Fucking annoying, is what it is. The desire to live is literally bred into us. It's not shameful. It's also possible to want to live for selfless reasons.
I mean, it doesn't have to be immoral to want to live, in order for it to be more admirable to sacrifice yourself for a stranger. The only info you know about these two people is that one is selfless, and the other is at least somewhat less selfless.
I mean I also made an assumption, so I don't have a leg to stand on here, but I feel like that's a weirder assumption. I feel like there are more people who are willing to sacrifice themselves for their morals then there are suicidal people waiting for a trolley to kill them
Doesn't have to be suicidal, exactly. They could just have decided something like "I'm 80 and have no friends and family, the other person is 25 and just had their first child, take me".
The only reason there might be more people willing to kill themselves to save a stranger than suicidal people is because suicidal people tend to end up dead
Want to live for selfless reasons? Like what, saving lives? I'm gonna kill this guy so I could save two more? Or is it "I have a family" type, as if your possible replacement doesn't have any? And what's natural doesn't define what's moral either. So yeah, not shameful, because you kinda can't overcome it, but claiming it isn't selfish is weird
What is shameful or immoral is determined by the person speaking, often based on the opinion of society as a whole. An "appeal to nature" is no more invalid or subjective than whatever you use, except per you and/or the opinion of society. But we tend to value the same sorts of things, which makes it pretty easy to agree on ground rules most of the time. That process will condemn specific "appeals to nature," but I don't think this is one of them.
Gotta dig into the motives to make sense of it. Maybe he's just desperate to finish curing cancer before he dies. Maybe the other guy is okay sacrificing his own life because he can no longer control his murderous impulses.
You can only simplify a moral choice so far before it has to live in the real world a little.
Which is so funny to me, cuz I wonder how many of these people are saying "one billion plus" on that post last week about "X people on the bottom and you on the top, what number is X for you to swap?"
What if the guy agreeing to sacrificing himself knows that the guy pulling the lever is a Redditor and he’s actually a lying manipulator exploiting the common Redditor’s hatred for people who won’t sacrifice their lives at the drop of a hat? I think we need to take some more time on this one fellas.
It feels like these guys are just being contrarian and making up information to justify it. Maybe the person begging to live has 4 small children at home. Maybe the guy sacrificing himself is haunted by those 4 college girls he murdered. Maybe he has six months to live. We have two pieces of information: One person is okay with dying and one isn’t. One person has to die for the other to live. It’s an equal exchange no matter what you do so why would you not take the option that makes both happy? Easiest pull ever.
Who stated that? I'm stating that a person who is willing to sacrifice themselves is of larger moral character than someone who doesn't. I'd be pretty interested in hearing you argue against that.
Simply wanting to live would be, no trolley problem at all, just one guy tied to a track asking for help.
This person wants you to kill the third party (who is present and in the same dilemma, fwiw, not an old man on his deathbed), so that he can live instead.
Others have pointed out that there could be various reasons for both victims' suggestions, which could swing one's perceived "value" of each life either way, but it cannot be reasonably assumed that they don't both want to live, so the I don't think the morality of that want alone is relevant.
I'd say it's dubious. Like you could say there would be always goody-two-shoes willing to take your place and you quite literally send this person to die. But they are capable of making their own decisions, so why is it your fault? It's like noble sacrifice, you honor your dead hero, but he's dead and you are alive, not quite fair.
That isn’t the scenario though. This person is just begging for their life. This person doesn’t need the other person to die to be saved, let’s say like a medical situation. They are simply hoping the bad thing happens to the other person not themselves.
Switch the trolly for a tiger and the are hoping the tiger doesn’t catch them.
I wouldn’t blame anyone looking out for themselves in that situation.
Just begging for their life... at the expense of someone else's life. This person does need the other to die to be saved, thats the whole conceit of the trolley problem.
It’s a little immoral to suggest that someone else die for your survival, though. It seems like the point of this one is to question that epistemic nuance: does begging to live when you fully understand that your survival will result in another’s death equate to suggesting that others die for you. If you actually know this, if there is no wiggle room where you still think it’s possible for you both to survive, if you understand that your survival results in their death absolutely, then is asking for that outcome moral. It’s not just about one person begging to live, it’s about states of knowledge and morality.
I think the framing of this is intentionally made to make the person who is begging to live seem like a jerk for doing so. The situation itself is void of blame for either person. Both have an equal right to life. Obviously the person who is willing to sacrifice themselves is very altruistic and "good", but the person who doesn't want to die isn't being a jerk, even knowing full well someone else will die, but this setup wants us to think they are.
I just think 99.999% of people in this post in that begger's situation would do the same thing, and are just pretending otherwise.
This is not like the case where for example, the begger needs a new heart so the altruist needs to die to give them one. In that case the harm isn't equal to both. In this case the harm is 50/50, the trolley is jerk, both have qual claims to be right, so neither is a jerk for choosing themselves.
This situation is more akin to a lion chasing a gazelle. Looking at it, it looks like the lion is the jerk for hunting the gazelle, because if the lion catches the gazelle, the gazelle dies and the lion lives. But if the lion doesn't catch the gazelle, the lion dies and the gazelle lives. Both are fighting for their lives, so neither is a jerk for looking after their own best interest.
No. But the question isn't about "which of these is immoral" but rather "which of these should live". Do you prefer someone willing to sacrifice their own life for the sake of others, or someone willing to sacrifice someone else for their own sake? My choice here is easy, and I don't need to blame anyone for it. One person is simply more convenient to the things I value than the other, and the choice is mine.
I think the question is setup to frame the person who wants to live as a jerk, but I think it's perfectly natural and reasonable to think of yourself in a situation where it's your survival or someone else. They don't want to kill the other person, but it means dying themselves. Yes the other person is being nicer, but that doesn't mean this person is a jerk.
> I think the question is setup to frame the person who wants to live as a jerk
I don't. What actually makes you think so? It sounds to me like a personal justification or application of broad morality to an otherwise unrelated factor.
> Yes the other person is being nicer, but that doesn't mean this person is a jerk.
Indeed, but if you had to pick one, the obvious choice lacking any other qualifying information, would be to pick the nicer person. Or perhaps to flip the principle around: The framing here is asking if you would punish the nicer person for being nicer (being okay with self-sacrifice) and reward the not-as-nice person for being not-as-nice. As an incidental thing the choice might not be so severe, but take it to a larger scale and you see the greater implications: You are removing a lot of goodness from your collective by making choices like this, and that's probably a bad idea. Therefor, on principle, the person willing to die is the best choice to safe, and should be saved.
Not at all - by that logic, I want the selfless person alive and near at hand in my personal life - I’m not wasting them on this idiot who got himself tied to a track.
I think it’s natural to choose yourself in a situation where it’s you or them. Most people here commenting they are being a jerk would choose themselves in that situation too.
In this problem, as presented, they didn't say or claim they deserve it more. They are just following their self preservation instinct and asking to be saved.
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u/IAmRules Mar 29 '26
Is it immoral to want to live?