*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by critical_d.

a place for everything and everything in its place...

psychopaths run corporations at the moment

sounds like we're getting closer to a Truth scanner... really ideal.. just ask everyone if they are going to commit a crime, like at the airport during security check. good times... make sure it works though! the maker of the machine cant build in his own failsafe

It's interesting though that in such a specific scenario, on a strictly utilitarian basis, the psychopath would still be making the 'correct' decision.

I said yes to myself on both scenarios, but only because the 2nd is so outrageously unreal.

If I have the strength to push mass in front of a train so large that it might stop the train in its tracks....then its not really a person im pushing then, is it?

Problem solved, easy.

Second thoughts on the matter, if I have such strength, why not just jump down onto the tracks and stop the train myself? Would seem like a fairly easy feat in this fantasy world, where I have seeminly inhuman strength.

I'd be labelled a hero, and noone dies!

*brain

charliem - you've exactly hit on the problem with this "moral question", though in a way I believe most folks would never think of.

I remember the first time this I heard this about twenty years ago. My immediate reaction was yes on 1, no on 2, because if I flip the track switch there is an overwhelming likelihood the train will follow the secondary track and kill one person, but in the second scenario, there is no such guarantee. Every time I've pointed this out to the questioner, they try some hand-waving physics to convince me that it will work, but ultimately fail. And I'm convinced that the vast majority of people also understand this - that there really is no guarantee of derailing the train by pushing a fat person onto the tracks - and that is why most people respond the same way.

This is a very old "moral dilemma" question designed to elucidate human nature, but as charliem points out, it is completely false and thus completely invalid.

The questions are invalid in terms of interpreting the answers of respondents. On the other hand, using it as a means of probing the neurological basis of morality with fMRI is probably useful, since the relevant systems will likely be engaged regardless of the physical anomalies.

Adding video to channels (Brain) - requested by jonny.

Glad to see this is mistitled, because this question has nothing to do with diagnosing ASPD. More like "Are you a Utilitarian?" Or, in the case of some of our commenters, "Are you an asshole who refuses to accept the premise of a thought experiment?"

Maybe you should think about what is written before throwing out disparaging remarks. My comment isn't about refusing to accept the premise of the thought experiment, it's about the premise of the thought experiment unintentionally influencing responses. Humans respond to what they know, even to the point of forcing specific questions into different meanings because one interpretation fits better with real world experiences/expectations.

The one useful aspect of the question I did point out - despite the physical anomalies - most (all?) respondents will filter the question through the moral "hardware" in the brain, making it useful for identifying the neurological basis of morality. It's an entirely other question what the usefulness of that knowledge is.

So a horse walks into a bar and @jonny the bartender says, "Bullshit! Horses aren't even allowed in bars! How would it fit through the door? And I'm not a bartender! Your joke is invalid!"

@jonny - I'm pretty much with you. These same "dilemmas" were presented to me in a college class (Psych? Philo?) and I objected to the 2nd one on the basis that I can't imagine a bystander fat enough to reliably stop a train, and if they were I wouldn't be able to push them off a ledge.

The TA that was teaching the class said that the idea is to just treat it like a Newtonian Physics problem (ie., everything is a frictionless sphere or make all assumptions to reduce complexity wherever possible). In the scenario, just accept that you KNOW that you are capable of pushing the dude off, that you KNOW he will stop the train, and that you KNOW that you have insufficient mass/strength to jump off yourself and stop the train.

I get how that limits the variables and therefore draws a more concrete difference between various answers to the situation, but to me it also limits the interest I have in the question. My brain doesn't work that way, my problem solving center engages automatically and tries to find pitfalls and assign success rates rather than just "assume this will work".

I think I'd rather see the situations / dilemmas reworked to have a more realistic expectation of success. Maybe something like a rampaging lion on the loose, and you can swing a door currently blocking a room with 1 person inside to instead block a room with 5 people inside (situation 1); or you are above a hallway with a lion running towards 5 people and have an opportunity to push somebody into the lion's path which would give the 5 people enough time to run out of the hall and lock a door (situation 2). I think my "hungry lion" dilemmas have fewer physics pitfalls than the traditional train dilemmas.

They might as well have said "you can magically stop the train simply by murdering any random stranger".

The scary thing is not detecting a lack of emotions in some people, it's detecting emotions in people whilst they lie and say they would not sacrifice the fat guy.

In an ethics class I once attended, we were to imagine that there were two magic buttons, one "saves the whales" and kills a thousand random humans. The other kills all the whales and doesn't kill any humans. You have to press one button. Surprisingly I was the only one that killed all the whales (and saved the humans). I'd kill all the whales to save even one random human. And then I'd dine on whale burger (waste not want not). Everyone else was a traitor to humanity.

Interestingly I think most of the class were letting emotions choose their response, and it was the wrong response (IMO). This is the problem with these entirely convoluted situations, I don't think they are necessarily eliciting the best response. You might as well start them off with "you're in Wonderland..."

*promote for further discussion.

Self promoting this video back to the front page; last published Monday, August 12th, 2013 7:11pm PDT - promote requested by original submitter pumkinandstorm.

^ been called all-of-the-above, "sociopath" my personal favorite having been so-labeled by peeps without a clue as to who and what they themselves are or could be....

They could change the problem slightly, and make it more realistic:

A train is headed down a track. Some way down the track are five people who will be run over by the train before the driver has the time to both spot them and stop the train. You're standing on a bridge above that track along with another person. You could push that person off the bridge, and down onto the track, making the driver of the train spot the person you pushed just as he gets run over, and hit the brakes in plenty of time to prevent the brutal deaths of the five people further down the track. (This is, of course, assuming the train driver isn't an asshole who just keeps on going after he's knowingly run someone over).

I was told there'd be a test?

What if you by habit just typically push people onto tracks?

I had the exact reaction as you, @jonny.

To accurately consider what your natural reaction would be in this thought experiment, you have to mentally imagine yourself actually living out the situation.

Even though the experiment says "If you push the fat man, you will save five lives," my only human reaction is that it doesn't make any sense, and there can not possibly be such a guarantee.

Perhaps that's an answer that speaks to your personality right there. Maybe a psychopath wouldn't care that the scenario might not make sense and they would just push the person anyway.

I like the psychopath test (that, as it turns out, actually isn't real, but I like it anyway) that goes something like this:

A girl was at her mother's funeral. She spoke with a man whose name she did not get and she'd never met before. She immediately liked him a lot and felt he may be the man of her dreams.

A week later she killed her own sister. Why did she do that?

FWIW, I've always hated the "moral dilemma" posed in the video. It makes no sense. They should have spent more time thinking on that thought exercise... I can't honestly answer a question that makes no sense at all.