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A comment on Absurd Trolley Problems. Parent comment

Re:Absurd Trolley Problems by praptak on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @05:43AM (#31998716)
If I remember correctly the original trolley problem was actually two problems. One was "pull the lever to kill one person instead of five" the other was "push someone onto the tracks (killing them) to stop the trolley and save five people".

More people were in favor of pulling the lever than there were in favor of pushing someone onto the tracks. This indeed hints that the more direct action, the harsher the judgement.

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Re:Absurd Trolley Problems by dr_orpheus on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @03:57PM (#32005999)
Yep, the original is "pull the lever to kill on person instead of five" and there are many many more variations with more direct action. The pure utilitarian will still choose the "kill one instead of five" no matter the situation. But some variations come up with things like: "you are a doctor with 5 patients who need 5 different organ transplants and are going to do die, do you kill the hospital janitor to harvest their organs to save 5 people"
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