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The Train Dilemma


The train dilemma exercise sucks! Understanding that the dilemma is a test, a moral test to see what people would do in no-win situations. I could channel my best Captain Kirk and say that I don’t believe in no-win scenarios, but I’d fail that this specific test because I need to explain myself in what I would do in these tests.

Test #1

I’m a train switchperson and a train is about to hit five children. I could throw the switch and kill one child or take no action and let the train kill five children. What to do? We know from this test that if I do nothing, one child lives. If I do nothing, five children die. If I take action and throw the switch, one child dies because of me. If I take no action and don’t throw the switch, five children die because of me. Looking at it from this vantagepoint, and because both my action and inaction would cause death, I would choose to save the five children. Philosophers have maintained that the intuitive position is that it is acceptable to flip the switch to divert the train, leading to the death of one instead of five (Nichols & Mallon, 2006, p. 531). However, for me, I would not be able to throw the switch and kill the one child. It would be unimaginable to be responsible for an action that killed even one child over no action that took five children. According to traditional rule-based accounts of morality, an action is wrong if it violates a moral rule (Nichols & Mallon, 2006, p. 531). The action of throwing the switch would violate my moral rule of not killing another human.

Test #2

I’m standing at the train platform with an elderly man. If I push him into the train, it will save all the children on the tracks. Will I push him? Another great situation to understand my moral compass. Listen, I can’t bare to think about any scenario where I find myself having to kill someone, either to save another or not. Once again, I’m being asked to sacrifice one person to save five. But again, my action would cause someone to die. Yet again, my inaction would cause give people to die. In the end, I would not be able to push anyone in front of a train, regardless if it were to save more lives. There must be another way.

Test #3

Using the same scenario from test one, except that the one child on the sidetrack is my child. Would I throw the switch now? Earlier I said I wouldn’t throw the switch to save the five children, and I certainly wouldn’t do it now.

If I were to be in these amazingly awful situations, I would find all other available options to save the five children. I understand what these dilemmas are designed to do, so its less about looking for other ways to save lives and more about understanding how and why I would arrive at the conclusions I did. I consider myself a leader but haven’t served in the military and faced sacrificing people for the greater good of the team. Instead, the sacrifices I’ve made as a leader don’t border on such fantastical outcomes. Such leaders call for sacrifice in the pursuit of moral principles and higher goals, validating such altruism by looking beyond the present moment to frame a future worth striving for (Goodwin, pg. 235). I don’t think I could live with myself if I had to make a decision in which the outcome meant blood was on my hands.

References

Goodwin, D.K. (2018). Leadership: In Turbulent Times. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Nichols, S., & Mallon, R. (2006). Moral dilemmas and moral rules. Cognition, 100(3), 530-542. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.07.005

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