“You know what I’m reminded of when I hear the trolley problem?
This is an extreme example, but of the tens of thousands of child soldiers in the world, one of the ways in which they are traumatized into becoming child soldiers is that they’re forced to murder their parents or their siblings. They are forced to get involved in killing someone and that’s obviously very traumatic and breaks their moral spirit and makes them feel guilty.
I can’t view the trolley problem as anything other than anything other than a psychological manifestation of that same impulse that people inflict these horrible kinds of things on children.
So, if you’ve ever had the trolley problem , if you come up with some solution that involves no one getting killed, what’s the person going to say?
He’s going to say, “ No, that’s not possible.” So, if you say I’m going to switch the switch so that the train doesn’t go either way, so it goes through the middle and the train derails and skids to a halt and no one dies at all — I guarantee you the person is going to say that’s not possible in this scenario.
In other words, they’re forcing you in a situation where you have to become an accomplice in murder in one way or another, which is exactly what happens to these child soldiers. I mean, conceptually, not physically of course.
So, it’s a form of turning moral choice into a form of abuse or trauma and say “you either have to kill one guy or five guys, which one do you do?”
Well, personally, I don’t think there is any morality in that situation anyway.
The moral crime occurs for the person who didn’t maintain the trolley, the guy who didn’t ensure the trolley had breaks or the guy who tied these people to the tracks as far as morals go, but don’t put me in a situation where I have to choose between one dead or five.
So, the trolley problem has nothing to do with ethics. Ethics to me would be about having a world where this crazy shit doesn’t happen. And this crazy shit doesn’t happen anyway. I don’t think there has ever been a trolley situation in the real world.
‘A train is coming down the track. One person is tied to one track. Another person is tied to another track and only one person can seethe switch… ’
It’s such a made up scenario that you have to wonder, what is the psychological motivation for putting this shit forward? What is the motivation? Why would somebody invent a completely ridiculous theoretical where you become complicate in murder no matter what you do?
To me it’s a form of verbal abuse. It’s a form of verbal entrapment. The reason I think it’s called trolley is because only trolls would come up with this sort of shit.
Ethics would be from first principles, not from last minute emergencies and ridiculous made up nonsense, but from first principles.
How can philosophy improve our lives? What does morality mean? What is virtue? Are there exceptions to the non-aggression principle ? That is what morality and philosophy is about.
Morality is not about ridiculously emergency, murder based, lifeboat, imaginary, non-existent situations.
We’ve got to start working from first principles and figure out What is virtue, What is truth? What is reality? What is goodness? Is there a role for violence in society? If so, where? Is self-defense justifiable? Is the initiation of force justifiable? If so, how? If not, well, let’s get rid of it.
And so, coming up with this kind of crazy shit to me is missing the entire point of philosophy. Start with first principles, not with last minute imaginary nonexistent emergencies.
Don’t get into the trap. Reject the scenario. Don’t accept the premises of this kind of crazy stuff. This is not what philosophy and morality should be working with. These made-up scenarios will never happen.
So, what these people are saying is that the most important question in philosophy is something that will never ever ever happen. You will never be in that situation. So, what this person is saying is philosophy is both abusive and irrelevant.
Now, what will occur in your life is how well you treat those around you. Do you tell the truth? Do you refrain from abusing them physically, emotionally, verbally, sexually? When you see someone being hurt, whether it’s an adult or a child, will you intervene? Will you do something moral? Will you use the against me argument? Will you point out the gun in the room when it comes to people supporting statist violence? Will you oppose war?
And what will you do with the people in your life who support war? These are all things people can do. Fuck this trolley bullshit. That’s something people will never experience.
What I am always curious about is what actually can people do in their lives to advance the cause of virtue and truth and goodness and progress in the human experience. And this trolley stuff, I’d say it’s intellectual masturbation, but masturbation is a lot more fun than this sort of nonsense.”
- Stefan Molyneux
A transcription from podcast 2278:The Evils Of Emergency Ethics.
