A definite solution to the trolley problem

Philosophers are curious beings. They think and think again, to create problems from thin air that are supposedly difficult to answer. However, I do not believe that life is so complex and many questions can be answered — correctly! In this article, I am going to answer the trolley problem.

For those who are not aware of the trolley problem, here is the situation. You are on top of a footbridge, along with a fat man, from where you can see the rail tracks below you. There are five people down the trolley’s path and they are about to be killed unless you push a large heavy man down the footbridge. The question is will you push that man onto the tracks to save the other five people.

The answer is simple — No! Why? Well, for the time being, let us not look at the problem from a philosophical point of view. If you look at the question carefully, it is more of a legal question than a moral one.

Think about the laws, the laws have been built upon taking morality as a base and while doing so laws subtly impart morals to the people it governs. Though I am not a lawyer, I am sure that the punishment for negligent death is less than killing an innocent person deliberately. At the end of the day, if you push a man to his death, his relatives will surely pursue a homicide case against you, and chances are you will be punished for it. I am sure you will not want yourself in that position ever.

There is another side to this problem as well. This problem is assuming the definiteness of the future. Unless you have a time machine, you cannot be sure of the future. The trolley on the rail might just stop and your assumption might not be right. Laws cannot be invoked for hypothetical situations.

It reminds me of another hypothetical question — if Hitler’s mother had killed Hitler when he was a child, would that have been good or bad? If she had killed the baby Hitler back then, would the law spare her for her crime? Nope. Laws do not work like that.

So, if you ever face a trolley problem in your real life, you just need to go by the law.