The Most Optimal Solution for the Trolley Dilemma: Doing Nothing

By 이세린

The trolley dilemma, also known as the trolley problem, is one of the most famous ethical dilemmas that is still discussed today. Introduced by Philippa Foot, a philosopher who claimed that moral judgments have a rational basis, the trolley problem puts us on a railroad track. There are five workers there and a trolley is heading toward them. You happen to have a switch that can divert the trolley to another track that has only one worker. What will you do? 

In one survey, 90% of the respondents said that it was okay to flip the switch since that only lets one person die instead of five. The results were similar in experiments done in virtual reality. This decision is based on utilitarianism, an ethical philosophy that suggests the happiness of the most people matters the most and that’s what ethics are for. The respondents chose to save five people instead of one because the happiness of five people is greater than that of just one person. Even though it means sacrificing one’s life, the five lives outweigh one. However, people don’t always take utilitarian thoughts into consideration as you can see with the next ethical dilemma.

We are now on a bridge with one heavy man in front of us. Beneath the bridge is a railroad track and five workers are there. Again, the trolley is coming towards them, but the only way to save them is to push the man in front of you to the track. The man is big enough to stop the trolley. Now, what will you do?

If people still went on with the utilitarian view, it would only be rational to push the man to save five, resulting in the same result as the previous trolley dilemma. However, only about 10% of the people responded that it was fine to push him, meaning that utilitarian thoughts didn’t work out here. Then, what’s the difference between pushing a lever to condemn a worker to death and pushing someone off the bridge? Well, our moral instincts tell us that something is just wrong about causing someone’s death with our own hands rather than indirectly doing it.

So then, what could be the best solution to the trolley problem? That is, in my opinion, to leave the trolley alone. Although in the original dilemma I may not be the deliberate cause of that one worker, I’m still responsible for his death as I’m the one who made the trolley go to himself. On the other hand, if I do nothing in such a situation, I gain no responsibility for any of the workers’ death as no matter which choice I made, someone would always die and I wasn’t the one responsible for the trolley heading to the workers in the first place. The five workers’ deaths were bound to happen nevertheless. Also because however many people there are on the track everyone’s lives are the same, it doesn’t matter that there are five people on one track and just one on the other as both have the same value. This means whichever side you choose, the outcome will always be the same: the death of people. Then, what about the first variation of the trolley dilemma? The answer is the same. If I push the man, I would be the direct cause of his murder but if I do nothing, I stay clean since there was nothing I could do about the five workers.

Let’s add another variation to this dilemma. The situation is similar to the original trolley problem but this time, that one person on the track is someone you love and the five are strangers or even criminals. The trolley is heading towards your love. What would you do? Though this may sound intensely cold, the best solution is to do nothing. Even if that means I would save five murderers and lose the one I love, flipping the switch would mean that I’m saving that one person solely because I love him: It’s a selfish and immoral decision.

There are so many other variations to this dilemma and they are still one of the hottest topics in ethics and psychology. One thing we have to pay attention to is that the choice we make heavily depends on factors rather than logical, objective weighing on pros and cons. That is why, as we saw, the results were different depending on the variations. These ethical dilemmas don’t really have a correct answer. Why not take a moment to think about these and express your own thoughts?