The Trolley Dilemma: Right and Wrong Reimagined in Grayscale

***Author's Note: I began writing this early in 2014, and have recently attempted to rejuvenate my long lost blog as part of a therapeutic effort to find some sense of purpose in this world. I had seven (7!) unfinished drafts that I'd started long ago covering all sorts of random shit that I like to discuss and ponder. In breathing life back into this thing, I began with this one, mostly because my feelings on the subject haven't changed a bit, and I'm still as captivated as ever by the subject matter. If it starts to sound a tiny bit preachy part way through, don't worry, I fall back away from it. It's never my intention to sound like I'm speaking down from an elevated and exalted throne... I think the opposite is true. Most people who know me would verify that I don't put myself above anybody (even going to far as to struggle with self-esteem and value and worth from time to time, as many of us do). If this starts to sound like a lesson in right and wrong, remember that my central point is simply that the world would probably benefit from people being a little more open minded. 

And that's an argument I simply won't concede to anybody. 

Enjoy :)

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A few years ago, I opened some sort of super sciency magazine... Scientific American, or Discover, or Popular Science, or Only Slightly Less Popular Science, or Science Illustrated, or Science Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition... and my entire life changed.

That's not to say that this event was unique in and of itself; I'd opened lots of these magazines before because, well... I, um... nerd. I touched on this briefly in the conclusion of my very first blog, the one that I wrote god knows how long ago titled "Overture," the topics of conversation I find most interesting are those that have no truly objective answers. Thus, I couldn't help but flip to the article previewed on the cover regarding moral dilemmas. Several were used as examples, but the article referred primarily to one in specific: The Trolley Problem.

Despite being introduced all the way back in 1967, the Trolley Problem remains as perplexing as ever. And if it doesn't start that way for you, the most fascinating aspect of this particular dilemma is that I can make it that way. It begins very simply, but rapidly accelerates to nothing short of absolutely maddening. There are countless variations of the original dilemma (and some of them are downright brutal... we'll get to those later), but it tends to go something like this:

- A trolley is careening out of control down the tracks. Trapped on the tracks (for whatever goddamn reason, just go with it) are 5 innocent workers who will certainly be killed when the trolley reaches them. You are standing at a lever with the power to flip the trolley to a track where only one innocent worker will meet his demise. Do you pull the lever?

STOP SCREAMING I CAN'T THINK WHILE YOU'RE SCREAMING.

Seems easy enough, right? If you don't think twice about pulling the lever because saving five is better than saving one, you probably adhere to a system of beliefs known as Utilitarianism,  which (basically) says the best course of action, or the "right" action, is the action which provides the best outcome for the most people involved. At first glance, it's hard to argue with this decision. That is, at least, until some asshole scientist asking you these questions changes one little detail and turns the world upside down (almost literally, as you'll see in a moment).

In this instance, I am that scientist who is here to fuck your shit up, and I'm just getting started. 

Here is a variation:

- The same trolley is careening down the tracks, but this time you are standing on a footbridge above the tracks. There is no switch, and there is only one track. What you DO have is access to one very fat man who happens to be large enough to stop, or at least derail, the trolley. You know this because you're a scientist, or something, and have no doubt that his sheer mass is the only thing you have access to that is capable of saving the lives of the five innocents on the track. It looks something like this:

"Sir, these assholes are screaming about something. This is no 
time for a back massaaaAAAAHHHHH..."

Piece of cake again, right? RIGHT???

Not quite, apparently. In 2007, forty years after the original problem was introduced, a massive survey was conducted by a couple psychologists, whose main finding was that this problem is still as difficult to explain today as it was in 1967. Remember that comment about researchers changing one thing and flipping the world upside down? Dramatic, sure, but look at what happened:

- Of the participants who were asked if they would pull the switch to save the five lives, 89 percent said that yes, they would sacrifice the one life in favor of the larger group. 

- Of the participants who were asked if they would shove the fat man over the edge of the footbridge, 89 percent said NO, they would not shove the man to his death. 

That, my friends, is what researchers like to call a "statistically significant difference," although I think that when a difference is THAT significant, a more accurate label would be "complete and total mindfuck." 

2007 wasn't the first time this difference was observed, however. It's been going on for nearly fifty years now, and the results aren't changing. But what's causing the discrepancy? The consensus seems to involve a couple of phenomena; namely, the problem of "intimacy," and the problem of "action vs. inaction." There are a few things going on here, but at its core, the simplest explanation is basically that most people are very basic pseudo-Utilitarians until it involves getting your hands dirty. 

The latter, the problem of action vs. inaction, is essentially a convenient copout for a nasty situation like the ones I've described. One thing human beings tend to be particularly skilled at is rewriting and/or restructuring their thoughts to fit their own personal narrative in a manner that pleases them more and pains them less. Although the result can be identical, in a negative situation one can often find comfort in the notion that this is a confounding enough circumstance that there is no way they should be the one to decide. Their hands are tied here. In a scenario like those described above, it's not their place to decide. To do nothing would be to inactively allow death for those who were already going to die. However, to do something would be to actively cause death for somebody who didn't have to die. If you do nothing, a madman has killed several people. If you do something, you will have very directly caused somebody to die who would not have before.

Again, this is not me arguing that one of these is right or wrong. In fact, I don't have the answer, which is why I love the question so much. This is just a demonstration of the types of rationalization that occurs when one is faced with a particularly nasty/powerful/effective dilemma. These are the things you tell yourself to justify your decision - your action or inaction - as you work to fit this bizarre situation into your personal narrative in a way that meshes. Unless you're a mental masochist, your rationale will attempt to minimize grief and guilt while maximizing positive feelings like pride and self-satisfaction. In simpler terms, upon reviewing the situation, you'd like to be able to look yourself in the mirror and believe you did the right thing - that you're as morally sexy as you absolutely of course are physically, you irresistible devil, you.

The former, the problem of intimacy, is rooted, as you can probably guess, much deeper in emotion than rational thought. Much like the thought patterns of a certain gender accused of being more caring and nurturing (you know who you are), emotional decisions can lead to less than optimal outcomes as defined by Utilitarian ethics (not to mention text messages we SO wish we could unsend... Ok, guys aren't perfect either). 

All joking aside, there were no significant gender differences in the results of the study involving the fat man. The truth is, when it comes to getting up close and personal with death, ALL people have a much more difficult time letting logic win out... At that point, your action becomes much more intimate, and, thus, controlled far more heavily by the emotional centers of your brain. But even these can be tricked sometimes by changing yet another small detail. Imagine the following variation:

- Same problem as before, but instead of pushing the fat man over the edge, you are standing at a distance from him with a lever that controls a trap door under his feet. If you pull the lever, the fat man will fall, as before, into the path of the trolley, thereby saving the five people on the track. 

When they introduced this minor variation (that still resulted in the death of the fat man), roughly thirty percent (or almost three times the original number) said they WOULD pull the lever, while the other seventy percent said they would not pull it. Not only that, but they found that the further from the fat man they placed the lever in the scenario, the easier it was for participants to decide they would pull it. Again, as is true in most areas of our lives, proximity plays a major role in intimacy, and intimacy breeds emotion, and emotion can cloud decision making. 

Don't get me wrong... I'm not trying to argue that humans would be better off without emotions. The opposite seems true to me, as they add an aesthetic value to life that can't be measured by the same standards of objectivity as their more rational counterparts; they're one of the very things that make life beautiful (except on Mondays... Feelings are always ugly on Mondays).

I am, however, saying that I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to acknowledge that they can definitely cloud the more objective semi-clarity that comes with thinking rationally. Brains are a funny thing; we're the smartest creatures on earth right up until the point that we're not. We can't help it. Our maker - be it an all-powerful deity or the mere inevitability of time and chance - programmed us to think and feel. It is with a noticeable measure of remorse that, as promised, I have to exploit that simple axiom right... about... meow.

Pictured: an angry, scratchy, bitey clock... and time's up.

The truth is not everybody struggles with the above scenarios. Many people have pretty clear cut ideas about the way they would behave in these instances, as well as why they would do that. Ninety-nine percent of people fall into a couple simple and relatable categories. To summarize:

1) It's best to act, as I'll save more people (Utilitarianism). Or,

2) It's best not to get involved because it's not my place to alter the fates of these people (don't even get me started on my interpretation of fate... This is just me recapping what survey participants said above). 

While each outcome may not be ideal, some people have strong feelings about which course of action would be better. Just ask them - they'll tell you. Which is why it's so much fun to alter certain details. For example:

*note: in the following THEORETICAL examples, you are somehow aware of the circumstances of each of these individuals. How you are aware of these things is not important. We're playing here, people. This is an exercise in thought - nothing more. Here we go:

- Imagine you're the type of person who would absolutely normally save five people over one without thinking twice, except in this example the single person is your mother. Or father. Or husband or wife. Son? Daughter? Niece or nephew? Best friend? Close friend? Close friend that you recently fought with, but have overall fond memories of? Girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend (and did it end good or bad)? Coworker you enjoy? Anybody you just happen to know or have met? And for how long have you known them? Or maybe you've never met them, but it happens to be the pope. Or Mother Teresa. Or the president of the United States...

Oh god fucking dammit. Nevermind. Flip the track. Hard.

The point is this: how does a Utilitarian define the value of life? There are an infinite number of variations of the basic Trolley Dilemma that make this a whole lot more difficult to decide objectively. What if some of the members of the group of five are murderers? Mass-murderers? Rapists? The next Hitler? 

Let's get even nastier... What if they're good, innocent human beings who were in an accident and have no brain function? What if they're in a coma and have a 75% chance of fully recovering someday? A 40% chance? A 95% chance, but not for another ten years? A 50% chance within the next week? 

What if four of the five are serial killers, but you know the other one is a doctor who has just discovered the cure for cancer (and was apparently kidnapped before he could write it down - I don't fucking know - remember these are just hypotheticals, people - the important thing is to just think about it without saying "Sorry, couldn't really happen."). 

Thus, we stumble across the biggest problem with basic Utilitarianism. There is no system out there (that I'm aware of) that is able to determine the relative objective value of any one person in a manner that takes into account more than mere monetary worth. Even then you can poke holes in that figure by wondering exactly how they impact those around them - are they selfish and do they exist in isolation, or do they have a substantial influence on others, and to what degree exactly? It's a wormhole of a discussion that no person is even remotely capable of fully comprehending - not you, not me, not Stephen Hawking, and DEFINITELY not the president of the united states (a phrase I'm no longer capitalizing as a personal choice). 

So we find, of course, that life is not exactly like a game of Stratego, where pieces (in this case, people) are easily assigned a nice even value or worth on an arbitrary scale of one to ten. What may very well be the right choice (or really "less wrong" feels more appropriate for these situations) for one person could easily horrify another. "You chose to save your own son? The only thing he's ever successfully done is staple his homework to himself..." "YOU BITCH." Etcetera and so on. 

But it gets worse. The Trolley Dilemma is just one example of a broad category of morally ambiguous situations or examples that are used in discussions of the true nature of right and wrong. Another popular one is as follows:

 - You are a Jew (remember, if you're not really, just imagine) in a region of Europe being invaded by A-hole Hitler and the rest of the understatedly unpopular Nazi regime during World War II. You and a group of twenty or so other Jewish refugees are hiding in a secret room above or below or beside or within a house, hidden extremely well from sight while a group of German soldiers search the premises. You are confident in your group's ability to remain undetected until, all of a sudden, an infant in your group begins to cry. The only way to stifle the sounds of dissatisfaction coming from the undeniably adorable little one is to smother it (or otherwise act in such a manner as to quiet the baby instantly - nothing pleasant comes to mind here), which will surely bring about an abrupt and all-too-soon end to its life. If you do nothing, the soldiers will surely hear the cries and kill everybody in your group, infant included. What do you do?

Remember, this is a thought exercise. Your options are limited. This is not a MacGyver situation where you get to ask me if there are any three of the following four objects in the room, and you manage to create a cloaking device or forcefield or helicopter or Nazi-terminating robot in the 15 seconds you have  before the enemy pinpoints your exact location and opens fire.

***Author's Note: I am not saying that MacGyver couldn't pull this off. I am saying that, for the purposes of this exercise, you can't. Even if somehow I actually get MacGyver to read this blog. #bloggoals

And of course there are an infinite number of variations to this scenario as well. What if the child was yours? What if there were one hundred people in the room, instead of just twenty? What if the Nazis were really bad, and had a habit of torturing Jews for no reason before killing them? What? That last one's actually pretty much a certainty? Oh, yes. I do remember that now. They were not good people.

Fashionable, sure. But no, not good. 

***Author's Note: we apologize for trying to make light of such a dark period in human history, but it's really all we know how to do. And that is one of my favorite pictures... Ever. It belongs in my blog.

But we get the point, I think. What would you do if presented with the unimaginable decision I've just impolitely asked you to imagine? For you, what choice here is relatively moral when compared with its alternative? What circumstances would make you change your mind? 

And - real talk - are you able to imagine, somehow, that this may not be the same in the mind of somebody else?

There is an absolutely profound parable that was first introduced to me in a clip from the unbelievably underrated film "Charlie Wilson's War." With minor variations in verbiage, it goes as follows:

  - On his 14th birthday, a boy in a village is given a horse as a present. Everybody in the village says, "Isn't that great? What a wonderful gift!"

And the village Zen master says, "We'll see."

A couple years later, they boy falls off his horse and severely breaks his leg. Everybody in the village says, "How awful! Isn't that terrible?"

And the Zen master says, "We'll see."

A short time later, the country is drawn into war. All the men and older boys in the village are summoned to fight except for the boy, as his leg is still too damaged. Everybody in the village says, "How wonderful! He doesn't have to go to war!"

And the Zen master says, "We'll see."

Of course, the basic backbone of this sort of story allows it to go on well into eternity. The point, however, is that it's worth examining, in a time when rapid judgment reigns supreme in the department of human impulses, that things are almost never as black and white as they can initially seem. Too many people far too often fall to one extreme or the other in their interpretations of various events, creating an inherent system of "us" and "them" and "we" and "they," as opposed to a more natural multidirectional spectrum with graduated but overlapping qualities being the deservedly dominant feature. 

But I digress... This wasn't intended to be a lecture on life so much as it was a discussion starter regarding the natural and unavoidable ambiguity of morality and its related concepts. While the reasonable among us hope and pray to avoid situations like the above dilemmas, discussions about these sorts of things can lead to insight and wisdom that can be applied to more realistic situations with similarly perplexing framework. 

Most importantly, right and wrong start and switch at different places for different people. Thoughts and actions are not easily separated into two black and white categories; they fall along a continuum at various points depending on the lenses of the observers and the mitigating factors involved. 

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I saw that differently."

Of course society does what it can to define right and wrong as well as it reasonably can. There are rules in place, and they're generally important and often effective (well, sometimes, kind of... ish). Without getting started on the American judicial system, crimes are generally crimes for a reason. Even then, however, it's not uncommon to feel sympathy for a criminal in a particular instance. When presented with those circumstances, perhaps you may have acted similarly (as a pop culture reference, "A Time to Kill" comes to mind here). While this obviously isn't always the case, it can absolutely be used to again illustrate the elusiveness of an exact definition of right and wrong. 

But in case you were wondering, the jury nailed it this time. Carl Lee Hailey absolutely deserved to hit those assholes with a trolley.

And if you say otherwise, well, you're just plain wrong.