The Train Dilemma: When No Choice Is a Good One
My daughter is never, ever allowed to go near train tracks for the rest of her life after reading the train dilemma. Now that we've established that and this is a purely hypothetical discussion, I would be extremely troubled throwing any of the switches and quite honestly, I do not believe I would throw the switches at all.
Upon first reading through the scenarios of having five children on one track and one child on the next track, I thought about switching the train to the track with only one child. I could not push an elderly man in front of the train to save the lives of the children as that would be an act of intentional murder. I could ask the man if he would sacrifice himself if there were enough time, but likely that would not be possible. If the lone child on the track was my own child, I could not bring myself to throw the switch.
So in answer to the philosophical question: I probably would chose option D. If an elderly man could stop a train by being thrown in front of it, then it would be logical that I too could stop a train by jumping in front of it. Now comes the ethical dilemma of sacrifice or suicide? That is decided by the lens of the individual and the intent of the person. If I were trying to jump in front of the train to escape life by taking my own, that would be suicide. If I were to jump in front of the train to save the lives of others, that would be sacrifice. This is similar to the officer that rushes into the line of fire. In order to protect others, they willingly sacrifice their own life.
Now let us turn the dilemma into a medical scenario. I am a doctor. I have a patient who just became infected with a deadly and highly contagious virus. If he lives, he will be patient-zero of an unprecedented epidemic. I do not have the option of quarantine as that will only infect more individuals in transporting the patient to quarantine. Do I provide a lethal injection? Do I provide the patient with the medicine and allow the patient to administer their own lethal injection? Do I deny any treatment and let the patient die inhumanely? I believe I would explain the situation to the patient and allow the patient to make the decision for themselves.
In all of these scenarios, my choice revolves around a very difficult and rather unclear intermixing of personal convictions, humility, humanity and sacrifice for the greater good. Socrates (n.d.) stated, "A system of morality based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true." If you have sound ethics and sound morals, it should not matter if the situation is personal or non-personal. Emotion should not alter the decision. According to Fan and Yang (2012), their results from a similar trolley/train dilemma study demonstrated a significant difference in responses based on the personal and non-personal variations of the problem, denoting an emotional response to ethical problems.
Whether it be the five children, the one child, the elderly man or my own child, I would choose sacrificing my own life over doing any action or inaction to cause harm to any other life. It is not that I do not value my own life. It has everything to do with responsibility and putting the greater good above all else. Probably not the answer you were looking for, but thankfully I am already aware that I don't have all the answers.
Socrates (n.d.) BrainyQuote: Socrates. Retrieved October 23, 2016 from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/socrates_2.html
Fan, Y., Yang, L. (2012). Ethics. International Journal of Psychology, 47, 356-365.
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