What is ethics?
There is no way to get through life without encountering a moral issue. Being alive is simply too complex—every action that we make as people has physical, emotional and moral consequences, whether we recognize them or not. Consider that your friend asks you if they can pull off a new shirt—and, in your opinion, it’s just hideous. Telling someone they look nice in an unflattering outfit is morally wrong in that lying—even little white lies—is never acceptable. But conversely, being honest in this situation would only make this person less confident—it is doing them a kindness, and thus morally acceptable, to lie in this scenario. Life is full of these gray situations, and it is the job of people everywhere to fully understand and make the best choices possible. Ethics is the study of morals and, in essence, “good” vs. “bad”—how anyone should act given a certain situation, or a set of moral guidelines to live by.
The Trolley Problem
This is a commonly known ethical dilemma. Imagine you are by train tracks and see a runaway train approach. There are five workers in danger of being hit and killed by the train—however, you can flip a switch and divert the train to a different set of tracks, only killing one person instead of five. Most people follow the utilitarian approach: letting one person die instead of five maximizes the total happiness in the outcome, so it therefore is the best and most ethical option to take. In this situation, that holds true. Most people questioned choose to flip the switch, saving five people and killing one. But there are other versions of the trolley problem which complicate a person’s choice. For example, imagine instead of two tracks, there was just one, with a bridge overhead. A large man sits on top of the bridge; if you pushed him, he would stop the trolley and you would still save the other five people. From a utilitarian standpoint, the outcome is the same: one man sacrificed to save five. Yet when questioned about this version of the problem, most people refuse to push the man. There is an active choice to kill him which does not sit well ethically. There are many more versions of the trolley problem, each with their own special nuance—say your best friend was the one person, for example. Each version is hotly contested as to what is the proper moral action to take.
To Be Brief…
Ethics is a wide field of study. Many choices have differing, and equally valid, approaches to a morally sound solution. By reading this blog, I hope you walk away with a surer sense of what it is like to make decisions each and every day and perhaps a clearer idea of what choices you as an individual want to make.
I really like how you chose this topic ethics is something we all relate to and struggle with. You really hooked me in with the first paragraph with a great introduction to ethics and a good example. In the next paragraph, I got a little lost reading it. I think you were focussing more on the different examples instead of the moral dilemma and the overall lesson is unclear. I think if you just went with the one example with the train tracks and explained it deeply and how it can relate to daily life, I would have gotten more out of reading the blog. Overall, I think you did a great job with explaining this ethical dilemma and I hope you appreciate my tips.