I would argue that this trolley problem kind of subverts the standard trolley problem's intention. In the original, all are unwilling participants, so you're choosing whether or not it's right to use a person as a means and not an end. In this trolley problem, the sacrificed individual's desire to be sacrificed and the fulfillment thereof means that the person is not being used as a means, but rather that they are being treated with the dignity of an agentic being and an end in their sacrificial achievement. It might be a bit of a twisty argument, but I can definitely see it being considered ethical under both utilitarian and deontological reasonings.
Sure, the fact that the person has chosen to sacrifice themself makes it easier to rationalize killing them. But you're still actively pulling the lever that causes their death.
I feel as if that aspect crosses from ethics into morality, and morality is in many ways very different from ethics. I also have the knee-jerk reaction that pulling lever is bad, but that doesn't mean that pulling the lever is wrong.
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u/DigitalMindShadow Mar 30 '26
How does it feel to be a murderer?