This must be in the gestalt. https://brodoyouevencode.com/the-problem-with-the-trolley-pr...
The Trolley Problem Problem
41–50 of 119 posts
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#42Could this be due to the rise of pure mathematics in influencing philosophers? In pure math, counter examples play a very important role: show once counter example, disprove an entire claim. The violinist in the article is clearly trying to be a pure math- like counter example, but to me, misses the emotional aspect of pregnancy (at the least) - a fetus is not a random person, it is you (partly), and furthermore, man…
I've rarely heard someone make the counter-point that a fetus is technically half "you", which really does fundamentally change the violinist example. The violinist experiment does have a lot of holes it it, but I think that one in particular almost turns it on its head, particularly because it circumvents the crux of the problem around consent (which I think is at the core of the problem). It would seem you would ha…
A fetus is half another person, whose "selfish genes" would benefit by the fetus taking an excessive share of resources. So there's an inherent tension that isn't determined by culture or moral theories.
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#43This must be in the gestalt. https://brodoyouevencode.com/the-problem-with-the-trolley-pr...
The trolley problem came up a lot in The Good Place, which may be why discussions around it have suddenly become a bit more mainstream.
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#44Absolutely bizarre to see a philosopher writing at some length that some questions are bad because they are hard to answer cleanly. Does he know what his profession is? It's also poor form to sling broad accusations about what "some" philosophers do without citing any examples.
>Absolutely bizarre to see a philosopher writing at some length that some questions are bad because they are hard to answer cleanly.
It's hardly bizarre. Wittgenstein, one of the most famous philosophers of the 20th century, wrote that most philosophy was incorrect because philosophers failed to clearly define their terms.
"The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e. the propositions of natural science, i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy: and then always, when someone else wished to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had given no meaning to certain signs in his propositions. This method would be unsatisfying to the other — he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy — but it would be the only strictly correct method".
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#45There just seems to be a misunderstanding on the intention of a though experiment here. There is a subtle implication that because the thought experiment is "contrived" that its less valuable. When thinking about philosophy, a core part of philosophy is to reduce concepts, ideas, or beliefs into abstractions (or a "spirit" or "essence" of what their intention is), the thought experiment presents itself as a perfectly…
That said the experiment does deny the always precent uncertainty (or hope, depends how you call it). Arguably the most ethical course of action would be to do everything to prevent any deaths. This might be futile, but it's impossible to know at the time.
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#46The trolley problem is a non-problem. I don't know about you guys, but nobody I know is ever going to buy a car that might decide to kill them to save some stranger(s).
Very close analogues to the trolley problem exist. I remember reading about a hospital which replaced the staff that measured out drug prescriptions with a computerized system. It made far fewer mistakes but, critically, it did allow for some mistakes which human operators would have caught and corrected. When I read the article I remember being annoyed that they didn’t mention the trolley problem at all because it w…
I read about a system like that, and the thing is that it not only caused different mistakes, but the mistakes are scary because they are potentially unbounded as well as novel and extreme.
When the machine/program seems perfect, then people get conditioned not to question it. There was a case where a UI issue caused the selection of an adjacent dosage to what was intended, and a nurse gave a patient something like 100 pills.
There were several checks in theory, but everybody was like "gee this seems weird, if the computer says so, it must be right".
Automation inherently multiplies actions, so the fear is that bugs don't just cause a single error, but many, until someone notices and has a chance to react.
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#47The problem here is reminiscent of the classic short story "The Cold Equations": A young woman is fooling around near a space ship and ends up accidentally stowing away on a craft needed to move serum to a colony in the grips of disease. The mass on the ship is accounted for to the gram (the gramme, even!) so her excess mass means the ship no longer has the fuel to make it to the colony. The dashing space hero has to…
That's a famous story I've heard of, not sure if I ever read it...but I feel like it could be compared and contrasted with "The Only Neat Thing To Do", kind of a different take on a young woman looking for adventure who ends up paying the ultimate price for the good of humanity.
Edit: Haha, I clicked on a link to goodreads and the second comment compares it to "The Cold Equations".
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#48This must be in the gestalt. https://brodoyouevencode.com/the-problem-with-the-trolley-pr...
I think its a silly response to the problem, yes if you were near the lever and you so happened to know one of the groups then you might argue pulling the lever one way or the other.
But is that simply you justifying your actions?
The problem isn't absurd when posed to humans because, how about the scenario where you don't know either person and you need to make a decision in a matter of seconds. That's the point.
If my mother was on one of the tracks, I might justify my actions to pull the lever and have it veer into the other group, but that isn't necessarily a morally correct decision.
The author in the article says that the problem is absurd when posed to humans, then goes onto applying the same principles of the problem to AI and cars but does not say that the problem is also absurd with regards to AI, despite coming to the same conclusion.
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you train a chicken to pull a trolley lever, does it weigh on the conscious of the chicken whether they killed 1 chicken vs 5 chickens? I'm not a chicken so I don't really know.
If one could train a chicken to pull or not pull a lever to save x amount of chicken lives, does it weigh on the conscience of the trainer that they’ve compelled a self-aware creature to kill one of its own kind? (I’m not asking this to refute your point, it’s well met, I just found the opportunity to poke at the imaginary ethical elephant too much to resist, and no I’m not proud of it-those were good hens)
Touche
Re: The Trolley Problem Problem
#50TTPP seems to be suspension of disbelief. If the audience cannot enter into the problem, then its value as a tool is diminished. Case studies are also fraught with peril, but the analysis of where the particulars end and the general principles begin seems the bulk of the exercise anyway.
More than that, they reduce too much of the problem away. It reminds me of the two capacitor paradox [1] which (spoiler alert) only arises because that configuration isn't actually possible to realize in terms of ideal circuit elements.
In particular, we spend a lot of time thinking about what would have to be, in most formulations of the problem, a quickly-decided act (otherwise, why not simply untie the people?) and we have absolute certainty given us as to the consequences, vs. all the uncertainty in real life. The problem is used to get rid of those elements as distractions, but they're essential features of people's reasoning (and reasoning ability) so they're not so easily discarded.