The Train Dilemma – Reflection Blog  MSLD 634

 

October 17, 2018

 

Scenario 1:  A train is hurtling down the track where five children are standing. You are the switch person.  By throwing the switch, you can put the train on a side track where one child is standing.  Will you throw the switch?

 

This appears to be a “no-win” situation regardless of the choice made.  Simple logic would tell someone to sacrifice one, so that others could live.  Therefore, throwing the switch sacrifices one to save the other five.  An example of this reasoning happened during WWII.  Winston Churchill’s intelligence agency had broken the German codes from their enigma machine.  Churchill knew that if the Germans kept bombing the airfields, aerospace factories, and military harbors, that England would certainly lose the war.  Churchill cleverly provoked Hitler into changing his bombing targets by a spectacular bombing raid of Berlin (like Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo later in the war).  Hitler was enraged and ordered the British cities to burn.  With the code broken, Churchill knew of an impending attack.  He considered the codes so valuable that he ordered no air raid warnings to be sounded, no aircraft flying to meet the attack, and no black-out procedures for the targeted cities which included Coventry.  The attack came as what the Germans believed to be a complete surprise.  17,000 British citizens lost their lives on that first air raid.  Was this a moral ethical decision?  Certainly, keeping the secret of breaking the enigma codes was vital.  It probably helped win the war and saved hundreds of thousands of lives.  Was the enough justification for the decision he made?

 

I believe that in an instance of the train dilemma, I would throw the switch.  Is that the right decision?  Who knows?  In today’s world, I may end up getting charged with murder regardless of what decision I made.  There are also the after-effects of guilt to deal with, for having to make such a horrible decision.

 

Scenario 1A: Same scenario except:  You are standing next to an elderly man.  If you push him in front of the train it will stop the train and all the children will be saved.  Will you push him? 

 

The ethical dilemma posed is tricky because it is an “old man”.  Does that justify killing him to save the 5 children?  Again, logic may say so, but what would Jesus do?  Let’s not be funny and say that he would stop the train himself.  Would Jesus push the old man in front of the train to save the 5 children?  What about sacrificing oneself instead of the old man?  That would be a higher calling of spiritual morality.  I should say that most people wouldn’t do it.  I am reminded of the movie, “Message in a Bottle”, where the lead character played by Kevin Costner must decide whether to try and save a drowning woman, after saving her son and husband.  The odds of saving the woman were slim and no one could have faulted him for not trying.  In the end, he did and saved neither himself or the woman. 

 

In the end, a conscious decision may not even be made.  The self-preservation instinct in human beings is strong.  What would God’s judgement be upon a person if he made no choice and let the tragedy happen?  It would be difficult for me to justify any decision made.  Therefore, it is possible that I could “freeze” in the situation, not knowing what to do, and the 5 children would die.  The only consolation for me would be that I didn’t have to kill someone (outside of war) to save other lives.  That wouldn’t make the result any happier or better.  I guess I would have to honestly answer that I don’t know what I would do.  Any action or inaction on my part would probably be on some sort of “auto-pilot”.  One also has to be careful not to step on the slippery slope.  For if killing in this one instance is okay, where is the new line drawn?  There is the question that was brought up in the first scenario.  Could I as the responsible person be charged with murder of: 5 children, an old man, or one child?  I don’t know the answer to that question either.  It all depends on how the situation was perceived by others and what they thought what the right thing to do.  This also plays into the self-preservation mode that human beings have.  Would I like to be incarcerated or executed for any decision that I made in this situation?  Probably not.  Therefore, what should one do?  My answer is:  I don’t know.

 

Scenario 1B:  Same scenario except:  The one child on the side track is your child.  Will you throw the switch to save the five children?

 

In this scenario, the outcome is also a no-win situation, but I, like most people, would instinctively save my child.  Is that, morally right?  How many people would willingly sacrifice their child to save others?  I am betting not too many.  Abraham, in the Old Testament, was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar because God told him too.  Evidently, that story demonstrates the moral, ethical dilemma most people would have when faced with a choice of sacrificing one of their children.  Further, I believe that most people would not have the time nor the inclination to think out the “rational” solution.  The decision making logic of this scenario, is less clear and harder to prove when faced with one’s own child at risk.  I believe that I would save my child and it wouldn’t be a drawn-out decision.  I may freeze when faced with the unpalatable choice in the scenario above, but I don’t believe I would freeze in this one.

 

Regarding the train dilemma, I know that different cultures would react differently to ethical decisions.  Orientals may not make the same choices as Europeans, who would not make the same choices as Americans.  The factors surrounding the decisions are based on moral upbringing in the family and/or religion, ethical & moral education, specific crisis related training, and the culture that one hails from.  None of these answers have moral absolutes tied to them.  As with many choices in life, there is black, white, and varying shades of gray.  It is up to everyone to decide what shade they decide to participate in.

 

References:

 

Retrieved from: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-11486219

 

Stevenson, William. (1976) A Man Called Intrepid. New York: Sky Horse Publishing

 

Movie: “Message in a Bottle” starring Kevin Costner (1999)

 

Old Testament, Genesis (Unknown)

 

John Hescott (2017-2018)