The first time I heard of the famous trolley problem, I was so quick to say I was definitely going to choose the 5 people over the one. But I didn’t even have any reason. I just said what I felt was right.
Now that I’ve been analyzing it for a while after seeing the current prompt, I’ve been having a lot considerations. I began thinking about the people involved. What if the person I’m choosing the five people over is my son, my sister or my mom? Would I still choose the five people over my mom? my son? my brother? Sigh.
The answer is still yes and my reason is just simple. For me, five people means five families. Choosing five people means I’m saving five families from going through the pain of losing someone. And as someone who has lost a relative before and knows how painful it is, I would save the five families from going through that.
Another point of view is about the generations involved. Nobody indeed knows tomorrow but all things being equal, five people means five different generations. If they are old people, it’s different but for young people, they are now about to grow and then live life. So why not save the five generations other than just one?
The only exception I have on this matter which would let me save the one person instead of the five people is if the one person is a kid or a young person and the five people are way old. I think it’s safe to say that those old people would have already enjoyed their life as compared to the young one.
The motive behind my actions and thought is all about doing the greater good. From my perspective, saving the five depending on the factors I’ve discussed above will be doing more good as compared to the one and vice versa. I don’t think I will be able to live with myself knowing very well I could have saved at least a life but still stood on to watch. So of course, I’ll skip “not doing anything”
Image is mine
