Applying Systems of Ethics to The Trolley Problem

by elainadiamond3033gmailcom (student)

AS and A Level Religious Studies & Philosophy

The Individual and Society Final Project

12/12/21

For my final project, I chose to focus on applying utilitarian reasoning, and existentialist reasoning, to the trolley problem. I have been interested in the trolley problem for a while, as I believe it has a lot of different interesting aspects in the areas of psychology, philosophy, and sociology. These subjects intertwine a lot in the study of the individual and how they interact with their society, which, I believe, makes this topic a perfect study for this course. The trolley problem is a classic philosophical debate question: a trolley is coming down the tracks, on course to hit five people who are tied to the tracks. You have the ability to pull a lever that would divert the trolley onto a separate set of tracks, however, on the alternate set of tracks, one person is tied directly in the path of the trolley. Do you pull the lever, and become directly involved in the death of one individual, while saving the lives of five, or do you not pull the lever, and let the trolley stay on course, killing the five individuals? I chose to focus on two different particular systems of ethics that we discussed this semester; utilitarianism and existentialism. By analyzing the core values of each of these systems of ethics, I came up with what I believe an individual that believed in each of these systems would think of as the solution to the trolley problem.

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Utilitarianism is a system of ethics that is focused on what the consequences of actions are, and how they affect the greater good of society. Utilitarians advocate for the choices that result in the greatest amount of happiness and usefulness for the most individuals. There is not necessarily any specific code by which to determine actions as moral or immoral; as the morality of different actions is moreso based on their consequences, and could have varying degrees of morality in different situations that result in different consequences. My initial thought was that a utilitarian would always pull the lever in order to save the five people; as five human lives would be more useful than one. However, as I pondered this thought, I realized that for a utilitarian, the consequences of this action could vary based on many different specifics. In delving deeper on the subject and considering variations of the original problem, I could see how utilitarian reasoning would change. However, I concluded that based on the core values of utilitarianism, usually, a utilitarian would choose to pull the lever and save five people, at the expense of one life.

Existentialism is based on the idea that life has no meaning until the individual assigns meaning to their life. Individuals are at their own free will to make decisions and there is no universally applied moral code of right or wrong. Essentially, the individual should be ready to accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions, and if they can make peace with this responsibility, then they have done what is correct for themselves, as an individual, under those circumstances. Given this explanation, how an existentialist would find the solution to the trolley problem is a bit more complicated. Basically, it would depend on the individual’s schema, or acquired understanding of how the world works based on their surroundings and upbringing, to make this choice. They would be inclined to make a choice one way or the other, though, considering that a core value of existentialism is to accept responsibility rather than trying to avoid it.

The trolley problem is a problem which the answer to varies based on the system of ethics that is applied by an individual to the problem. It was interesting to dive deeper into a philosophical problem that has been a topic of such great interest to me, as well as to apply the different systems of ethics that we have learned about over the semester. Personally, I tend to take a different approach to this problem; as I believe all human lives are equal, and therefore five lives is always greater than one. This belief most closely aligns with utilitarianism, although it does still vary slightly as usefulness could vary from individual to individual based on their capacity to contribute to society. The trolley problem is a really interesting way to learn about philosophy and human nature, as well as how the two interact and are intertwined.