Moral Dilemma, Hopefully you guys haven't seen this

First Situation-
You're watching a train approach a fork in its path, on one side five guys are working, on the other one man is working. Currently it is heading for the five men. None of them can see or hear the train, and you can not warn them of its arrival. Next to you there is a lever to change the course of the train.

Pull the lever to save five and kill one?

Second Situation
You are looking down from a bridge at a train. The train is heading down the tracks towards five working guys, same situation, they can't see or hear the train, but this time there is no lever to pull. Standing next to you is a large man, the immense weight of the man would stop the train

Push the man to his death to save the five?

Give and explain your answers

Well considering the second option, the immense weight of the man. However how the fuck do you push him off in the first place???

Getting back to the point, yes I'd kill one to save more. That or just watch it happen...

pen try HIGHLIGHTING my text to read it easier o.o

the way you phrased it makes me think there's some other method that could be used to save everyone, but since i cba to put thought into this, i'm going to go with:
1) let the 5 die for being really bad at their jobs
2) fat man goes over the edge, but on top of the one that wouldnt be hit by the train- he should know better than to be standing on train tracks, making people decide if killing him is worth saving someone else...

penguinoflight contradicts himself lol... the different situations are the same in principal: would you rather let 5 people die, but to not be accountable, or be responsible for 1 persons death if it saves 5 others?

and further more, the 5 guys are ''really bad at their job''(doing exactly the same, your way of saving them is just different in the situations) in both scenarios. so why are they doing a shit job in the first, whereas in the second, penguin wouldn't let them die because of doing their job badly?





i've seen these dilemmas before. i've presented them some years ago to my class. noone answered(except some retards making jokes about the situation). i dont know what i would do when i think about it. one approach would be the logical one; save the biggest amount of people, and let the least amount die. the other would be emotional and about self-interest; let the 5 guys die, and you're not accountable for the 1 persons death and you dont have it on your conscience.

i dont contradict myself, i let five die in the first variant, and let five die and kill the other two for being there in the second variant (drop the fat guy on the one that would survive, let the other five die)

Only one guy (the fat one) dies in the second situation.

Only one guy (the fat one) dies in the second situation.

Edit: nevermind, i understand...but you'll never convince me this "Fat guy" is likeable, no matter how many orphans his wife saved, he's going over, preferably not in the way of the train though.

This post has been edited by penguinoflight on Nov 7 2009, 07:41 AM