IndigoViolet11
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I think the fatman is poorly thought out, because you can't take the word of the maniac that put you in this situation at his word that one chubby gentleman will stop a train.
Rather, I'd remove the lever and have the train's path directly linked to the life value of an innocent person in front of you. You have a gun. You know that the bunch of wires leading between the person and where the lever used to be will work as intended, because you're the madman that put them there. Tyler Durden style.
Either way, you're going to jail for life (@Coggles). Because you set this up (to remove all doubt, you also killed a bus full of children earlier that day, and strangled the last remaining panda). Actually no, you're dying. Capital punishment is legal in this state and your crimes are undoubtedly above the threshold for warranting it.
Also you're surrounded by police. Not so close that they can interfere with your immediate actions, but they're numerous and there's no doubt as to whether you'll escape. Also the train is full of police so there's no sanctuary there.
Yes this is a joke kinda, the question is 'what is right?', but sometimes limiting people options enough to actually force the decision is tricky :P
What's the "right" thing to do assuming your self-interest is no longer in question. Which universe would you prefer to leave behind?
Assuming I didn't have to live with the guilt and PTSD, I'd kill the person no question (damn you Tyler!).
Once you answer this, you jiggle the numbers a little. If you'd kill the person, would you kill two? Would you kill four people to save five? If you wouldn't kill the person, would you kill them to save your mother and father? Your four children? Ten people? Twenty? One hundred?
Find the spot at which you can no longer adhere to an extreme (consequentialism or deontology). Then be picked apart by both sides!DD
Also, the Machiavellian answer is that you would not kill them. Say "I know it's probably wrong not to kill them, but I couldn't do it". People trust you more when you pay lip service to a flawed principle in an overdoctored hypothetical in which they would imaginarily die.
There's always a third option:
But the point of thought experiments is to force the hard choice and measure your reasoning.
They're not practical and they are fanciful, which makes them easy to dismiss. But I think the very want to dismiss them is because they don't benefit the answerer while potentially making them feel really uncomfortable. I think of them more as a demonstration than an experiment. A proof illustrating the flaws in morality no matter what side you take.
TLDR: If you come out from this problem with a feeling that it was easy or even with a sense of moral superiority, you've not explored it enough. Given enough effort, you will make your sense of right feel wrong. Hurray!
Nice post.
Back to the original topic:
I have no idea.
, but I like this topic.
