Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Of course, the case could be made that, if the track is currently set to run on the
main line toward the five victims, by doing nothing at all, we are not really killing
them—the trolley and track configuration is doing that. However, if we were to
throw the switch to the siding, we would be
selecting
to kill the one person on it. He
would not have died if we had not been involved, whereas the five people would
have died regardless of whether we were present or not. The deaths of the five peo-
ple are not our responsibility; the death of the one person would be.
Despite being constructed for the purpose of determining dicey propositions
such as those we refer to as “the lesser of two evils,� this form of instinctive moral-
ity does not seem to get covered in Bentham's calculus. Somehow, we would need
to quantify the relative tragedies of their deaths.
When Is a Victim More of a Victim?
Absent from the above problems is any differentiation between the people. They are
all just “victims� in our example. While this makes for simpler calculations—five
deaths is greater that one, for instance—it does seem rather impersonal. We don't
know anything about these people whom we are using as markers in our morbid
decision equation. Are there factors that we have not considered that may make our
simple calculation more complicated? Consider the following:
The five people are all in a van that became stuck on the tracks while transporting
them to a critical care facility for treatment of short-term, terminal illnesses.
Are they less valuable than the person on the siding?
The single person on the siding is a nine-year-old child in perfect health. The
five people on the main line are in their 50s and 60s. Do you sacrifice the one
child to save the five older people?
The five people are all criminals who have committed heinous crime for which
they are serving life sentences. The person on the siding is an average person.
Are the five felons less valuable than one free man?
The one person on the siding is a wealthy, philanthropic benefactor who has
dedicated his life and fortune to helping the poor, sick, and unfortunate. Do
you sacrifice the saint to save the five normal people?
The one person on the siding is a doctor who is the only person who can stop
an outbreak of a deadly virus. Do we sacrifice five people so that the doctor can
potentially save hundreds?
The five people on the main line already have a deadly virus. There is a two-
thirds chance that they may all die anyway—but a one in three chance that they
may all survive. Do we consider the likelihood that they will die and save the
one person for sure?
