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This is a course about Justice and we begin with a story

suppose you're the driver of a trolley car,

and your trolley car is hurtling down the track at sixty miles an hour

and at the end of the track, you notice five workers working on the track

you tried to stop but you can't

your brakes don't work

you feel desperate because you know

that if you crash into these five workers

they will all die

let's assume you know that for sure

and so you feel helpless

until you notice that there is

off to the right

a side track

at the end of that track

there's one worker

working on track

your steering wheel works

so you can turn the trolley car if you want to

onto this side track

killing the one

but sparing the five.

Here's our first question

what's the right thing to do?

What would you do?

Let's take a poll,

how many would

turn the trolley car onto the side track? raise your hand.

How many wouldn't?

How many would go straight ahead

keep your hands up, those of you who'd go straight ahead.

A handful of people would, the vast majority would turn

let's hear first

now we need to begin to investigate the reasons why you think it's the right thing to do.

Let's begin with those in the majority, who would turn

to go onto side track?

Why would you do it,

what would be your reason?

Who's willing to volunteer a reason?

Go ahead, stand up.

Because it can't be right to kill five people when you can only kill one person instead.

it wouldn't be right to kill five

if you could kill one person instead

that's a good reason

that's a good reason

who else?

does everybody agree with that reason?

Go ahead.

Well I was thinking it was the same reason as it was on 9/11

we regard the people who flew the plane

who flew the plane into the

Pennsylvania field as heroes

because they chose to kill the people on the plane

and not kill more people in big buildings.

So the principle there was the same on 9/11

it's a tragic circumstance,

but better to kill one so that five can live

is that the reason most of you have, those of you who would turn, yes?

Let's hear now

from those in the minority

those who wouldn't turn. Yes.

Well I think that's same type of mentality that justifies genocide and totalitarianism

in order to save one type of race you wipe out the other.

so what would you do in this case? You would

to avoid

the horrors of genocide

you would crash into the five and kill them?

Presumably yes. You would？Yeah.

okay who else?

That's a brave answer, thank you.

Let's consider another

trolley car case

and see whether

those of you in the majority

want to adhere to the principle,

better that one should die so that five should live.

This time you're not the driver of the trolley car, you're an onlooker

standing on a bridge overlooking a trolley car track

and down the track comes a trolley car

at the end of the track are five workers

the brakes don't work

the trolley car is about to careen into the five and kill them

and now

you're not the driver

you really feel helpless

until you notice

standing next to you

leaning over the bridge

is a very fat man.

And you could

give him a shove

he would fall over the bridge

onto the track

right in the way of the trolley car

he would die

but he would spare the five.

Now, how many would push

the fat man over the bridge? Raise your hand.

How many wouldn't?

Most people wouldn't.

Here's the obvious question, what became of the principal

better to save five lives even if it means sacrificing one, what became of the principal

that almost everyone endorsed in the first case

I need to hear from someone who was in the majority in both cases

how do you explain the difference between the two? yes.

The second one I guess involves an active choice of pushing a person down

which I guess that

that person himself would otherwise not have been involved in the situation at all

and so

to choose on his behalf I guess to

involve him in something that he otherwise would have escaped is

I guess more than

what you have in the first case where

the three parties, the driver and the two sets of workers, are

already I guess in this situation.

but the guy working, the one on the track off to the side

he didn't choose to sacrifice his life any more than the fat guy did, did he?

That's true, but he was on the tracks.

this guy was on the bridge.

Go ahead, you can come back if you want.

Alright, it's a hard question

but you did well you did very well it's a hard question.

who else

can find a way of reconciling the reaction of the majority in these two cases? Yes?

Well I guess

in the first case where

you have the one worker and the five

it's a choice between those two,

and you have to make a certain choice and people are going to die because of the trolley car

not necessarily because of your direct actions. The trolley car is on a runway,

then you need to make in a split second choice

whereas pushing the fat man over is an actual act of murder on your part

you have control over that

whereas you may not have control over the trolley car.

So I think that it's a slightly different situation.

Alright who has a reply? Is that, who has a reply to that? no that was good, who has a way

who wants to reply?

Is that a way out of this?

I don't think that's a very good reason because you choose

either way you have to choose who dies because you either choose to turn and kill a person which is an act of conscious

thought to turn,

or you choose to push the fat man

over which is also an active

conscious action so either way you're making a choice.

Do you want to reply?

Well I'm not really sure that that's the case, it just still seems kind of different, the act of actually

pushing someone over onto the tracks and killing him,

you are actually killing him yourself, you're pushing him with your own hands, you're pushing and

than steering something that is going to cause death into another...you know

it doesn't really sound right saying it now when I'm up here.

No that's good, what's your name?

Andrew.

Andrew and let me ask you this question Andrew,

suppose

standing on the bridge

next to the fat man

I didn't have to push him, suppose he was standing

over a trap door that I could open by turning a steering wheel like that

would you turn it?

For some reason that still just seems more

more wrong.

I mean maybe if you just accidentally like leaned into this steering wheel or something like that

or but,

or say that the car is

hurtling towards a switch that will drop the trap

then I could agree with that.

Fair enough, it still seems

wrong in a way that it doesn't seem wrong in the first case to turn, you say

And in another way, I mean in the first situation you're involved directly with the situation

in the second one you're an onlooker as well.

So you have the choice of becoming involved or not by pushing the fat man.

Let's forget for the moment about this case,

that's good,

but let's imagine a different case. This time you're doctor in an emergency room

and six patients come to you

they've been in a terrible trolley car wreck

five of them sustained moderate injuries, one is severely injured. you could spend all day

caring for the one severely injured victim,

but in that time the five would die, or you could look after the five, restore them to health, but

during that time the one severely injured person would die.

How many would save the five now as the doctor?

How many would save the one?

Very few people,

just a handful of people.

Same reason I assume,

one life versus five.

Now consider

another doctor case

this time you're a transplant surgeon

and you have five patients each in desperate need of an organ transplant in order to survive

on needs a heart, one a lung,

one a kidney,

one a liver

and the fifth

a pancreas.

And you have no organ donors you are about to see them die

and then

it occurs to you that in the next room there's a healthy guy who came in for a checkup.

and he is...

you like that

and he's taking a nap

you could go in very quietly

yank out the five organs, that person would die

but you can save the five.

How many would do it? Anyone?

How many? Put your hands up if you would do it.

Anyone in the balcony?

You would? Be careful don't lean over too much

How many wouldn't?

All right.

What do you say, speak up in the balcony, you who would

yank out the organs, why?

I'd actually like to explore slightly alternate possibility of just taking the one of the five who needs an organ who dies first, and using their four

healthy organs to save the other four

That's a pretty good idea.

That's a great idea

except for the fact

that you just wrecked the philosophical point.

Let's step back from these stories and these arguments to notice a couple of things

about the way the arguments have began to unfold.

Certain moral principles have already begun to emerge from the discussions we've had

and let's consider

what those moral principles look like

the first moral principle that emerged from the discussion said

the right thing to do the moral thing to do

depends on the consequences that will result from your action

at the end of the day

better that five should live

even if one must die.

That's an example of consequentialist moral reasoning.

consequentialist moral reasoning locates morality in the consequences of an act.

In the state of the world that will result from the thing you do

but then we went a little further, we considered those other cases

and people weren't so sure about consequentialist moral reasoning

when people hesitated

to push the fat man

over the bridge

or to yank out the organs of the innocent patient

people gestured towards

reasons having to do with the intrinsic quality of the act itself.

Consequences be what they may.

People were reluctant

people thought it was just wrong

categorically wrong to kill a person, an innocent person

even for the sake

of saving

five lives, at least these people thought that

in the second version of each story we reconsidered

so this points