famous old questions

You are driving a train and you come to a fork. You realize that your horn doesn't work nor do your brakes.you see ahead that on the track you are on 5 men are working and they don't see you. On the other lane there is one man. If you continue on your path you will end up killing 5 men. If you turn however you will only kill one.
Assuming the one man is not willing to sacrifice himself for the other 5 had he known what danger he was in.
Would you turn the wheel?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by yoni chanowitz on December 21, 2011 at 3:47pm

david nica, very well. your opinion is consistant. most people apparently say no. and the woman who i still have not found the name of, reasons that turning the wheel is easier than harvesting organs.

then some other guy put up this question.

your on a train again, driving , except the track is circular. on one side is a really obesse man who, if you crash into will kill him but stop the train. on the other side is 5 skinny men. you are headed at the 5 and nothing but the wheel works. if you kill the fat man you save the 5. if not the train will kill them all.

would you turn into the fat man first? or let the train take its course and kill all 6 people?

how come nobody answered my talmud question?

Permalink Reply by Cori on January 2, 2012 at 3:45am

To answer your talmud question. (:

Should he be required to? No. It's his decision and one that he has to make for himself. Morally would it be the right thing to do? Yeah. We however, can not force others to make the right decision. Also! I would kill the one person. It's not exactly moral... It's once again to the point of numbers. Five or six? He's going to die anyway, but do I really want to be the cause of his death?

Permalink Reply by David N on June 29, 2012 at 4:31pm

I would turn and kill the fat man, honestly.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Gregory on June 29, 2012 at 3:47pm

Based on the facts, I would not turn the wheel. It wasn't stated that the "one man" was a railroad worker but it was implied that the "5 men" were. The railroad workers knew the danger of their job.

If this "one man" was indeed a fellow railroad worker, I would turn the wheel in hopes of ending the least amount of lives.