18th March 2004, 10:33 PM
ABF, that's certainly not the way I view that situation. Why would it matter if there is a machine involved? The body isn't actually a part of one's soul, but a tool, albeit a squishy one. I certainly would view using a gun to kill someone with the same evil as using one's own fists to do the job.
In your examples, they appear exactly the same and produce a different conflict, the one you should have went with. The "lesser of two evils" paradox. Now then, I don't believe such a situation will ever occur. No one who is so evil as to engineer such a conundrum will ever be capable of actually putting it all together and doing it. Your examples are also solvable without killing anyone. First off, a fat man wouldn't be enough to slow down that trolley. Assuming it would, why do that? There's always another way. I have taken a very Vash attitude towards things like that. There's always a way to save everybody if you just think hard enough. For example, why not YELL at the 5 people to MOVE THEIR ARSES. Easy solution there.
In the first example, throw the switch midway but not all the way. This will jam the tracks and cause the trolley to derail, but everyone will survive.
In your examples, they appear exactly the same and produce a different conflict, the one you should have went with. The "lesser of two evils" paradox. Now then, I don't believe such a situation will ever occur. No one who is so evil as to engineer such a conundrum will ever be capable of actually putting it all together and doing it. Your examples are also solvable without killing anyone. First off, a fat man wouldn't be enough to slow down that trolley. Assuming it would, why do that? There's always another way. I have taken a very Vash attitude towards things like that. There's always a way to save everybody if you just think hard enough. For example, why not YELL at the 5 people to MOVE THEIR ARSES. Easy solution there.
In the first example, throw the switch midway but not all the way. This will jam the tracks and cause the trolley to derail, but everyone will survive.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)