The Trolley Problem: Better Than Accepting One Death Or Killing One?

The trolley problem raises the overall question of whether killing one is worse than letting five die, or killing five is worse than killing one. In the first example of the trolley problem, a trolley driver is faced with the situation where his oncoming trolley is on its way to kill five people unless the driver turns his trolley to another track, saving the five people, however, killing one person who was on the alternate track. The trolley problem is then compared to a surgeon who has the dilemma of saving five people who are in dire need of a vital organ, however, the surgeon would have to operate on one of his patients and distribute his organs among the five who are dying, which will result in the death of that one patient. Thomson

In Kantian moral theory, the difference between the two situations lies in the fact that in the surgeon problem, the one patient is being used as a means, which in Kantian ethics is not morally permissible. In the trolley problem it is discussed that the main act of flipping the switch to change the course of the tracks, if done independently, is not intended to cause harm on another person. However, the death of that one person on the alternate track is a consequence of flipping the switch, therefore, that one person is not being used as a means to save the five people on the other track. Kant devised the formula of the end in itself which encourages us to act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person, or in the person of another, never simply as a means but, always at the same time as an end. In the surgeon problem, the one patient would be killed solely to save the five other patients in need. The one patient is then being used as a means, which should never be allowed under Kantian moral ethics. The utilitarian approach on the other hand would conflict with the Kantian perspective to this situation. Utilitarianism, also called the greatest happiness principle, holds that actions are right in proposition as they end to promote happiness, and are wrong as they tend to produce the opposite. A utilitarian would argue that killing five is worse than killing one, because utilitarianism promotes the maximization of happiness, and the most happiness would come from saving five people, even if it meant that one would have to be killed to come about this result. In terms of the difference between killing and letting die, utilitarianism holds that there is no difference between the two, because they both result in the same consequences—death.** “For the