Ah, Muller-Lyer; how fun. In answer to the first question, why would you save five people on the tracks and not kill Bill to save the others? Firstly, you're not killing that one person, the train is killing them. You're deciding how may people survive, and you're having to do it fast. According to our understanding of "evolutionary survival" and "reciprocal altruism(which occurs when people who aren't related help increase the fitness of the species by engaging in behavior that reduces personal fitness at the moment for greater fitness in the long run; one of the caveats being that the altruistic behavior must have low consequence to our own personal fitness--which in this case it does--but high benefit for the recipients--in this case it would increase your fitness to save five people instead of one)" we would find that five people surviving would be more beneficial to "fitness of the species" than one person surviving. Since we are forced to make a decision (and we apparently know nothing of the five or the one) we would choose to save the five. If, on the other hand, we knew the one was a child and the other five were old people, we might choose the child, because this increases fitness of the society. The old people are unlikely to reproduce, and the young person still has a shot, so we may turn the car on the five instead of the one. Now, say it was your child, and the five were random strangers. Foregoing reciprocal altruism, you would save your child in order to ensure the survival of your genes. So it is not entirely certain whether we would save the five or the one. More information is required.
Bill, on the other hand, is not an evolutionary dilemma, but a moral one. Bill is a living person with a name, standing in front of you who doesn't want to die and, by rights, will not unless you kill him. You are engaged in a moral dilemma, not a specific incident where someone must die. You are making a conscious decision to kill another man (a decision that, by societies laws, decreases your fitness almost immeasurably) and give life to five other people who you know nothing about. Presumably on the tracks you can see the six people, and you have to make a choice. There is no consequence. With Bill there is nothing but consequence. If you kill him, you will most likely go to jail, you will be unable to reproduce, and the five people you presumably save (transplant operations carry their own risks, if you know anything about them; the people on the tracks are much more likely to survive if you turn the train) will have increased fitness, but at the cost of nearly all your fitness. The main idea: the moral conundrums are very different, and therefore impossible to correlate to one another. That, added to the fact that we don't have enough information in either case, makes the argument slightly shaky.
Bill, on the other hand, is not an evolutionary dilemma, but a moral one. Bill is a living person with a name, standing in front of you who doesn't want to die and, by rights, will not unless you kill him. You are engaged in a moral dilemma, not a specific incident where someone must die. You are making a conscious decision to kill another man (a decision that, by societies laws, decreases your fitness almost immeasurably) and give life to five other people who you know nothing about. Presumably on the tracks you can see the six people, and you have to make a choice. There is no consequence. With Bill there is nothing but consequence. If you kill him, you will most likely go to jail, you will be unable to reproduce, and the five people you presumably save (transplant operations carry their own risks, if you know anything about them; the people on the tracks are much more likely to survive if you turn the train) will have increased fitness, but at the cost of nearly all your fitness. The main idea: the moral conundrums are very different, and therefore impossible to correlate to one another. That, added to the fact that we don't have enough information in either case, makes the argument slightly shaky.
Reply
Leave a comment