The Death of Non-Interference: A Challenge to Individualism in the Trolley Dilemma
[b]The Death of Non-Interference: A Challenge to Individualism in the Trolley Dilemma[/b]
Introduction
The trolley problem has long stood as a central test case in moral philosophy, pitting consequentialist ethics against deontological individualism. Traditionally, the dilemma arises when a trolley is already hurtling toward three individuals, and one must decide whether to divert it to kill one instead. The deontologist appeals to non-interferencerefusing to take action that directly killseven if it means more will perish. The utilitarian argues for minimizing harm, asserting that killing one to save three is the only rational choice.
But what happens when we reframe the problem? Suppose the trolley is not moving toward anyone until you decide its course. You must direct it either toward three people or toward one person. There is no longer an option to do nothing. Every outcome stems from your deliberate agency.
This reframing radically alters the moral terrain. The shield of passivity collapses, and the philosopher is forced to grapple with the uncomfortable truth: when no option spares all lives, what does morality require?
Collapse of the Passive/Active Distinction
In the classic problem, the deontologist distinguishes between killing and letting die. The three who die are casualties of circumstance, not of deliberate agency. The one who would die if the track is switched, however, would be murdered by intervention.
But in the reframed scenario, both outcomes are active: you must choose whom to kill. There is no neutral path. By eliminating the possibility of inaction, this version strips deontology of its central defense.
The Utilitarian Advantage
Here, utilitarianism appears vindicated. Since one must act, and all acts cause harm, the rational course is to minimize harm by directing the trolley toward one. The calculus is straightforward: fewer deaths are better than more deaths.
Thus, the reframing places the individualist in a corner. No longer able to appeal to the sanctity of non-interference, the individualist ethic risks moral paralysis.
The Challenge to Individualism
This leaves a direct challenge: if every available option involves direct harm, can an individualist ethic survive intact? If rights are inviolable, what does one do when reality forces their violation? Can individualism meaningfully respond, or must it collapse into silence in the face of tragedy?
Questions for Debate
1. If all available options violate rights, can morality demand a choice at all?
2. Does the reframed problem prove that utilitarianism is the only viable framework when non-interference is impossible?
3. Can an individualist ethic survive scenarios where all choices involve direct harm?
4. Is the moral guilt of killing one equal to the moral guilt of killing three, or are outcomes morally significant regardless of principles?
5. Does the reframed trolley problem show that philosophy must move beyond rigid doctrines and toward pluralistic ethics?
Introduction
The trolley problem has long stood as a central test case in moral philosophy, pitting consequentialist ethics against deontological individualism. Traditionally, the dilemma arises when a trolley is already hurtling toward three individuals, and one must decide whether to divert it to kill one instead. The deontologist appeals to non-interferencerefusing to take action that directly killseven if it means more will perish. The utilitarian argues for minimizing harm, asserting that killing one to save three is the only rational choice.
But what happens when we reframe the problem? Suppose the trolley is not moving toward anyone until you decide its course. You must direct it either toward three people or toward one person. There is no longer an option to do nothing. Every outcome stems from your deliberate agency.
This reframing radically alters the moral terrain. The shield of passivity collapses, and the philosopher is forced to grapple with the uncomfortable truth: when no option spares all lives, what does morality require?
Collapse of the Passive/Active Distinction
In the classic problem, the deontologist distinguishes between killing and letting die. The three who die are casualties of circumstance, not of deliberate agency. The one who would die if the track is switched, however, would be murdered by intervention.
But in the reframed scenario, both outcomes are active: you must choose whom to kill. There is no neutral path. By eliminating the possibility of inaction, this version strips deontology of its central defense.
The Utilitarian Advantage
Here, utilitarianism appears vindicated. Since one must act, and all acts cause harm, the rational course is to minimize harm by directing the trolley toward one. The calculus is straightforward: fewer deaths are better than more deaths.
Thus, the reframing places the individualist in a corner. No longer able to appeal to the sanctity of non-interference, the individualist ethic risks moral paralysis.
The Challenge to Individualism
This leaves a direct challenge: if every available option involves direct harm, can an individualist ethic survive intact? If rights are inviolable, what does one do when reality forces their violation? Can individualism meaningfully respond, or must it collapse into silence in the face of tragedy?
Questions for Debate
1. If all available options violate rights, can morality demand a choice at all?
2. Does the reframed problem prove that utilitarianism is the only viable framework when non-interference is impossible?
3. Can an individualist ethic survive scenarios where all choices involve direct harm?
4. Is the moral guilt of killing one equal to the moral guilt of killing three, or are outcomes morally significant regardless of principles?
5. Does the reframed trolley problem show that philosophy must move beyond rigid doctrines and toward pluralistic ethics?
Comments (59)
Didn't interest me.
Why am I obliged to think within the given framework?
Whatever the choice would be, should it violate rights, it would be an immoral choice.
It only proves that one has to remove other options for utilitarianism to be a viable moral framework.
Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track.
I assume killing more people equals more guilt, but then again Ive never killed anyone.
Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question.
You can't.
Quoting NOS4A2
We're talking preference here, not capability.
However, I think such a situation begs a lot of questions:
-how far away from the trolley is the potential victims?
-if killing is wrong, then is saving all of them an option?
-is the lone person tied to the tracks beautiful or famous? (kidding, kidding!)
-do you know any of the people involved?
If the situation were to actually occur, then these would all be considerations, even the shallow one, but sense it's a fictional "right and wrong" then you're not really allowed allowed anything other than choosing fewer deaths, as you said in your post. If someone had misanthropic ethics, they might choose the other option, but I think honestly people would be influenced by who is getting killed. I wonder if anyone has gotten famous because they chose a clear "fewer deaths" option as some have argued for using nuclear bombs in WWII (which is extremely theoretical).
This is something I often think about in my anxious thoughts: if i had to choose between one of my cats or a thousand people, or one of my cats and a family member who i don't really like, what would I choose? For such a thing to come true, i generally imagine it would have to involve some devil/satan type forcing me to make the choice.
And I actually changed the scenario, if you had read it carefully.
that's exactly what i was trying to criticize: real life moral and ethical decisions are complex, laden with fear, laden with shame, laden with politics. The way you are carrying out this exercise insinuates that there can only be one answer,
Quoting Copernicus
i did read that, you made a false assumption ("if you had read it carefully"), and you did so in a seemingly patronizing/insulting manner.
That doesn't add anything to the original problem, but a "must". So is there a satanic figure, or someone holding a gun to your head in this new problem saying "i'm gonna count to 5, and if you don't choose ill kill you!" ?
THAT would add a new dimension to the scenario, not "must".
Principles don't bother with practicalities.
I apologize if you felt that way, that was my informal way of saying "if you have read it carefully, then you should already know what I'm talking about."
Human dialogue, unlike dialogue with AI, implies participation and mutual interest, which builds empathy and a desire for exchange. Before asking questions, in my opinion, some interest in the dialogue is required (unlike with AI). If I'm not mistaken, Aristotle wrote something similar in his "Rhetoric." Regarding your question, before asking about morality or ethics, I recommend inquiring with the author of your notes yourself.
I don't understand. I wrote my notes.
What are the consequences if I dont choose and just do nothing? Will everyone die?
One thing you havent taken into account is liability. When I choose, I take on liability for the consequences. It might not be unreasonable for me to make no choice at all as a way of protecting myself from that liability.
It is not about practical reasoning. If you were given a choice, a hypothetical scenario, or should I say, imperative, what is your preferable choice?
All other things being equal, sure, I would pick the action that lead to the least number of deaths. I dont think that has anything general to say about the two moral options.
It does... In terms of deontological individualism.
It doesnt seem that way to me, but since neither of your options match my understanding of morality, no need for us to take it any further.
Morality, as I understand it, is a contingent code of conduct. I would settle on the option that kills fewer people. The problem, of course, is that the person you kill may well be a brain surgeon, while the ones who live could be three scumbags. I don't theorise much about morality, I act intuitively.
Not necessarily. Suppose A, B, C are on track 1, and D on track 2. The choice of track 1 can be broken down into 3 bundled yet district choices: to run over A, B, and C. The choice to run over A can be judged equivalent to the choice to run over D, and when comparing the track 1 or 2 decision, cancel out. This is consistent: if both tracks contained 1 victim, and one was forced to choose, neither choice would be a murder. But in the example, track 1 can be judged as committing two murders, and track 2, none.
One can maintain this, and yet maintain that non intervention trumps this calculus. I don't agree, but that is not the point.
That's ethics.
Quoting Tom Storm
Understood. Thank you for your time.
Consider the case where the person at the switch was forced to choose between two tracks, each with one person.
In your view, would the deontologist condemn the person at the switch as a murderer, no matter what choice they made?
The Tram Problem, as first articulated by Philippa Foot, concerned double effect; it's not an attempt to juxtapose deontology and utilitarianism. But that's how it is sometimes used in undergrad introductions to ethics. The problem with modal moral quandaries generally is that one can always make them impossible to solve.That's why they make for long and often tedious threads.
Isn't this wonderful? :wink:
There lies the true excellence of humankind. And solving those problems and coming up with a principial solution is the price you pay for the privilege of humanship.
This is no paradox. What is wrong for a deontologist is to choose to kill someone. In the 1 vs. 1 case, the agent isn't choosing to kill. He is forced to kill. He is only choosing to kill one person or another. This choice may carry no particular moral weight to the deontologist.
What about simply being compelled to kill someone? As in, someone overpowers you, and physically forces you to press a button that results in a death. Is this a "paradox" to the deontologist?
You seem to be arguing against a mentally crippled version of deontology.
The key point here is not the action itself, but the preference (even "choice" isn't the right word).
Quoting hypericin
That is a completely different scenario because we're trying to contrast again consequentialism here.
1. Why not? It seems plausible that some rights are more important than others.
2. Prove is a very strong word to use in debates like this. But it does not even necessarily support utilitarianism in my opinion. Not all deontological moral theories are absolute in the sense that it is always wrong to violate a right. Sometimes, the consequences are just more important than rights (but not always). W.D. Ross' prima facie duties theory is an example of a more moderate deontology, which I happen to prefer.
3. Yes, why not?
4. If you mean guilt the emotion, I would probably feel more guilty killing three people than one. Except in cases like the organ harvesting case.
5. I don't think the reframed trolley problem shows that philosophy MUST move beyond rigid doctrines (since utilitarianism is one of them, and this does not refute utilitarianism). However, I am in favor of moving toward pluralistic ethics.
How so? If you bring it down to numbers then you're a utilitarianist.
Quoting 83nt0n
That's literally the core of utilitarianism.
Quoting 83nt0n
Then what is the solution?
Quoting 83nt0n
There you go. Numbers.
Quoting 83nt0n
I see. I also think situational (contextual) morality is the way to go, except it has the most basic philosophical/legal flaw (who concludes and judges the affairs as rightful of wrongful?), the same reason why we have codified laws above court's scope for contextual judgement.
It seems to me that the right to life is more important than the right to not be offended. This does not 'bring it down to numbers'.
Quoting Copernicus
I disagree. Utilitarianism involves the claim that consequences are the only morally relevant consideration. I am saying that consequences are important, sometimes the most important, but not the only important moral consideration.
Quoting Copernicus
If all choices involve direct harm and violate rights in the same way, then minimize the harm.
Quoting Copernicus
Right. In this case, it is just numbers. But not all moral cases come down to numbers.
Quoting Copernicus
Yeah unfortunately I don't really see a way around that. We can have laws that apply to most cases, but there's always gonna be some situation that the law has not considered yet, so it may have to be left to the discretion of a court.
Yes. Both party's.
Quoting 83nt0n
Not to deontological individualists.
The kind of deontology I endorse is Ross' intuitionism, which acknowledges the importance of consequences. SEP page: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/william-david-ross/
At 14:59:53 o'clock, a man, charged with serious crime and sentenced to immediate death-by-sniper-bullet by 15:00:00 o'clock, is on the rooftop holding a child's hand who is about to fall if not pulled up (the whole thing could take at least 20 seconds).
Would you execute justice (legal, not your conscientious) or wait to save the falling child?
I would wait for the child to be saved.
Since the intention is to save five, not to kill one, then in this case the utilitarian solution is the same as the deontological one.
Problem solved.
Since when did categorical morality depend on intentions?
One might say categorical morality depends on intentions, iff the agency in possession of an autonomous, self-determinant will, respects, without exception, such law as practical reason provides as legislation for its volitions. Respects the law without exception, makes explicit the fully voluntary intention to be obligated by it.
Deontological moral doctrine, which can be considered synonymous with categorical morality, doesnt concern itself with saving, but only with the conditions for eliminating causal necessity for it.
...follows principles (accepted doctrines) and principles only. Intent, approval don't matter.
A categorical moralist is a robotic person who's programmed to execute principled actions only and forfeits any free will that may sabotage the execution.
If a moral agent conditioned by deontological predicates doesnt intent to be obligated by them, he is logically self-contradictory with regard to reason, and morally inept with regard to conscience, from which follows necessarily, that his intention regarding his moral principles, matters. Approval, on the other hand, is irrelevant.
Deontological doctrine doesnt follow principles; it determines the origin of them and thereby what they may be. The acts, whatever they may be, judged as necessary for the properly deontological moral agent, follows them. Or, follows from them.
Anyway ..my two cents.
Categorical morality is textual. Whatever is doctrinized must be followed. Much like the chain of command in the military.
Since Aquinas.
Summa Theologiae III, q.18, a.4.
Morality depends on what the will chooses as an end.
If the soldiers don't intend to follow orders there's not much point being in the army.
I certainly didnt mean to describe situational morality; not even sure what that is.
Im just saying that even though that which is doctrinized must be followed, in accordance with a categorically conditioned moral philosophy, the contrariness of human nature itself, only becomes offset by the intention to follow.
Im arguing that intention matters, insofar as without it, categorical morality, even while being a justified doctrine, is worthless without those actions determined by it alone. The ideal moral agent will always follow the categorical moral principles, which speaks to affirmation of his intent, but the ideality of any moral agent, merely from his basic human nature, is always contingent on circumstance, which speaks to the negation of his intent.
Not in categorical morality, sorry.
Tell that to your fellow militants. I'm a colonel and you're a sergeant and I shout "attention", you must comply. Same with principles and actions.
Whatever that may be, it's not categorical morality (adherence to rigid principles).
I begin to suspect that you are arguing against a strawman here.
I don't think any deontological theorist would define "categorical morality" in the way you are doing.
For Aquinas, for example, all three of: intention, object and circumstances; must align with right reason, in order for the act to be moral.
Even Kant, the ultimate deontologist, elevated Aquinas' "intention" into a categorical "duty".
Aquinas would say that principles are not like commands shouted by a superior - they are expressions of reason itself.
Id agree if categorical morality was a thing. But it isnt; it is only a doctrine describing the justifications for the possibility for a thing. It is a product of pure practical reason, having no validity otherwise.
Just as in any metaphysical thesis.
-
Quoting Colo Millz
.just like that.
I see principles as constitutional amendments.
The job of philosophy is to codify morals (doctrinate) with propositional arguments and then come to a conclusion (finalized principle).
The job of the state is to put that into the constitution.
Justice should be governed by principles, not populism or logic (empirical or personal).