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WHICH LIVES WOULD YOU SAVE?
This kid just took on a classic moral dilemma… with a scarily funny solution
A little boy was playing with his train set when his dad asked him to try to answer the trolley problem and he surprises everyone
A LITTLE boy was asked by his dad to try to find a solution to the classic moral dilemma but his unusual answer to the ethical issue took everyone by surprise.
E. J. Masicampo, a psychology professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, saw his son Nicholas playing with a train set and decided test his morality with a question first introduced in the 1960s.
The trolley problem asks whether you would reroute a runaway train barrelling towards five people who can't escape its path onto a different track where only one person is standing, thereby killing one to save five.
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“I'm a psychology professor who teaches a class on moral psychology,” explained E.J.
“I decided to record my two-year-old son's response to a commonly-discussed ethical dilemma so that I could share it with my class.”
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The video starts with Nicholas sitting next to his wooden train track, which is split into two forks, on one side lay one toy, while on the other there are five.
E.J. can then be heard asking his son which way the train should go, whether it should kill one life or five but no-one expected the little boy to answer like he did.
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Viewers can see Nicholas pick up the toy who is on the tracks alone and lay it down next to the other five.
He then starts moving the train and instead of picking the empty track, the youngster drives the locomotive into the toys - killing them all.
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The video, which was uploaded on YouTube yesterday, has already had over 1,600,000 views and received over 3,300 comments from amused users with one person joking: "Finally a good solution."
While someone else remarked: "If ur going to kill 5 people to save 1 you might as well kill 6 so no witnesses are around"
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Another person said: "I see a leader in him. He didn't discriminate. Everyone got the same treatment. He didn't wanna leave anyone out lol"
And one user summed up perfectly what we all thought: "'Aw, how thoughtful, he's moving the person to the other side so the train can go by without hitting anyo- oh.'"
What is the trolley problem?
- The trolley problem is an ethical thought experiment which was first introduced in 1967 by British philosopher Philippa Foot.
- Participants are told that there is a runaway trolley (or train) barrelling down the railway tracks and ahead lay 5 people tied up.
- The train is headed straight for them so you're given the option to pull a lever to switch tracks - but you notice that there's 1 person is tied to the alternative track.
- So, you're faced with the moral dilemma of choosing which lives to save.
- Should you a) Do nothing and let the trolley kill 5 people or b) Pull the lever onto the side track and kill 1 person - which is the most ethical answer?
- There is no right or wrong answer to the question but the moral dilemma has become a popular topic covered in various books that deal with human psychology.
- And there have been a number of variations on the problem - but the answers are often divided.