reform and decide to cure cancer or become train safety engineers. But even if that happens, the others would likely go back to doing horrible things. So you statistically have done a bad thing to the world by letting them live.

Now the baby has a lot of variance in what they could become. They could be a super criminal or cure cancer. In all likelihood, they'll be someone boring, who still brings happiness to their family, so their life has some value.

If the baby turns out to be a supervillain like Uday Hussein, you still have your hands clean because you made the best decision with the information available to you at that time. It's something like the Monty Hall problem where the value of Decision B is X now and changes to Y later as you get more information.

 
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