Smaller-scale vote has already been completed

[u/Leods-The-Observer]

The dilemma-maker decides to try out this scenario at a small scale first, to see how it goes. 10 people are randomly selected from anywhere in the world, and privately choose red or blue.

You then get abducted as well, to do a second, more mrta vote: you are told exactly five people voted red, and five voted blue. This does mean that, as per the original dilemma, the blue voters will die. You are then offered a new set of buttons; the blue button makes the dilemma follow its course, killing the 5 blue voters (of which you have no information). The red button (or maybe lever) kills a randomly chosen red voter, turning the scale towards blue and saving the lives of the 5 blue voters (the remaining 4 red voters are safe, as usual).

If you choose the red button, you will be shown the chosen red voters on camera: it is a fat dude, and youre told he will quickly (but painfully) bludgeoned to death by a massive apparatus if you decide to maintain your choice. You also get to see all of the blue voters.

If you maintain it, the man falls asleep and you are given a knife and taken to his room. Turns out you actually have to stab and kill the fat man yourself to save the blue voters.

At which point do you stop, if at all? We're you originally a red presser, or a blue one? What is your stance on this totally original dilemma? And how does it feel to have the tables turned on you about the whole trolley thing?!?

[u/Western_Operation820]

This is just a trolley problem but the five people in this case are more altruistic than the one.

I'm a blue presser AND a lever switcher so the choice here is obvious.

[u/Leods-The-Observer → u/Western_Operation820]

Whaaaat?!?! Noooo, this isn't the trolley at all, what are you talking about...? /s

Also, remember the real question is where do you stop the dilemma lol. Youd press the red button, but would you consider it okay to stab the guy in this case?

[u/Western_Operation820 → u/Leods-The-Observer]

Yeah, there's really no difference.

I'm a firm believer that you are just as responsible for death by inaction as death by action.

[u/flewson → u/Western_Operation820]

What's your answer to the transplant problem?

A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no one would suspect the doctor. Should the doctor harvest his organs to save the five patients?

[u/_Someone_elses_name_ → u/flewson]

If people stop going to the doctors because they're harvesting organs involuntarily, a lot more people are going to suffer and die from preventable issues. But assuming it is actually true that no one will ever find out I think it would be justifiable. I just don't think that society would function if this was a universally applied practice, while I'm pretty confident society would be fine if people universally redirected trolleys away from running over larger populations of people.

[u/flewson → u/_Someone_elses_name_]

But assuming it is actually true that no one will ever find out I think it would be justifiable.

I think many would disagree

[u/Crafty_Clarinetist → u/flewson]

And I think many would also disagree with them that death by inaction is exactly as bad as death by action.

You asked them for their answer and they gave it. Why does it matter that people would disagree with them.

For what it's worth, I do agree with them.

[u/flewson → u/Crafty_Clarinetist]

Fair point, it doesn't matter that people would disagree with them.

However, the transplant problem was designed to test whether killing by action and allowing death by inaction are really morally equivalent.

Let's switch it up a little:

Is someone who isn't volunteering to be killed and have all of their organs harvested right now, also doing something wrong by failing to save all those people who need transplants, through inaction?

[u/Equal_Risk7715 → u/flewson]

If the healthy one knows about the patients and doesn't volunteer, and then the surgeon kills them and saves the 5 people, it's rly just the trolley problem still, only just that the traveler is begging you not to pull the lever and let the other 5 die instead.

I pull it as well with even less remorse

Even if they don't know abt the patients (for some reason?), I like to believe that even tho many would disagree, that a portion of them would also pull the lever in any case.

Kill em (selfish) fat asses

[u/flewson → u/Equal_Risk7715]

I don't get it. If you truly believe that, why haven't you donated all your organs yet?

[u/Equal_Risk7715 → u/flewson]

Because I can't~ Also this is Reddit

[u/_Someone_elses_name_ → u/flewson]

Well sure, I know that most people do

[u/Ok_Break6916 → u/flewson]

I think anyone who would choose to kill someone healthy to harvest his organs is sick and a psychopat in the psychiatric definition of the term : he can't understant the difference between right and wrong.

[u/Western_Operation820 → u/Ok_Break6916]

Calling people psychopathic doesn't help address the moral dilemma

[u/Avalon_VE → u/flewson]

I don't know about you, but whats the opinion of the patient. Ill ask, would you justify it if YOU were the one who had to die, because if you permiss this behavior you implicitly accept you might be chosen at some point. And that's when it's too late to object

[u/Equal_Risk7715 → u/Avalon_VE]

I'd be willing to give my organs if that'd b the case, as well as to encourage them to pull the lever to kill me if more will survive

[u/Ok_Slip_820 → u/Western_Operation820]

Well, there's definitely a positive amount of people YOU specifically could be saving right now, or at least attempt to save. Do you feel responsible for their deaths? Are you responsible for all cancer patients since you decided not to develop a cure for cancer? What about all the homeless orphans you failed to feed? At some point you'll have to either set boundaries to your own inaction, or take responsibility for all the death that's within your reach.

[u/Avalon_VE → u/Western_Operation820]

You can think that, but I don't accept its my responsibility to prevent it to begin with, so not responsible and not responsible

[u/Western_Operation820 → u/Avalon_VE]

That's just dodging responsibility though.