So, I am Christian but acknowledge there are immoral people identifying as Christian and plenty of moral atheists.
I'm interested in ethics and your rationale. 

Can we begin with a basic one... 

The trolley problem:


You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise incapacitated) people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option?

Feb 24, 2019 12:25:19 GMT iNCY said:

So, I am Christian but acknowledge there are immoral people identifying as Christian and plenty of moral atheists.
I'm interested in ethics and your rationale. 

Can we begin with a basic one... 

The trolley problem:


You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise incapacitated) people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option?

Isn't neither option ethical?

I feel like I don't really grasp ethics and morals anymore. I literally just skipped my company's ethics training.

I know there's this subjective overlay of right and wrong in the world, but I feel like personal forgiveness and an overly bureaucratic and flawed justice system kind of render right and wrong toothless a bit.

People's actions then ultimately become driven by motivation and emotion.

I dunno...

Kill all six people. In the grand scheme of the universe, we're all dust anyway.

I'd save the single. 5 dead likely means the possibility of up to 5 different vehicles not congesting the highway.

I'm trying to figure out why the title of this thread is "ethics in a modern world" and we're debating train routes.

Everyone should watch The Good Place. They take this question to horrifying extremes and it’s hilarious. I love that show.

The question is to set you up for failure. There’s no right answer. Many people default to killing one to save many like our world leaders tend to do, but without knowing who you’re killing and who you’re saving you can’t give an ethical answer.

What if the one is the next Hitler? What if the five are all pedophiles? What if the pedophiles all use being saved as a way to rehabilitate and one cures cancer?

Feb 24, 2019 18:54:18 GMT RT said:

Everyone should watch The Good Place. They take this question to horrifying extremes and it’s hilarious. I love that show.

The question is to set you up for failure. There’s no right answer. Many people default to killing one to save many like our world leaders tend to do, but without knowing who you’re killing and who you’re saving you can’t give an ethical answer.

What if the one is the next Hitler? What if the five are all pedophiles? What if the pedophiles all use being saved as a way to rehabilitate and one cures cancer?

That is the murky truth of ethics...
This is where life gets even more cruel.

A simple question is: Should we send aid to countries ravished by famine and poverty, the answer of course for most of us is yes.
However, many times these nations have populations that the environment and climate cannot support.
By providing aid, all we do is let these people live long enough to have their 8 children, making the suffering of the next generation infinitely worse.
But is it ethical to not provide aid in such a situation? It is exactly the same question as the trolley problem with real world ramifications.

The Joker's game theory.

Feb 24, 2019 18:54:18 GMT RT said:

Everyone should watch The Good Place. They take this question to horrifying extremes and it’s hilarious. I love that show.

The question is to set you up for failure. There’s no right answer. Many people default to killing one to save many like our world leaders tend to do, but without knowing who you’re killing and who you’re saving you can’t give an ethical answer.

What if the one is the next Hitler? What if the five are all pedophiles? What if the pedophiles all use being saved as a way to rehabilitate and one cures cancer?

Season three is 100% about this as well , with no one getting into that good place anymore because it’s not really possible to be completely ethical anymore because even the good you do could ultimately lead to bad things happening. Great show.

Feb 25, 2019 7:00:32 GMT NATH45 said:

The Joker's game theory.

I always thought that the detonators were tied to the boat they were on and not the other boat. They never reveal it and the Joker never gets a chance to blow them both up, so we’ll never know, but it seems like something he would do.

Feb 25, 2019 17:46:24 GMT RT said:

Feb 25, 2019 7:00:32 GMT NATH45 said:

The Joker's game theory.

I always thought that the detonators were tied to the boat they were on and not the other boat. They never reveal it and the Joker never gets a chance to blow them both up, so we’ll never know, but it seems like something he would do.

1. No one hits the switch - both boats blow up.

2. The innocent civilians hit the switch first - only the prison boat blows up.

3. The Prisoners hit the switch first - the innocent civilians die. The crims live.

The crims, make the moral decision to throw the detonator away. Saving the innocent civilians.

Or, The Joker being The Joker..

4. The switches don't do anything, and both boats blow up.

5. Neither blow up, and everyone lives.