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What do you do?

  • Do nothing?

    Votes: 3 75.0%
  • Switch tracks and let the train hit the single child?

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Try getting them to notice the train?

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • something else?

    Votes: 0 0.0%

What would you do?

829 views 12 replies 9 participants last post by  Buck Bundy 
#1 ·
Your walking home from work one day and your walk takes you over a railway bridge. As you start to cross over you look up the track as you can hear children playing. The track splits in two, on one side, the side that the train will be arriving shortly, is 5 children playing oblivious to the danger. On the other one is a child walking by themselves.

You can see the train bareing down on the group of children, yet you could reach the signal box on the other side of the bridge and send it down the track with the single child walking.

Now they are too far away for them to hear if you shout, They are too far away for you to run and warm them..... what do you do???

This is a standard moral test... and there is not really a right or wrong answer
 
#2 ·
What is going on today first Pasi and now this........you guys not getting enough sun or something :p
 
#4 ·
I say do nothing as it would never occur to me to change the signal and I wouldn't know how to. I imagine what I'd actually do in that situation is try and get to them as quickly as I could shouting myself hoarse all the way, then at the last minute turning round and running in the opposite direction so I wouldn't have to see the mess.
 
G
#5 ·
I would shout, and if they don't here me it is just Darwin in practice removing idiots from the gene pool. Send the train down the other line and it could result in a crash, the lives of 5 idiotic baseball cap wearing chavvy kids against a train full of people, no contest.
 
#6 ·
I'd prob do nothing and let fate decide. But if I had to choose I'd send the train towards the 5 kids in the hope that maybe one would hear the train coming and alert the others.
 
#7 ·
Will said:
I'd prob do nothing and let fate decide. But if I had to choose I'd send the train towards the 5 kids in the hope that maybe one would hear the train coming and alert the others.
There is no right or wrong answer but that one comes up a lot... :) I wish I could have found the exact phrasing of it as this is just the bits I remember from my lecture..that resulted in an hour long debate...
 
#8 ·
lynn said:
There is no right or wrong answer but that one comes up a lot... :) I wish I could have found the exact phrasing of it as this is just the bits I remember from my lecture..that resulted in an hour long debate...

It does have an answer Lynn !!

If you know the train is comming...it is either away from you towards the children therefore you derail the train...

Or its coming towards you and then to the children...therefore you sacrafice yourself.


Chris
 
#9 ·
Other than I doubt I would know if I could change the points to switch tracks.... I would keep things as they are as the results my actions (a train at speed that might de-rail through being switched) might be far worse. This could kill or injure those on the train also.

The kids are responsible for their actions as is the train driver and the train company to make sure the line is fenced off warning signs in place.

Do everything (however limited) to warn others but do not try to change the course of a train weighing hundreds of tons.
 
#12 ·
I'm not a psychology student and, therefore, don't know the answer. I'd procrastinate on the morality of the question so long that there'd be lots of "kiddie-bits" strewn about the track. Afterwards I'd be so remorseful and blame myself for being unable to decide that I'd think about committing suicide, blaming my parents and my presbyterian upbringing for making me feel so guilt-ridden that I can't cope with simple moral dilemas. This soul-searching would bring me to see that I shouldn't linger in the past and that I should be my own person and, no, I won't jump off that bridge after all. Life would be good and happy and all would be right in the world.

And besides......."Kiddie-Bits" is such a good name for a fast food company. It'd be a such a shame to waste the idea.
 
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