The
Trolley Problem
There
is a runaway trolley barrelling 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. Unfortunately, you
notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two
options: (1) Do nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the
main track. (2) Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side
track where it will kill one person. Which is the correct choice?
My
view, aided by the accelerating advancements in genome and
neuroscience, is that there is no free choice available. People's
actions are dictated by genetic inheritance and past and present
environmental circumstances.
Those
conditioned for survival of the species will not pull the lever while
the person concerned only with
personal survival may just walk away from the problem because it
doesn’t affect them. After all they are not tied to the tracks and they don't want to get involved.
See Murder of Kitty Genovese .
Paul Hunter
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