In 1967, Philippa Foot presented the world with the train dilemma. To this day, the experiment still forces people to question their moral compass. The classic experiment presents someone with two different situations, and asks them to make a decision. In the first scenario, five people are on a train-track unaware they are about to be hit by a runaway train. On an alternate track, a construction worker is alone working. There is a lever you can pull to divert the train away from the group of five, but in doing so you kill the construction worker. Either way, there is no way to warn anyone, and there will be at least one death.
When National Geographic conducted the experiment, nearly everyone who participated said they
would pull the lever. However, when it came to the second scenario, less people were willing to act. This time instead of pulling a lever and changing the train’s direction to save the group of five, you must push an innocent, and quite hefty, bystander in front of the tracks to stop the train. You cannot throw yourself in front of the train, as you are not heavy enough to divert the harm from the group on the tracks. Mathematically, both situations are identical; sacrifice one individual to save five. Yet still, a far lower number agreed to push the bystander.
The answer as to why this is the case, stems from our consciences. Our conscience is responsible for the sense of the moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct (Merriam-Webster).
In the first scenario, even though people are still physically pulling a lever, they are one-step removed from the actual harm of killing the construction worker. Whereas in the second scenario, the push, and inevitable killing, of the innocent bystander are directly linked without a third factor.
In an episode of Brain Games, Jason Silva alters the well-known train experiment. Instead of the individual in the first scenario being a random construction worker, it was your close relative. This time, everyone who had previously stated they’d pull the lever and kill the construction worker, now unanimously opted to save their relative and kill the group of people on the other track.
During the episode, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Coren Apicella explained choosing to save a relative in this dilemma isn’t a purely emotional response. “Like all living organisms, you want to insure that your genes get passed down to future generations. Some psychologists think that you act according to an evolutionary strategy called ‘kin selection’” (Apicella). Kin Selection is a type of natural selection in which an individual protects close relatives in order to ensure their genes remain in the gene pool in the future.
As you can see, morality is a tricky thing. Even though in both scenarios the numbers don’t change, choosing to murder your relative is a much harder pill to swallow than killing a complete stranger. So, what would you do? Would you be able to sleep tonight having killed five strangers in order to save your mother?
Yes?
What if those five were children?
Photos: Blogspot
This article really caught my attention. The title made me intrigued, so I went on to read the whole thing. That experiment is really interesting. As I was reading it I was thinking, how could one choose what to do? And then it went on to it being a relative. When I saw the result would be to save a relative, I did not think that was surprising at all. But then I saw how it was just to save genes, and I was in shock. I had no idea people would think of it that way! The last line, “What if those five were children?” really got to me. I read an article here on how chimpanzees and humans are natural born killers. Check it out!
This is an interesting concept and I think it is rooted in the question if all people are inherently good. Personally I believe that people are born good and there is some kind of conscience decision in which a person decides to do something bad or illegal. However, an article I found from Psychology Today it suggests that children can be born with an inclination towards becoming a sociopath. The disorder is called Conduct Disorder and it is proved to lead to an increased chance of developing an antisocial personality and possibly becoming sociopathic as an adult.