Revisiting Trolley Problem — Dog vs Human
The trolley problem is a classical case of an ethical dilemma.
According to Wikipedia, here is the problem:
There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. 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. However, you notice that there is one person on the sidetrack. You have two options:
- Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
- Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person
The main conflict associated with this problem is termed, in philosophical terms, as a conflict between Deontological ethics vs Utilitarianism
What’s the conflict?
Deontological Ethics — It proposes that morality of an action is based on whether the action itself is right or wrong, not taking into consideration of consequences. Killing is a wrong action according to this set of ethics but is it still wrong if you’re killing someone to protect your family?
On the contrary, Utilitarianism — -It promotes the actions which improve that utility/well-being of affected individuals. (This can be exploited in the scenario of 5 Criminal vs person. Think!)
It’s clear that a major distinction, between these two lines of thought, is whether one could consider the future impact of the decision a.k.a Utility
Variants
The trolley problem has seen several variants. Some of the variants are discussed below with general results
Fat man/Evil fat man — Instead of pulling a lever, if you have to place a heavy item in front of the trolley to save 5, what would you do if there were a fat person beside you. What would you do if that fat man is evil/proven criminal?
People have generally responded by saying they would prefer the lever instead of such a seemingly harsh course of action.
Putting this aside, generally, people were in favour of pushing the Evil fat man over the fat man — -A classic case of considering utility to make a decision.
There are few other variants including
- 3 scientists vs 1 terrorist
- The lone man is athletic and attractive, whereas the five others are no
This is an inexhaustible list and one can come up with new cases to test one’s thinking. Let me discuss one such case with you, something I personally explored.
Context
I’ve to admit, I’m completely clueless as to why I had this thought in the first place. I haven’t even come across the Trolley problem in recent times.
But on a Thursday morning, I put up a status poll on Instagram.
“A house is burning, if you could save only one, who would it be —
Dog or Human?
Assuming no description of beings and no connection with them whatsoever”
After subsequent discussions I had with respondents, I realised that the question could have been framed better.
- Assume the Dog and Human are not related to each other
- You HAVE to save one of them and there are no physical limitations and harm to personal safety (Yes, you can lift a 120 kg person in this case)
I would be addressing the responses which led me to add this additional information.
Go on! Think for a moment.
Results
I’ve had close to 60 respondents and many more discussions.
27% — Would have saved the dog
73% — Would have saved the human
I’m not sure what’s your reaction to this survey result, but I was kind of expecting it.
Discussions
Let’s lay a ground rule that these situations and further scenarios suggested as part of upcoming discussions are hypothetical (though cases similar to trolley problem have occurred in real life) and we go ahead with most scenarios with a considerable possibility of happening just like in the first case itself.
- They were facing an ethical dilemma and were unable to choose, which was expected.
- Save the human, who in turn saves the dog before being pulled to safety. Smart, but that did not drive any discussion ☹
- Some of them gave *out of the box* replies that they would not risk themselves to save others — Hence added the clause of personal safety to the question and thereby forcing them to make a decision
- Few assumed, rightfully, that the dog and human were indeed pet and owner, and went on suggesting to save human on the grounds of, “Dog may not take the loss of its owner, whereas a human can get over it” — Hence added the clause of unrelated human and dog
- Few thought that it might be tougher to save the human (because of weight) than to save a dog — Hence added the clause that one has No Physical Constraints
- One human might end up saving more human lives, hence the effective utility of a human is greater than that of a dog — Save the Human
Bad Human — Loyal Dog
A recurring line of the debate was a general assumption that Human does more harm (No description of harm) than a dog, hence one would save the dog.
I went on questioning what would be the human societal reaction if you come out with a dog instead of the human, one would be labelled “bad”, “disloyal”, “inhumane” etc.
You’re the prime example of “Bad Human” you hated in the first place. IRONICAL
It’s possible in this hypothetical scenario there’ll be a section of society who might feel that one should have saved the other being, but let’s set that aside for a moment and go ahead with the above line of discussion.
If you’ve been labelled bad person by a section of the society, then when a situation comes wherein you’re the person stuck in fire along with a stranger dog and the human who comes to save you thinks the same. Is one willing to face the consequence?
Definitely one can take a shot at lying and hope one doesn’t find himself/herself in the situation mentioned above.
Other cases
Some of the discussions led me to think about alternate cases and expected responses.
For the cases from here on, I don’t have any statistical backing and it would require a long questionnaire to try out multiple possibilities to come with responses. But here are some cases and my expectation of trend/general response in such cases
- Bird vs Human — I expect people to have less affinity towards saving a bird as an opposed affinity towards saving a dog. An alternate interpretation would be, people would be inclined to saving a dog in the case of a bird and a dog stuck in a fire.
- Dog vs Human (Pet and its Owner) — Few people suggested that it’s better to let the dog die to prevent a life long trauma of missing owner, whereas human is expected to get over it.
- Dog vs Human (Terrorist) — Few people suggested that the utility of human is greater because of his/her ability to save others. This decision might backfire if he’s a terrorist. But if we have a beforehand information, I expect people to let go of terrorist.
- Dog vs Human (Your pet vs Stranger human): This would be a fun discussion for sure. While I’m inclined towards saving human and grieve the loss of a pet, this is a question which has put me in a fix more than the others, especially given that I’m not a pet owner.
While the discussions were going on I came across this article which made some good research on the very case. It has taken multiple scenarios and has come with a response of how many would be willing to save whom?
Coming to real-life cases, a trolley problem incident has taken place in Los Angeles in 2003.
This problem, and related arguments, finds its place in training the AI for self-driving cars. Many such ethical dilemmas are crucial in deciding how we should shape our AI systems going forward.
Conclusion
It’s a classic problem indeed no matter how one phrase. I hope you’ve gone through the dilemma of trying to decide dog/human.
If interested to find few links, at references below, which might broaden your thought and come up with situations and analysis for the same
In case you’re wondering what would be my response
Human. Species Favoritism
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