The Trolley Problem

M*A*S*H was a television sitcom about a U.S. Army mobile army surgical hospital (which explains the abbreviation) during the Korean War that ran on CBS from 1972-1983.  I believe it was one of the longest running television series in history when it last aired on February 28, 1983 with the finale episode "Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen".  The finale episode, which was 2 1/2 hours in length had over 125 million viewers.  Apparently, the episode was seen by so many people that the New York City Sanitation/Public Works Department reported the plumbing systems broke down in some parts of the city from so many New Yorkers waiting until the end to use the toilet (in the three minutes after the finale ended, around 77 percent of the people of New York City flushed their toilets).

The finale begins with one of the main characters, Hawkeye Pierce, receiving treatment at a psychiatric hospital by another character Sidney Freeman.  Pierce tells Dr. Freeman about a recent beach outing by a busload of the camp personnel, who had picked up some refugees and wounded soldiers on their return to base.  The bus was forced to pull off the road to avoid an enemy patrol, and Hawkeye remembers telling one of the refugees to keep her squawking chicken quiet. However, as a result of his command, the refugee smothered and killed the chicken.  

The episode highlights an interesting ethical dilemma.  Is it morally acceptable to silence the noisy chicken (and kill the chicken in the process), in order to prevent the entire bus from being detected by the enemy patrol?  Would the answer to this question change if the chicken were instead a crying infant?  Later in the episode, Pierce reveals that the "chicken" in his memory was actually a crying infant.  These are the questions asked by two books that I recently finished reading - Would You Kill the Fat Man? by David Edmonds and The Trolley Problem, or Would You Throw the Fat Guy Off the Bridge? by Thomas Cathcart.  The titles of both books come from a variation of the famous "Trolley Problem", a philosophical thought experiment first described in a 1967 article by Philippa Foot, an American philosopher (and, on an interesting side note, granddaughter of former US President Grover Cleveland).  While Foot described the thought experiment, Judith Jarvis Thomson dubbed the experiment the "Trolley Problem" in a 1976 paper.  

The thought experiment basically asks whether it is ethically acceptable to kill one person in order to save five people (the "fat man" part is a later variation of the experiment).  In essence, the problem is usually set up with the following:

1. There is a runaway trolley moving down the tracks. 

2. Up ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied down to the track and unable to move. The trolley is heading straight towards the five people and will likely kill them. 

3. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. 

4.  Up ahead on the side track, there is one person tied down to the track and unable to move.  

The reader is left to ponder one of two choices - do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track, or pull the lever, which will divert the trolley onto the side track, killing the one person (but saving the five).  If you want to see a "real life" example of the "Trolley Problem", check out a video clip from Episode 19 of the television show The Good Place.  

If you are interested in learning about the history behind the "Trolley Problem", with a discussion of several different variations of the problem as well as the underlying philosophical basis behind the answers to the problem, I would encourage you to check out Edmonds' book (which I found slightly more readable than the book by Cathcart).  There are a number of potential real world applications of the "Trolley Problem", which are discussed at length in both books.  Philippa Foot discussed the so-called "Doctrine of Double Effect" in the context of questions around the ethics of abortion and birth control.  

Several experts have questioned both the validity and generalizability of the  "Trolley Problem", and I would agree that some of the proposed variations described in Edmonds' and Cathcart's books are way over the top and not very realistic.  However, I think thought experiments are by their very nature somewhat contrived and unusual.  At the end of the day, I do think diving into the  "Trolley Problem" is a worthwhile investment of a leader's time.