/lit/ - Literature

Why is it so eternal? If humans are merely ultracomplex calculatrons it should not be this intractable.

No. The absence of action is not an action. By pulling the lever, you're committing murder. By not pulling the lever, what was destined to happen will happen.

>>5307166
smh
hidden

I would always choose to kill one person over five people because thats just simple math less is more

>>5307183
there are people who need to make decisions like this IRL. Generals, politicians, doctors etc. These people do their job and at the end of the day try to save as many people as they can by distancing themselves.

Yet another example that philosophy is only paralyzing to everyday life and does nothing except provide mediocre jobs for people in the philosophy department of mediocre universities

>>5307194
Well thanks for killing Jesus and letting the serial killers live, douche.

>>5307210
>assuming that there are no underlying tricks and all humans in the problem are equal

see, you literally need to change the problem in order to make not pulling the lever seem the better option

Why is this stupid fucking "problem" so popular on this site

>>5307196
The common sense solution is not to pull the lever, actually, and only philosophy can lead you to the correct one, that is, to pull it.

>>5307224
cuz its poplar in philosephy depts, cuz

I would pull the lever, but do it just to be edgy.

Life is not a matter of which one, but who first.

Is pushing the man off the bridge to make the train hit him and not kill the five any different to pulling the lever?

>>5307249
no, it was an example to demonstrate that people react differently to what is in essence the same problem, because pushing a man directly is more personal than pulling a lever,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUsGDVOCLVQ

Take the test guis!

>>5307196
A doctor would not pull the lever. If a doctor needed organs to save the life of several patients, and he could get those organs by killing one of his patients, it would be a major ethics violation and get him sent to jail.
Politicians try to use this sort of reasoning to justify their torture and murder, but the dilemmas are almost always false. Torture produces false information, and the US's involvement in Iraq has been a complete disaster in every sense of the word.

Do nothing.

>>5307166
>assuming [...] all humans in the problem are equal

This is what leftists ACTUALLY believe.

Ha! I had this question given to me in High School, and I was the only one in class and within the school's history to say do nothing. Everyone else choose action instead of inaction. Fools.

>>5307393
This is the correct answer.

You should do nothing.

Only plebs will say you have to kill the innocent man.

>>5307254

Bill Nighy The Philosphy Guy?

>>5307393
>head-in-the-sand child thinking

>>5307189

>do you fuck the fat man, preventing him from committing suicide at the sight of 5 crushed victims? Or do you let him go and have 6 death people to wank over?

>>5307254

>big think
>ever

I could have read a copy-pasted transcript in the same time and could have gained much more information.

>>5307166
>and all humans in the problem are equal

I'm sorry, but if the single captive is a pretty young girl, you can bet yo ass the quintuplets get it.

>>5307393
>and that is why the nazi party conquered all of Europe
Wouldn't want to sacrifice our good old boys fighting the Germans eh?

>since you know what the lever does
I forgot what the lever does, what did you it down for that one?

>>5307166
Naturally I save the five. Not because of any notion of the greater good, but because my odds of gain are much higher with five than with one.

If you do nothing, all the captives will die.
If you use the switch, the trains will crash and one captive will die.
It is unknown how many passengers are on each train besides the driver, maybe none, but if there are some, they are all guaranteed to die in the crash.

What will you do?

>>5307858
lel

>>5307918
sh-shut up you f-fedora t-tipper

>>5307275
Begging the question, your entire argument is based on the doctor needing organs.

>>5307166
The dilemma is created by the fact that the sucker at the lever is too weak to stop the train. If only he had read the sticky and done Starting Strength, he might have been able to use his own ability to stop the train, thus saving everyone. Ability to act is as important a factor to righteous acting as is virtuous thought. The best he can do is throw himself in front of the train, hoping that his own mangled corpse will bring the train to a halt.

>>5307393
Your choice of 'inaction' is an action. You acted to kill those four people.

>>5307967
And that running five people over with a train is a valid way to get them.

let's say the track is infinite. Infinity times five is still infinity, so neither one is better.

>>5308013
But one infinity is smaller than five infinities.

>>5308017
Not true.

>>5308017
is an infinite number of infinities infinitely larger than one infinity?

>>5307166

You "have" to do nothing. You do nothing all the time. Right now you are consciously chosing to waste your time on an imageboard while people are dying, whose death you could prevent. Now fuck you.

>>5308017
>>5308036
Not true in the first case, not necessarily in the second.

>>5308013
However, due to the increased distance between the singles, the train will consume fewer lives before slowing down to nonfatal speeds, ergo if preservation of the most lives is the goal the lever still must be pulled.

>>5307166
I agree completely. I don't think there's any constructive discussion to be had about it, unless you're trying to explain utilitarianism to someone and present the opposing views for the sake of the discussion. I really think anyone who says not pulling the lever is morally preferable is either trying to be difficult or has aspergers.

>>5308036
No.

>>5308041
It's never true in the second.

>>5307166
I kill the five of them because it'll be gorier, thus funnier.

>>5308081
You have a very sharp edge, which with to kill them, Anonymous.

>>5308013
>>5308029
>>5308064
>>5308069
x> 1
you are saying 5 x = x as x-> infinity?
and x^2 = x as x-> infinity?

>>5307166
Do people seriously see "doing nothing" as a bad choice?

I'm sorry but I'm not going to be the guy explaining why I chose to kill this one guy for 3 people who may very well be assholes. By pulling the elver you're making a moral choice that you're not in a position to decide on.

>>5307969
/thread
what would scooby do

>>5308219
I don't care how many people you kill. But thinking do nothing is not making a moral choice makes you stupid. It's why the "install spyware toolbar" as a default checkmark works on crappy software.

>>5307166
>tfw /lit/ has never heard of opportunity cost.

>>5308219
>>5307183
>>5307393

>>5307393
9/10

>>5308330
Holy shit, except I'm saying the exact opposite.

By doing nothing you're not making that moral choice at all because you shouldn't be in the first place.

>>5307858

Yeah, sure. More like:

>Brave man of color saves five people
>Go to pages 2,3,4 & 5 for the tear-jerking story of his upbringing in the projects

And:

>White male murders unarmed black man. >Black community riots, destroying their neighborhood.
>Al Sharpton says its a heinous civil rights abuse.
>Barack Obama says victim could have been his son.

>>5308417
you need to stop reading so much huffpost

>>5308389
You realize there's no such thing as not making a moral choice?

There is no such thing as inaction. You're just choosing to prioritize something else, like checking your facebook, or looking in the other direction. This is a moral choice.

There is no way to "inact" unless you can suddenly blink your agency out of existence.

>>5308451
Ethical choice then, whatever.

>>5307967
>>5307980
There is an organ shortage, and people do die waiting for organs.

>an average of 18 people die each day waiting for transplants that can't take place because of the shortage of donated organs.
http://www.organdonor.gov/about/data.html

The person I was responding to was half right. Doctors do face this decision every day, and what they do is leave the lever in its original position.

>>5307858
This post is spot on, like the Simpsons.

>implying the trolley isn't set to veer off, and in pulling the lever you set it straight

Enjoy your lifetime prison sentence

>>5308200
Yeah? As x approaches infinity to the right they all go to infinity

>concerning yourself with abstractions like "trolley-problems" instead of trying to deal with the real problems facing us as a society

Why are analytics so autistic

>>5307819
>not letting the nazis conquer all of Europe

>>5308433
you need to go back to reddit

>>5307858
what is this, 1930?

>>5307194
This is the only correct answer, everything else is a simple pseudointellectualism,

>>5307242
I kek'd

>>5307183

this is the most retarded reasoning that there has ever been

>destined

my sides dude what the fuck, how embarrassing

>>5308717

why don't you suggest a topic of discussion?

>>5307894
Don't touch the lever and watch happens.

>>5308717
The only reason as to why most of us are here is due to procrastination, otherwise we all would have been reading books right now.

>>5308852
jokes on you I don't even know how to use reddit

>>5308029
You learn that shit In beginner calc cmon man

>>5308417

>this is what racists believe

>>5307166
top track - fiancee
bottom track - your mom, dad, and siblings

easy mode
top track: pregnant wife
bottom track: cousins (1st, 2nd, and 3rd)

>>5309010
He's right

>>5308674
I'm pretty sure that there exists mathematical proofs that show that some infinities are larger than others.

>>5307858
this one is great

>>5309038
infinity is not a number, it cannot be quantified, thus one infinity cannot be larger than another, just as a negative item cannot exist in the real world

>>5308948
Without being called a "Leftist" or a "Marxist" or a "Commie" or a "Faggot" by all the lovely reactionaries around here? Yeah, right.

>>5307166
Solution: throw YOURSELF in front of the train, save everyone else.

>>5309050
The cardinality of the Reals is infinity
The cardinality of the Integers is infinity

The cardinality of the Reals is greater than the cardinality of the Integers

So there are different ideas of infinite.

>>5309050
It's not a number, but you're incorrect, sorry. Some infinite sets can't be matched up one-to-one with other infinite sets - you always have an unlimited number of "extra" elements - and so they really can be said to be larger.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CountablyInfinite.html
>Georg Cantor showed that the number of real numbers is rigorously larger than a countably infinite set

>>5309050
Honestly, the debate is entirely semantic.

Kind of like the debate whether any a priori knowledge exists or not. On one hand, people will say that anything that can be achieved by reason alone constitutes a priori knowledge. On the other hand, others might argue that the ability to reason requires some sort of experience, so any knowledge gained through reason is also tacitly achieved through experience; thus, a priori knowledge doesn't exist.

>>5307166
Would you rather kill someone, or allow people to die?

If the two groups were switched, everyone would choose the absence of action and allow the one to die. As they are the way they are, people generally choose to kill one to save the five.

The difference is as >>5307183 said, by acting you are a murderer, buy inaction you aren't involved.

>>5309050
Of course infinity can be a number. Do you even extended reals?

I cannae muster enough fucks to care one way or the other. Feels good to have reached Stirnerite ataraxia I guess.

>>5309141
The issue comes down to "Is choice an action?" If "yes," then you're culpable for any death that happens, whether you pull the lever or not. If "no," then you're only culpable for the death of the individual if you pull the lever.

You cannot not make a choice in the trolley problem, you either decide to pull the lever or decide to not pull the lever.

What would Sam Harris do?

Since we're assuming, I'll assume the tram is moving away from the people.

I assume op is a faget.

why is everyone assuming the one pulling the lever is responsible for any deaths?

all blame falls on the one tying them up.

>>5309472
not the tram driver who could clearly stop it in time

>nobody saying to do it halfway and make the tram derail

so what if a guy wears infants as armor and is shooting people.

would it be immoral to stop him with a gun if you had to penetrate the babies to wound him?

>>5307858
>mfw black people protesting are 'rioters' and 'thugs' but white people rioting joe paterno getting fired are just 'wacky sports fans'

I would use my AWESOME MUSCLES to jump in front of the trolley and stop it, thereby saving everyone. Until I threw the trolley up into the air to show how macho I am

>>5307894
no one rides trolleys, so therefore making them crash will only result in the death of one person, at the cost of some useless infrastructure

>>5309010
this is a shill, ignore all shill posts, report shill posts

Al, go to bed.

>>5309035
hard mode: wife got accidentally pregnant but gives amazing and frequent head

>>5309557

What is size and scale?

>>5307166
>all humans are equal
kill the solo clone then. inexpensive I think.

>>5309557
>mfw looters aren't rioters but degenerate oppurtunists

But what if the single person weighed 700 pounds and each of the 5 people weighed 120 pounds? You want to save more human mass right?

>>5308417

^ this

>>5308433
I'm assuming that was meant ironically?

>>5307248
I've never seen this on any of the hundreds of threads across several boards. This. All the way.

>>5307858
top lel