The calculus of felicity can be an unending spiral of implications 😅 Utilitarianism is very useful, living up to its name, but sometimes it becomes heavy due to that forecasting it demands.

That’s it exactly, there’s a saying in the scientific community: “science is never done.” I think that holds true for ethics as well in many ways. Sometimes all that really functionally matters is arriving at the right conclusion, but what really makes it the right conclusion? Is our reasoning sound? Or did we stumble upon the right path though imperfect or limited reasoning? Will that same logic lead us to a good conclusion next time as well, or somewhere else? It’s a wild ride, one of my favorite subjects. I like to imagine it as you describe, one monolothic, objective morality that we small humans are shining lights on to and grasping limited portions of through our philosophical efforts, slowly piecing together the greater whole as we combine theories and efforts.

That game looks awesome, I’m definitely going to check it out.

Active participation and violation of personal autonomy are big factors in that version. It usually is enough to change the answer of people who took a more utilitarian view in the first iteration. But, they dont have any bearing on utilitarianism, so people who argue for killing the one in the first iteration are somewhat compelled to do the same in the second in order to achieve logical consistency. Otherwise there seems to be something questionable about how they reached their first answer.

It sounds like you may be more on the libertarian, Kantian side of the reasoning when it comes to human life, which I think is generally a safer place to be. But that’s the beauty of ethics, it’s all about the exploration and trying to see different viewpoints.

It’s true, if your main concern just who is the “killer,” which is valid. It’s just that there seems to be some responsibility conferred to our actions in the trolley problem, as we have the ability to change its outcome, 5 dead or 1. Many people side with utilitarianism here, but its a deep moral dilemma that is very helpful in exploring the nuances of ethical reasoning.

And basically, it has a different answer for essentially every ethical framework you apply to it 😆. At least in the moral justification. When you do look in to it, try writing down your personal feelings and reasoning, then check out the modified trolley problem with the large man and the bridge and see of your answers change. Interesting stuff.

Definitely feels like a straw man of virtue ethics to me. Especially as virtues ethics is less likely to have rigidly consistent actions as its result than something like natural law or kantianism. This feels like someone wrapped up all the thing they didn’t like about deontological ethics and made a cartoon about it 😄

These are definitely not analogous arguments, but your conclusions do both fall under a utilitarian moral umbrella. By this reasoning every individual is morally required, like the other commenter says, to do whatever is necessary to bring about the greater good for the greater number. Sounds nice on paper until you start visualizing the actual implications of the theory. Take a look at the “no rest” problem that utilitarianism leads to.

The trolley problem itself is designed to have no specifically correct answer, merely to be a vehicle (pardon my pun) for evaluating various moral frameworks, such as utilitarianism.

I found this video from Hank Green interesting, it might give you the answers you’re looking for. Also, as bad as AI’s water consumption might sound, corn. Corn is the real problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc

Celsius, this would be 86° Fahrenheit