There is a well-known hypothetical question, which is designed to elicit an ethical decision from the questionee, concerning the sacrifice of one person to save the lives of many. Here is a slightly modified version of this scenario, which still preserves the flavor of the issue: you are standing by a fork in a railroad. On one of the branching paths, there is a group of young and unsupervised children playing. On the other is a middle-aged construction worker who appears to be in deteriorating health. On its current course, the train is due to hit the group of oblivious children (I haven taken the liberty of making it a remarkably quiet bullet train). However, within your reach is a lever which can change the path of train. If you pull it, the children will be spared, but the train will hit the construction worker. (Along with the train being quiet, these people are also rather unobservant and equipped with subpar reflexes). Opting to sacrifice the construction worker, since the ends will justify the means, represents a more utilitarian philosophy, while deciding that morality does not lie in the result may suggest more deontological ethics. Unlike in utiliterianism, deontological ethics would claim that the consequences do not determine whether an action is correct, and that only the intent or behaivior or a person is important - the ends do not justify the means. So, even though a greater number of people with more life ahead of them die if you do not pull the lever, it is still the morally correct course of action to take, since you are not killing an innocent person.
However, the train question, while a very interesting one, has been discussed many a time before, and I shall not go into too much detail about the morality or psychology of the issue. Instead, let us consider another related situation. This situation will form a predicate to the train-track scenario, in the sense that the questions that arise from it must be answered before considering the deontological arguement.
The scenario goes as follows: suppose a person has been forcibly tied to a fence in a remote field. A missile is headed directly at them, and is sure to hit them. However, you, standing a safe distance away, have access to a button, which when pressed, will cause the missile to veer off to the side and safely detonate. You are in no way responsible for their current predicament, nor do you have any reason to feel animosity towards this person. The obvious course of action would be to press the button, therefore saving the person's life. But what if you chose not to press the button?
This certainly seems like a rather inhumane and cold-blooded decision to make. However, the tragedy would have taken place regardless of whether you had been there. You did not set in motion the events which were to end the person's life, so surely you cannot be held responsible for their death; surely the action of taking no action cannot make you a murderer.
But then, let us think of power. Power can be described as the capability to either exert an influence on a person, or in some way determine an outcome in their life. In the person-in-the-field situation, you alone posses the power which will determine the life or death of a fellow human being, who is likely no greater or no worse than yourself. Even by not acting, you still dictate the "fate" of that person; by not acting, could you not be said to have sentenced that person to death?
This is somewhat of an unsettling thought, and becomes even more mind-boggling when you try to figure out exactly to what extent this line of reasoning applies. For example, say there was an earthquake, and part of a building collapsed on a bystander. You shouted a warning, but were in a difficult position yourself. If you had really tried and ran with all your might, you would have been able to push the person out of the way in time. However, it hardly seems reasonable for you to be held accountable for the bystander's death simply because you did not act and therefore allowed them to die.
However, if one comes to the conclusion that not acting does hold you responsible for whatever consequences ensue, then the protection which is offered by the deontological view to those who do pull the lever is undermined. From a deontological perspective, pulling the lever of the traintrack would make you responsible for the innocent life of the construction worker. However, as we have seen, one can also come to the conlusion that not pulling the lever makes you responsible for several innocent lives. Hmm . . . it appears that whatever decision we make, we have commited a most attrocious crime!
If this post seems to offer no definitive opinion, or provide any universally correct solution to these pesky ethical dilemas, it's because it doesn't. The best option would probably be to just act according to what you believe is right (which is what you would most likely do in the first place) and hope that your morally-upstanding intentions are sufficient justification for your actions, so as to not deem you a felon. Thankfully, we can rest assured that there is a very low chance of us ever being placed in one of the above situaitons. It is still most intruiging, though, to puzzle over such hypothetical, mind-bending questions.
