I used to think like you until I learned about how ethical frameworks are different when you are being extorted. This trolley problem is a class of extortion because your choices are very limited and out of your control.

For example, it wouldn’t be wrong if someone forced you to steal a package of bubblegum or else they would kill your family and you decided to steal the bubblegum instead of inaction. In this case, it’s better to think of it as the act of saving your family and the extortionist caused the gum to be stolen.

Every day people go through this type of extortion-limited choice when, for example, a couple experiences an ectopic pregnancy where inaction would result in the death of the mother. You aren’t primarily choosing to kill your child, you are choosing to save your wife.

Your point is taken, but I want to point out that an ectopic pregnancy will never become a child (fetal death is guaranteed) and almost always fatal to the mother if not removed.

There have been rare, well-publicized cases where an ectopic pregnancy has been brought to term, but the 1/1000000 chance or whatever it is means it’s often not worth trying. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually humanity has the tech to save these with artificial means.

Cool, now tell this to conservative politicians and evangelicals that still consider the removal of an ectopic pregnancy to be abortion and morally wrong.

In the case of ectopic pregnancy, choosing inaction is absolutely wrong in every possible way.

Inaction means both mother and fetus die. Action means just the fetus dies.

I don't see how you could possibly defend inaction. The fetus is going to die either way.

It’s true it’s context dependent. E.g. the mother may only have 1 day of life remaining for other reasons, in which case saving the child might be preferred.

To pick an extreme but well-known thought experiment. You are walking past a pond, and see a child drowning in it. You glance around and there is nobody else nearby. You could easily jump in and save the child. It will certainly die if you do not.

If you choose to do nothing and ignore the drowning child, are you really not morally responsible in any way for the child's death?

If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world right now, since you didn't do everything in your power to prevent all of them.

You may say that that is the case, but if you're responsible for everything, you may as well be responsible for nothing.

> If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world right now

No, you are morally responsible for every evil happening right in front of you that you could immediately change with little risk to yourself.

For instance if you can't swim and the child is in the middle of the pond, I'd argue you aren't responsible because the risk is too great to yourself.

In fact due to the danger of drowning people pulling you under, I'd argue unless the child is in water shallow enough for you to stand in it's not your moral responsibility to save them.

Though in the situation, I'd probably feel compelled to save them anyway.

> No, you are morally responsible for every evil happening right in front of you that you could immediately change with little risk to yourself.

The problem with this is that you snuck a quantitative difference there and made it sound qualitative. How much risk is "little risk"? What if you could spend all your money and save N people from starvation? There's no risk to you, so are you responsible for their deaths if you don't do it?

What if the child is a bit less likely to pull you under? What if even less than that? Where do you draw the line?

You're never completely free of responsibility, there are just varying degrees.

Why does your presence/proximity carry moral responsibility? Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil?

Heroism (jumping in the pond and saving the child) doesn't imply moral responsibility for the situation.

> Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil?

Assuming the full question is:

> Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil without being responsible to some degree?

No, with the caveats of being mentally and physically able to do something about it of course.

Why not? Why does your presence imply your responsibility? In the given trolly problem, we can infer how events would unfold in your absence. Why does your presence imply they should unfold any differently? Shouldn't responsibility be voluntarily accepted, rather than imposed by default?

How can you impose a duty to fight evil when "evil" itself has no workable concrete definition?

I disagree. There are practical limits to what we are responsible for. And there are current obligations and responsibilities we have for ourselves. Just because we know of something does not make us responsible for it. Proximity and risk also play a role.

I am obligated to my family and to myself. To provide for them as an example. But I would also be able to fly across the world and feed a starving child, in theory. But my obligation to my own family, and myself outweighs that. There would also be risks to the journey. Consequences with those actions as well.

Is this true? I think most of us would say proximity to a situation (and ability to handle it) changes our moral Imperetive. That’s what makes the Trolley problem so… imperfect? It’s hard to say what it extrapolates to every day life, since it’s a situation that would probably never happen.

If you say that proximity does not imply morality, where are you drawing the line? Would family friends and job duties encompass it? Certainly you can’t say that helping your child implies you are responsible for the whole world.

> If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world right now, since you didn't do everything in your power to prevent all of them.

That is my personal take on it. We are all living in sin, in reality we are all full of shit and have only a veneer of ethics.

OK, then go with that: You are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world to the degree that you have the ability to change it.

1st rule of first aid and rescue: "if you think it isn't completely safe, don't do it. Better 1 dies than 2"

You're morally responsible, but it's a different degree of moral responsibility compared to throwing said child into the pond.

Interesting! Do you disagree with the legal traditions that penalize doctors for failure to render aid, even when not at work? Or perhaps that isvlike saying you are actually the (or at least a) trolley switch operator, you just aren't in duty, in which case maybe your position obligates action when it is warranted?

Precisely. I am generally against compelled action of any kind, as it violates mutual consent, a fundamental principle I hold.

A trolley switch operator has explicitly opted in to the responsibility, and consents to same. A bystander has not.

This is why the famous internet video of the trolley problem acted out in the real world was required to offer post-experiment psychological counseling to the test subjects. They had not consented to being placed in a position of responsibility for life safety.

> compelled action of any kind, as it violates mutual consent.

So many of these questions are artificial, and it’s interesting how the legal system gets involved, but to a certain extent I think these questions are meant to describe a persons moral position outside of societies judgement of them. In many of these situations, it’s life and randomness that is putting these people into those situation, not producers of internet videos. I guess if you don’t feel bad your not morally responsible, but if someone was in distress I would feel _compelled_ to act.

I assume by compelled you mean by human forces but I can’t help but compare it to the notion that chance and ‘destiny’ often violate our consent, and compell us to action.

Is it conceivable for you to be placed in a situation where there is no "privileged default"? In other words, a situation where you must choose between two options and there is no option that you can somehow point to as the "no, I refuse to choose" option?