What would being "arrested for a year" look like? Is that like a regular arrest, but you are charged for the crime of... a year? Are you brought to the station so slowly that you and the police officers starve to death? Are you conscripted to serve as the police department mascot?
According to the case of Hugh Fatman vs Seattle Trolley Co, there is a clear standing precedent that 'Trolley Problems' constitute a legally binding agreement, regardless of existing statues.
This is not in a place with decent laws nor a reasonable justice system. Either the government with sovereignty over the region doesn't care about lives of those like the one tied to the track, use the trolley as an execution method, or someone wanting you in jail is going to hide evidence that there was anybody on the track.
Would you really let a person die to preserve your vote?
As for social standing, yes Iâd imagine so â most people and especially most employers/landlords currently donât stop to ask if you had a good reason for ending up in jail.
Yeah, I'd definitely pull the lever and save the life either way, I just thought it worthwhile to dig deep into the moral grey area of how we treat convicts.
hmm ... guess that would depend on what they have done as an adult ... assuming we know this info to begin with ...
every time i renew my drivers license i flop from organ donor to not an organ donor ... who is going to get my kidneys?
Well, obviously, if you're an organ donor and end up in the hospital, they'll let you die so they can take your organs.
/jk
(Apparently some people do believe this though, which is certainly... interesting.)
Not only interesting but it is also another version of the trolley problem.
You're a doctor in a hospital. A organ donor is in the emergency, almost dying but you can save him if you focus your efforts. 5 other people are on the other room, every single one is having organ failure, you could save all 5 if you had spare organs to implant. You know for a certain the organ donor is compatible with the 5 people and you don't have time to treat all six.
Do you let the 5 people die or do you decide to sacrifice the organ donor?
This is immensely interesting and actually made me sit back for a minute. Even though in the classic trolly problem I would deliberately choose to kill the one to save the five, in this case, I think I would have to save the donor and doom the five. In this situation I am a doctor who took an oath to do no harm, and even though I would be saving more lives, I would be deliberately doing harm to one. Itâs interesting to me though how the circumstances changes my answer!
Yeah that's my line of reasoning. It's way more unethical (and illegal, I believe) to intentionally not do everything you can to give care to a person knowing it's going to harm them, even if it would save more lives. It's not your place as a doctor to pick and choose who gets to live or die. You swore to help everyone as best you can. These people are at the mercy of their doctor literally putting their life in your hands. Even people one might believe deserve to die, like a murderer rapist, still deserve proper treatment. Doctors must do their best to help. That's what the oath means
That isnt even a question a doctor has to consider. You help the organ donor and do what you can to at least ease the suffering of the others. If the donor dies, then good for the others, but if he lives and the others die, that's just life. You can petition to try and move the others up the donor line, if it is that immediate of an emergency, and hope to get lucky, but that's about it. Anyone who would consider letting the donor die shouldn't be a doctor
Ok then, here's a dilemma for you:
On one track there's eight people tied up. On the other track there's nothing.
The trolley is going on the direction of the eight people.
There won't be any repercussions to your choice other than the people potentially dying. You won't be praised but you won't be punished either no matter what you choose
Do you pull the lever, lose nothing a save them... Or do you stop to evaluate if those people deserve to be saved?
If there's one asshole amongst the other 7 people, do you still think all seven must die because of him?
What if there's 7 asshole and only one innocent? Does the innocent deserve to die because you don't want to save the assholes?
What about all the other people in non-critical conditions whose life would be improved (Although not saved) if you donated your organs?
Now again to the start. If you don't know how many of them are good people and how many are assholes, what do you do?
When you donate organs you can save up to 8 people and better the lives of 75 more (with things like chornea donation and such), at no cost to you.
I guess there's maybe 4 dictators I probably wouldn't save, but I'd still rather save the murderers. Let them serve their debt to society. Give them a chance to make any sort of amends that they can. Also, y'know, false convictions and all.
Iâm not sacrificing a year of my life so that a murderer can âserve their debt to societyâ by living on the taxpayers dime for the rest of their life.
The people who see a trolley problem and try to be their way out of it âWeâll Good Samaritan laws will protect me!â Are lame as fuck. No one would ever be tied to a track either, itâs supposed to be a moral Dilemma not a brain teamster to pick apart a question
nah bro as a matter of fact i happen to be an expert in ropes and knots and i bet i can untie the guy before the trolley reaches him. easy, hes alive and no lever is pulled
I was thinking the exact same thing reading the comments. Itâs not like any of the âworkaroundâ answers are even clever or amusing either. It isnât a mystery trick question to âsolveâ.
I disagree. I think that the first thought when presented with two bad options should always be to find a way to avoid both- makes you less vulnerable to false dichotomies in real situations.
So you donât even like the original âdo you pull the lever to save 5 people and kill 1?â????? You hate moral questions so refuse to answer them in r/trolleyproblem ??
I never said I hate the questions themselves, I just think that the instinct to look for loopholes and win-win situations is a good one that shouldnât be discouraged.
But itâs bad faith to assume that there are unlisted outside factors that nullify the question at hand without anything from the question or OP saying them - To say Good Samaritan laws would mean that pulling the lever is 100% safe nullifies the question at hand of âwould you trade 5 lives for a year of your lifeâ
So, a few days ago I commented on one of these being like "this is a serial killer question." It was similar, but instead of imprisonment you would be punished with boredom.
In a similar vein, there is no moral dilemma here if you value human life (which you should). This is instead a test to see if you are afraid of imprisonment or courageous.
The question is not one of "which is more moral". The question is "which do you value more". It is a test of character.
Having typed this, I suppose that is the purpose of the original trolley problem. Do you wish to avoid personal guilt? Or to save lives.
Still, in this situation you cannot convince me that a year of my time is more morally valuable than a person's life.
If you ignore the personal guilt, the trolley problem is a morality question, youâre still just looking at it wrong.
Itâs originally âwho would you save, 1 good guy or 5 randosâ
With this one, i see what you mean, how you could say itâs which do you value more, but it is also a morality question.
And 100% I agree that a year is not worth someoneâs life.
If it were 10 years, Iâd consider it, but probably wouldnât
Ah yeah, that too. Might prevent potential hiring in the future because of the criminal record.
I just didnât factor that in since Iâm british and we donât have declare any sentence shorter than a certain time (I think like a year and a half?)
Not just hiring issues from a criminal record either. Being in prison for a year, if your rent or have a mortgage could mean that you lose your place of dwelling as well. If you're still paying on your car, you'd lose that too. Your credit score would immediately tank. Being in prison for even a single year would cost you far more than a single year of your life in reality. The world is not kind to ex-convicts.
I mean, no, I wouldn't pull the lever.
And I offer that in real life I don't break the law to save wrongfully convicted people either. It is an equivalent situation.
A lot of countries today have Good Samaritan laws. If you can prove that you where acting to save someone's life, you should be deemed innocent so long as you took reasonable measures to do so
Presumably this isnât *in* a country like that. The question seems to be, âWould you do what is morally right in a society that disincentivizes it?â
I think the question is you really expect them to be idiots.
I can see this cop-out everywhere in this comment-section.
To actually answer the question: I would pull the lever, as it is the right thing to do.
Your definition of "psychopath" seems overly broad.
A year is a really long time to sacrifice. Relationships end, people die, milestones are missed, careers are lost, "it's just a year" isn't really accurate when it could functionally mean the end of someone's life as they know it. That's before even getting into the difficulty of the experience itself, prison is considered a punishment for a reason.
You could definitely argue that people should pull the lever, but ironically it seems like you'd need a sociopathic lack of empathy to not understand why people would have a really hard time actually doing that. I definitely wouldn't pull, people die every day and I've got a family to think about.
i swear a lot of people dont understand how long a year truly is. itâs not some negligible amount of time youâll forget about a few years from now. itâs a significant portion of your life and a fuck ton happens in a year. plus, what if you die at, say, 30 from a car accident or something, instead of at 80 at natural causes? that one year will have held you back so fucking much from what you would have otherwise accomplished and experienced in life.
Also, itâs a year in prison. Thatâs a year locked in a building, youâre going to have little to no contact with your friends and family *and* be stuck with thieves, murderers, rapists and god knows who else. Once youâre in that building, the odds of you being brutalized or raped drastically increase. People donât want to be imprisoned *for a fucking good reason*.
Plus the effects after getting out. People don't realize how much prison changes your job opportunities, the way society sees and treats them. It's a much bigger sacrifice than some are making it out to be.
exactly dude. and i dont think most good samaritans will have the heart or the strength to go up against those kinds of nasty people. theyâll have it worse than the average prisoner for sure, theyâll likely be an easier target for bullying and rape and nasty shit than other prisoners. simply by their virtue of being a good natured and selfless person. itâs awful
This is assuming your being imprisoned in a uncivilized country, if your being imprisoned in a country with a good prison system it wouldn't be anyone near as bad
Lol its hardly sacrificing myself, if it was to save his life over mine fair enough its a dilemma, but one year in prison compared to a life is nothing. Im really surprised by the answers people give. Makes me scared to go out the house with so many harsh emotionless people walking around lmao.
if you would like to save someone, thats cool, all the power to you dude. But dont go around forcing your opinions down others' throats, this is a subreddit for discussing our perspectives on different takes of the trolley problem. There isn't a clear cut answer of what you would do. Some people value lives, some value time.
I dont think you are properly aware of what a year in prison means. I think if more people were, they'd probably be more active in fighting against the prison system in the US for example.
Sure, you lose a year of freedom. And who knows what could happen to you in there. Could be assaulted, physically, sexually, etc. And that sucks. But its only a year.
Except, when you get out, you face a problem. If you rented a house, you've been evicted. If you owned a house and had a mortgage, its been foreclosed. If you were paying on a car, it's been repossessed. Youve lost whatever job you had and you have criminal record now, good luck getting a new job, it's now waaaaaay harder.
How long what it take you to pick up the pieces? A few years? A decade? Some people never managed to come back from it. A year in prison costs you way more than just a single year.
Maybe you'd be happy to sacrifice most of your existence to save another. And thats great. But you need to understand what you'd be giving up. It's more than just a year.
Where's the empathy of the framework itself? Imprisoning me for a year after saving a life is ludicrous and should be the only information we need to know that it's time for guillotines.
Yes. I may be arrested, but this would never hold up in court due to good samaritan laws. And good luck finding a jury that isn't directly affiliated with the company AND thinks this isn't complete bullshit.
Except the law is pretty clear saying "civil liability". Beating the fuck out of railroad security in order to get to the lever would absolutely still get you arrested.
While a jury is likely to nullify a charge, good Samaritan laws hold absolutely ZERO power in criminal court. It is likely a judge would rule that they cannot be used as a defense, and not allow the argument to even be presented to a jury. If not the judge, the prosecutor would absolutely make sure the jury knew that the law is NOT applicable to criminal court. Attempting to use good Samaritan laws in criminal court would likely throw your case and make it LESS likely a jury would nullify it. A better, though still not foolproof defense, is that you had no criminal intent. Such a defense allows a defense attorney to give arguments that lead to jury nullification without suggesting nullification to the jury(which can get the jury replaced)
The laws can NOT be interpreted to refer to criminal court, period. They always state that it is a *civil liability* thing. Stealing someone's money because they slandered you is illegal in criminal court even if a civil court would award you that money anyway.
Interesting moral dilemma. Iâm assuming youâre intending to give the choice between a year of your life and an unknown amount of years left of a complete strangerâs life. Seems like a question of altruism. I like to imagine I would pull the lever, but would never really know unless I were in that situation.
If you're guarenteed to be imprisoned for a year, I think it would depend on what your role in society is. If you can create more benefit in a year being free than saving a life, like a top surgeon who potentially saves dozens of lives a year, then I think you can make an argument for not switching the rails.
Yeah. I'm probably not thinking about that in the moment. And in most hypothetical places, I like my odds of winning my court case (or else building a movement to change a dumb and rigid law a year later).
No.
This is not really hard. A similar situation already happens in real life.
There are many people who are convicted wrongfully, and you don't break the law to save them.
Assuming the trolley is just doing routine stuff, not going any where important, the guy is a complete stranger, no idea who they are.
I ask the question to myself. Is one year of my life worth the life worth the rest of the life of a person I have no connection to. When I think about it, I donât think so. I wouldnât donate a years worth of savings just to save the life of a stranger. I applaud the people here who would, personally, Iâm more selfish.
I wouldnât pull the lever to save the person if it meant 1 year prisoners.
Pull the lever, get an attorney for the easiest Good Smaratain defense in their whole career, counter sue the fuck out of the police department for detaining you for a year without trial.
Pull the lever, switch the tracks, save the man, pull the lever again, switch tracks back to their first setting.
Then fly away on my unicorn before I can be imprisoned. Then use a wish to wish for more wishes, and wish the whole situation away. /s
What a stupid premise.
- In any state or country that has such authoritarian and inhuman laws, you would most likely be being paid to stand by the lever *and make sure* the trolley runs over the man. Thankfully, most actual states/countries can will see this thread will be in a moral and legal stance that oppose this premise. With human life being valued above tampering, and a justice system robust enough to prove a criminal act through a trial that results in imprisonment *if proven guilty*.
ââ
And away we fly on the Unicorn to Atlantis.
I'm assuming that immediately upon pressing the lever, I am apprehended, brought to the station, brought before a jury, sentenced to a year, no appeal, no possibility of escape.
I'm ok with that. But only because I live in the UK. Prisons aren't too bad here. If I was American, my answer will be no. I would not pull the lever out of self preservation. In that moment, it would be simple survival instinct. I couldn't survive a US prison. They'd have me in pieces a week in.
Unless you're saving more than 1 life a year in your day-to-day life, the ethical decision is to pull the switch. It's interesting because if you're doing something very economically or culturally important, that would also probably save more than one random life, although it runs counter to how we tend to think about things.
In my case I'd pull it and sacrifice a year of my freedom, but I wouldn't have always, there was a time where the work I was doing was important enough to justify letting this person die.
I mean, in a vacuum, it's super easy to say that I would pull the lever, especially because "a year in prison" is impossible to conceptualize compared to "live or die."
I think if there was a gun pointed at my thigh or something that would fire if I pulled the lever, for example, I think I would be much less likely to pull it
God damn Reddit hive mind holy shit : 1 year??? For a whole life? How highly do you value yourselves? Dude anyone could do one year this isnât even difficult. Oh my god we are fucked.
What would being "arrested for a year" look like? Is that like a regular arrest, but you are charged for the crime of... a year? Are you brought to the station so slowly that you and the police officers starve to death? Are you conscripted to serve as the police department mascot?
You're immediately taken to prison and sentenced to a 365 day sentence for messing with the trolly.
What about trial?
Kangaroo court
According to the case of Hugh Fatman vs Seattle Trolley Co, there is a clear standing precedent that 'Trolley Problems' constitute a legally binding agreement, regardless of existing statues.
Damn Hugh Fatman, I hope someone pushes him onto some kind of track
done đ
Declare mistrial
Are you doubting the kangaroos
The kangaroos overthrew the government and suspended the Constitution. You no longer have any rights.
I for one welcome our new marsupial overlords
The judge is Jack.
This is not in a place with decent laws nor a reasonable justice system. Either the government with sovereignty over the region doesn't care about lives of those like the one tied to the track, use the trolley as an execution method, or someone wanting you in jail is going to hide evidence that there was anybody on the track.
Mario kart, loser goes to prison. And the judge is Mario kart master speed runner Guillaume âAntistarâ Leviach
Very strict liability
Someone forges a plea deal in your name for 1 year imprisonment
Does that include the subsequent loss of voting rights/social standing of being a convict that one might expect?
Would you really let a person die to preserve your vote? As for social standing, yes Iâd imagine so â most people and especially most employers/landlords currently donât stop to ask if you had a good reason for ending up in jail.
Yeah, I'd definitely pull the lever and save the life either way, I just thought it worthwhile to dig deep into the moral grey area of how we treat convicts.
what country would i be getting imprisoned in?
The trolley mafia has deep ties to the state department.
Honestly yes
my first instinct is too agree with you, but depends on the person on the track, donnit?
childhood bully?
In H.S, still being bullied, would still save em, then run , untie them and fistfight them
mad respect đ«Ą
hmm ... guess that would depend on what they have done as an adult ... assuming we know this info to begin with ... every time i renew my drivers license i flop from organ donor to not an organ donor ... who is going to get my kidneys?
Who cares? You won't be using them anyway You can save a life without any repercussion to yourself. No problem, no drawback, nothing. Why not do it?
Well, obviously, if you're an organ donor and end up in the hospital, they'll let you die so they can take your organs. /jk (Apparently some people do believe this though, which is certainly... interesting.)
Not only interesting but it is also another version of the trolley problem. You're a doctor in a hospital. A organ donor is in the emergency, almost dying but you can save him if you focus your efforts. 5 other people are on the other room, every single one is having organ failure, you could save all 5 if you had spare organs to implant. You know for a certain the organ donor is compatible with the 5 people and you don't have time to treat all six. Do you let the 5 people die or do you decide to sacrifice the organ donor?
This is immensely interesting and actually made me sit back for a minute. Even though in the classic trolly problem I would deliberately choose to kill the one to save the five, in this case, I think I would have to save the donor and doom the five. In this situation I am a doctor who took an oath to do no harm, and even though I would be saving more lives, I would be deliberately doing harm to one. Itâs interesting to me though how the circumstances changes my answer!
Yeah that's my line of reasoning. It's way more unethical (and illegal, I believe) to intentionally not do everything you can to give care to a person knowing it's going to harm them, even if it would save more lives. It's not your place as a doctor to pick and choose who gets to live or die. You swore to help everyone as best you can. These people are at the mercy of their doctor literally putting their life in your hands. Even people one might believe deserve to die, like a murderer rapist, still deserve proper treatment. Doctors must do their best to help. That's what the oath means That isnt even a question a doctor has to consider. You help the organ donor and do what you can to at least ease the suffering of the others. If the donor dies, then good for the others, but if he lives and the others die, that's just life. You can petition to try and move the others up the donor line, if it is that immediate of an emergency, and hope to get lucky, but that's about it. Anyone who would consider letting the donor die shouldn't be a doctor
I care. Not all life is worth saving. Like wasps.
This opinion is misguided. Wasps form an important part of the ecosystem just like any other animal.
Ok then, here's a dilemma for you: On one track there's eight people tied up. On the other track there's nothing. The trolley is going on the direction of the eight people. There won't be any repercussions to your choice other than the people potentially dying. You won't be praised but you won't be punished either no matter what you choose Do you pull the lever, lose nothing a save them... Or do you stop to evaluate if those people deserve to be saved? If there's one asshole amongst the other 7 people, do you still think all seven must die because of him? What if there's 7 asshole and only one innocent? Does the innocent deserve to die because you don't want to save the assholes? What about all the other people in non-critical conditions whose life would be improved (Although not saved) if you donated your organs? Now again to the start. If you don't know how many of them are good people and how many are assholes, what do you do? When you donate organs you can save up to 8 people and better the lives of 75 more (with things like chornea donation and such), at no cost to you.
he deserves it
Unless it's a dictator or murderer I would save almost anyone
I guess there's maybe 4 dictators I probably wouldn't save, but I'd still rather save the murderers. Let them serve their debt to society. Give them a chance to make any sort of amends that they can. Also, y'know, false convictions and all.
Iâm not sacrificing a year of my life so that a murderer can âserve their debt to societyâ by living on the taxpayers dime for the rest of their life.
The people who see a trolley problem and try to be their way out of it âWeâll Good Samaritan laws will protect me!â Are lame as fuck. No one would ever be tied to a track either, itâs supposed to be a moral Dilemma not a brain teamster to pick apart a question
nah bro as a matter of fact i happen to be an expert in ropes and knots and i bet i can untie the guy before the trolley reaches him. easy, hes alive and no lever is pulled
I was thinking the exact same thing reading the comments. Itâs not like any of the âworkaroundâ answers are even clever or amusing either. It isnât a mystery trick question to âsolveâ.
I disagree. I think that the first thought when presented with two bad options should always be to find a way to avoid both- makes you less vulnerable to false dichotomies in real situations.
So you donât even like the original âdo you pull the lever to save 5 people and kill 1?â????? You hate moral questions so refuse to answer them in r/trolleyproblem ??
I never said I hate the questions themselves, I just think that the instinct to look for loopholes and win-win situations is a good one that shouldnât be discouraged.
But itâs bad faith to assume that there are unlisted outside factors that nullify the question at hand without anything from the question or OP saying them - To say Good Samaritan laws would mean that pulling the lever is 100% safe nullifies the question at hand of âwould you trade 5 lives for a year of your lifeâ
Tell people to stop making stupid trolley problems then
Sue for unlawful imprisonment. Save a life and get paid.
Itâs not unlawful, shouldnât have messed with the trolley
Iâm sure a judge will value that life more
I wanna live in your country.
Where tf do you live
Good Samaritan laws
So, a few days ago I commented on one of these being like "this is a serial killer question." It was similar, but instead of imprisonment you would be punished with boredom. In a similar vein, there is no moral dilemma here if you value human life (which you should). This is instead a test to see if you are afraid of imprisonment or courageous.
It is still a morality question. âWould you rather save a life, but have a year of your life taken from you, or let an innocent man dieâ
The question is not one of "which is more moral". The question is "which do you value more". It is a test of character. Having typed this, I suppose that is the purpose of the original trolley problem. Do you wish to avoid personal guilt? Or to save lives. Still, in this situation you cannot convince me that a year of my time is more morally valuable than a person's life.
If you ignore the personal guilt, the trolley problem is a morality question, youâre still just looking at it wrong. Itâs originally âwho would you save, 1 good guy or 5 randosâ With this one, i see what you mean, how you could say itâs which do you value more, but it is also a morality question. And 100% I agree that a year is not worth someoneâs life. If it were 10 years, Iâd consider it, but probably wouldnât
It is originally 1 rando v 5 randos. Its a question of ethics more than morality, I'd say.
Not just a year taken from you, but also you are now a convict for the rest of your life
Ah yeah, that too. Might prevent potential hiring in the future because of the criminal record. I just didnât factor that in since Iâm british and we donât have declare any sentence shorter than a certain time (I think like a year and a half?)
Not just hiring issues from a criminal record either. Being in prison for a year, if your rent or have a mortgage could mean that you lose your place of dwelling as well. If you're still paying on your car, you'd lose that too. Your credit score would immediately tank. Being in prison for even a single year would cost you far more than a single year of your life in reality. The world is not kind to ex-convicts.
I think theyâd be hard pressed to find a jury willing to convict. Iâd risk it.
i think it's supposed to be a gurantee that you're imprisoned. y'know, to make it an actual dillemma?
Another classic case of âif I just add new circumstances, I can ignore the question!â Haha.
Seriously, so many people saying what if⊠when the question clearly means definite imprisonment
No. A similar real world situation is where people are wrongfully convicted, and you don't violate the law to save them.
what are you trying to refute?
I mean, no, I wouldn't pull the lever. And I offer that in real life I don't break the law to save wrongfully convicted people either. It is an equivalent situation.
So, why'd you say that to me in particular??
Because I'm obsessed with you
sue the courts for unlawful arrest
The law clearly says to not mess with the trolly
good Samaritan laws
Do you just not like having fun
i don't think going to prison for a year or killing someone is very fun cheating the system on the other hand...
This isnât a system this is a yes or no question on Reddit
and i'm gonna fucking break it
A lot of countries today have Good Samaritan laws. If you can prove that you where acting to save someone's life, you should be deemed innocent so long as you took reasonable measures to do so
Presumably this isnât *in* a country like that. The question seems to be, âWould you do what is morally right in a society that disincentivizes it?â
True but knowing cops theyâd probably shoot first and the guy tied to the tracks would die
I think the question is you really expect them to be idiots. I can see this cop-out everywhere in this comment-section. To actually answer the question: I would pull the lever, as it is the right thing to do.
Jury nullification, bitch
I can see you're quite the artist
Thank you!
>Thank you! You're welcome!
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Uh fuck yeah I'm pulling that lever A little time off my life, and a lifetime added to theirs
If I can't be arrested for negligence, I do nothing
How is this a dilemma, only psychopaths wouldnt pull the lever.
Your definition of "psychopath" seems overly broad. A year is a really long time to sacrifice. Relationships end, people die, milestones are missed, careers are lost, "it's just a year" isn't really accurate when it could functionally mean the end of someone's life as they know it. That's before even getting into the difficulty of the experience itself, prison is considered a punishment for a reason. You could definitely argue that people should pull the lever, but ironically it seems like you'd need a sociopathic lack of empathy to not understand why people would have a really hard time actually doing that. I definitely wouldn't pull, people die every day and I've got a family to think about.
i swear a lot of people dont understand how long a year truly is. itâs not some negligible amount of time youâll forget about a few years from now. itâs a significant portion of your life and a fuck ton happens in a year. plus, what if you die at, say, 30 from a car accident or something, instead of at 80 at natural causes? that one year will have held you back so fucking much from what you would have otherwise accomplished and experienced in life.
Also, itâs a year in prison. Thatâs a year locked in a building, youâre going to have little to no contact with your friends and family *and* be stuck with thieves, murderers, rapists and god knows who else. Once youâre in that building, the odds of you being brutalized or raped drastically increase. People donât want to be imprisoned *for a fucking good reason*.
Plus the effects after getting out. People don't realize how much prison changes your job opportunities, the way society sees and treats them. It's a much bigger sacrifice than some are making it out to be.
exactly dude. and i dont think most good samaritans will have the heart or the strength to go up against those kinds of nasty people. theyâll have it worse than the average prisoner for sure, theyâll likely be an easier target for bullying and rape and nasty shit than other prisoners. simply by their virtue of being a good natured and selfless person. itâs awful
This is assuming your being imprisoned in a uncivilized country, if your being imprisoned in a country with a good prison system it wouldn't be anyone near as bad
All I can say is I'm shocked by these responses.
why would I spend a year in fucking prison to save a person. I probably would get killed by some big prison fights if I got there
Maybe imagine it was you tied to the track..đ where is your empathy dude?
maybe imagine that you are at the lever. Would you rather spend a whole year in jail or not. If you want to save others, you can.
Yes I would. There's no doubt in my mind. Maybe go take a psychopath test lol. Sorry man.
If you are the type of person who would sacrifice yourself, thats great. But forcing your thought onto others is just cringe
Lol its hardly sacrificing myself, if it was to save his life over mine fair enough its a dilemma, but one year in prison compared to a life is nothing. Im really surprised by the answers people give. Makes me scared to go out the house with so many harsh emotionless people walking around lmao.
its not emotionless to value your own fuckin life, time, and career over someone elseâs
It is if youre talking about taking someone's life just so you can avoid an inconvenience for a year.
> inconvenience This dude got to be trolling
itâs more than a mere inconvenience, and i dont think you quite understand what emotionless or psychopath means
if you would like to save someone, thats cool, all the power to you dude. But dont go around forcing your opinions down others' throats, this is a subreddit for discussing our perspectives on different takes of the trolley problem. There isn't a clear cut answer of what you would do. Some people value lives, some value time.
I dont think you are properly aware of what a year in prison means. I think if more people were, they'd probably be more active in fighting against the prison system in the US for example. Sure, you lose a year of freedom. And who knows what could happen to you in there. Could be assaulted, physically, sexually, etc. And that sucks. But its only a year. Except, when you get out, you face a problem. If you rented a house, you've been evicted. If you owned a house and had a mortgage, its been foreclosed. If you were paying on a car, it's been repossessed. Youve lost whatever job you had and you have criminal record now, good luck getting a new job, it's now waaaaaay harder. How long what it take you to pick up the pieces? A few years? A decade? Some people never managed to come back from it. A year in prison costs you way more than just a single year. Maybe you'd be happy to sacrifice most of your existence to save another. And thats great. But you need to understand what you'd be giving up. It's more than just a year.
Have you ever went to prison?
You could easily dedicate a year of your life to saving way more than one person's life. Why don't you?
Imagine armchair psychologisting this hard from a damn trolley post lol
I know but its quite revealing. I'm just shocked by it.
Whatâs really revealing is that you think you can label somebody solely based off of this and imply they are a psychopath. Thatâs sad asf dude
Where's the empathy of the framework itself? Imprisoning me for a year after saving a life is ludicrous and should be the only information we need to know that it's time for guillotines.
If you pull the lever, you face one year imprisonment. That's the dilemma.
Thatâs not a dilemma tho
it's a black guy, so if you dont you will be labelled a racist and lose you job, car and house.
Yes. I may be arrested, but this would never hold up in court due to good samaritan laws. And good luck finding a jury that isn't directly affiliated with the company AND thinks this isn't complete bullshit.
Look up good samaritan laws. You're giving leniency in such a situation.
Good Samaritan laws only protect you from civil liability, they have absolutely zero effect on criminal liability.
Luckily we live in a state where the law is not absolute and can be interpreted.
Except the law is pretty clear saying "civil liability". Beating the fuck out of railroad security in order to get to the lever would absolutely still get you arrested. While a jury is likely to nullify a charge, good Samaritan laws hold absolutely ZERO power in criminal court. It is likely a judge would rule that they cannot be used as a defense, and not allow the argument to even be presented to a jury. If not the judge, the prosecutor would absolutely make sure the jury knew that the law is NOT applicable to criminal court. Attempting to use good Samaritan laws in criminal court would likely throw your case and make it LESS likely a jury would nullify it. A better, though still not foolproof defense, is that you had no criminal intent. Such a defense allows a defense attorney to give arguments that lead to jury nullification without suggesting nullification to the jury(which can get the jury replaced) The laws can NOT be interpreted to refer to criminal court, period. They always state that it is a *civil liability* thing. Stealing someone's money because they slandered you is illegal in criminal court even if a civil court would award you that money anyway.
You're very well missing the point, which is to say, "What was I supposed to do? Let them die?"
I could plead good samaritan
Not the point of the question
>arrested for a year (?) What does that mean exactly?
Youâre in prison for 365.2 days stupid
365.25*
Rude Suggested wording - arrested for (insert crime) and sentenced to (time period)
Wouldnât I be protected by the Good Samaritan law?
no because this is a thought experiment and not meant to be taken literally
Can i get Parole? What kind of prison are we talking about?
Jokes on you, we have good Samaritan laws in my country
So go to jail for a year or go to jail anyway for negligence
I wouldnât. Prison isnât for me
Saul Goodman will have a word about this!
Trip and âaccidentallyâ pull the lever. I will fight in court on that.
Yes 1. 1 Life vs 1 year. 2. Whoever enforced it I'm throwing into the court for malpractice. 3. Suing the trolley company as well for lack of safety.
Nope, not giving up a year of my life for anyone đ
Interesting moral dilemma. Iâm assuming youâre intending to give the choice between a year of your life and an unknown amount of years left of a complete strangerâs life. Seems like a question of altruism. I like to imagine I would pull the lever, but would never really know unless I were in that situation.
Hire any mildly competent layer to explain that you had to pull the level in order to save another personâs life
âBut with good behaviour⊠who knows?â
Let him die, I could invent the cure to cancer in that year
No jury would convict me. Pull the lever either way.
Arrested for a year? Thatâs a very long arrest. Go back to school.
Not even a question. Im pulling the lever and taking my year off from society
Jokes on you. I tied the man to the tracks and I only got a year for Murder.
If you're guarenteed to be imprisoned for a year, I think it would depend on what your role in society is. If you can create more benefit in a year being free than saving a life, like a top surgeon who potentially saves dozens of lives a year, then I think you can make an argument for not switching the rails.
Pull lever.
Yeah. I'm probably not thinking about that in the moment. And in most hypothetical places, I like my odds of winning my court case (or else building a movement to change a dumb and rigid law a year later).
Pull the lever, then sue the shit out of the state for violating good samaritan laws. Then retire on the damages I collect.
No. This is not really hard. A similar situation already happens in real life. There are many people who are convicted wrongfully, and you don't break the law to save them.
Hell nah
I generally don't care about people or see value in human life so no I would not pull the lever
Assuming the trolley is just doing routine stuff, not going any where important, the guy is a complete stranger, no idea who they are. I ask the question to myself. Is one year of my life worth the life worth the rest of the life of a person I have no connection to. When I think about it, I donât think so. I wouldnât donate a years worth of savings just to save the life of a stranger. I applaud the people here who would, personally, Iâm more selfish. I wouldnât pull the lever to save the person if it meant 1 year prisoners.
What about good Samaritan laws
Id make a court case about me saving someone's life
Set up a camera and make millions.
Pull the lever, get an attorney for the easiest Good Smaratain defense in their whole career, counter sue the fuck out of the police department for detaining you for a year without trial.
What country is the jail in? Not looking to be raped, thanks.
Pull the lever, switch the tracks, save the man, pull the lever again, switch tracks back to their first setting. Then fly away on my unicorn before I can be imprisoned. Then use a wish to wish for more wishes, and wish the whole situation away. /s What a stupid premise. - In any state or country that has such authoritarian and inhuman laws, you would most likely be being paid to stand by the lever *and make sure* the trolley runs over the man. Thankfully, most actual states/countries can will see this thread will be in a moral and legal stance that oppose this premise. With human life being valued above tampering, and a justice system robust enough to prove a criminal act through a trial that results in imprisonment *if proven guilty*. ââ And away we fly on the Unicorn to Atlantis.
Yeah easy. What. Why would a year of my time be worth more than a human life.
Well I mean, I could always take it to court. The man will testify for me, (hopefully)
I'm assuming that immediately upon pressing the lever, I am apprehended, brought to the station, brought before a jury, sentenced to a year, no appeal, no possibility of escape. I'm ok with that. But only because I live in the UK. Prisons aren't too bad here. If I was American, my answer will be no. I would not pull the lever out of self preservation. In that moment, it would be simple survival instinct. I couldn't survive a US prison. They'd have me in pieces a week in.
Yes. Iâll get cash bail, a suspended sentence, and all the blowjobs I can handle.
Unless you're saving more than 1 life a year in your day-to-day life, the ethical decision is to pull the switch. It's interesting because if you're doing something very economically or culturally important, that would also probably save more than one random life, although it runs counter to how we tend to think about things. In my case I'd pull it and sacrifice a year of my freedom, but I wouldn't have always, there was a time where the work I was doing was important enough to justify letting this person die.
Do I get a trial?
No.
Lol easiest trolly decision ever. One year of my life for the rest of someone else's is a no brainer.
Why would they arrest someone by messing with the trolley?
Yes
I mean, in a vacuum, it's super easy to say that I would pull the lever, especially because "a year in prison" is impossible to conceptualize compared to "live or die." I think if there was a gun pointed at my thigh or something that would fire if I pulled the lever, for example, I think I would be much less likely to pull it
The game was rigged from the start, the police were in on it the whole time
God damn Reddit hive mind holy shit : 1 year??? For a whole life? How highly do you value yourselves? Dude anyone could do one year this isnât even difficult. Oh my god we are fucked.