Three Great Moral Dilemmas
Moral dilemmas are paradoxical situations in which values are contradicted. In these scenarios, it is not possible to act in such a way that no harm is caused. What needs to be evaluated is in which of the options causes less harm and / or in which of the alternatives the greatest ethical coherence is maintained.
One of the best known moral dilemmas is “the tram dilemma . ” In this one, there is a train that runs at full speed. On your way you will meet five people who are tied to the road. However, it is possible to press a button to change its route, with the difficulty that on this new road there is also a person tied to the road.
In this case, the dilemma is what to do. The debate rests on whether it is morally more valid to let the train run its course and kill five people or deliberately decide that the one sacrificed should be the one tied up on the other track. If things were to run their normal course, he would not die. Whoever pushes the button causes him to lose his life.
From this hypothetical situation, another series of moral dilemmas have arisen. The best known are the man on the roof, the loop track and the man in the garden. Let’s see what each of them is about.
1. The man on the roof
The man on the roof is one of the moral dilemmas derived from the case of the tram. The situation is similar: there is a tram moving towards five people who are tied up on the track. However, in this case the option that exists is to throw a large weight in front of the train, to stop it before it reaches those who are tied up.
The only possibility that exists is an obese man who is on the side of the road. If he was thrown onto the tram, he could stop it and prevent the other five people from dying. What is to be done? The difference in this case is that you have to perform an active task to deliberately end a person’s life.
The utilitarian ethic indicates that the determining factor is the number of victims. So it is well worth sacrificing one life in exchange for saving five. The humanistic ethic points out something different. The man on the side of the road is in full use of his rights. One of them is the right to life and, therefore, not to serve as a means to save others.
2. The loop track, one of the moral dilemmas
The loop track is a variant similar to the tram dilemma in the framework of moral dilemmas. What happens in this case is that there is a loop road, that is, a road that makes a circular journey : it returns to the starting point.
In this case there are five people tied to the road. You can also drive the train to take a different track. In this one there is a man who is tied up. It is bulky and could stop the train, before it loops and reaches the other five victims. To do?
The classic tram dilemma states that there are only two paths: one track or the other. One ineluctable path or the other. In the case of the loop, this dilemma has a subtle modification, which implies a more calculated decision: one man is deliberately used – as an obstacle – as a means to save five others.
3. The man in the garden
The third of the moral dilemmas related to the streetcar dilemma is the man in the garden. In this case the situation is the same as the original. The difference is that the only way to divert the train is by causing it to derail. This would cause him to fall off a cliff and into a garden, where a man rests in his hammock.
This means that, if it is decided to activate the deviation, the person who would end up dying is a person who has nothing to do with the situation and who would end up being the victim of someone else’s decision. At the bottom of all these dilemmas there is a contradiction between doing good to a greater number of people or taking action that goes against essential rights.
A study carried out by Guy Kahane, from the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), points out that people who have no objection to severely harming someone to save others show antisocial traits and in their daily lives are less scrupulous about doing harm to others, even if this is not helpful.
