At the Trolley Switch Again

It’s once again time to consider the Trolley Problem. The classic version is a trolley is barreling down the tracks, about to kill 5 people. You can flip the track switch and kill one person instead. The implications, of course, are that you are actively participating in the death of that one person if you flip the switch, but you’re implicitly responsible for the deaths of the five people if you don’t. We’re going to have to meaningfully address this dilemma. We’re going to have to come to terms with violence being the answer to oppression. It seems widely understood at this point that we can’t negotiate with anyone who has already decided they’re comfortable with killing us. And I know it’s a terrible paradox, but we have to be comfortable with killing people who are killing people. If we had a time machine, I’d guess many of us would say we’d go back and kill Hitler before he committed atrocities. But here’s the dilemma—hindsight 20/20: If you knew Hitler would kill millions, when do you act? When he’s a baby? During his rise to power? How many people would you let die first? If we’re willing to kill Hitler in the past, how do we apply this lesson to the present and the future? When we see warning signs, can we afford to ignore them? If anyone makes an argument that killing even one person is bad, how can they justify the people they condemned to die by letting that one person live? If we’re not comfortable with killing even one person, then how do we let someone live to kill much more than that? I don’t like the death penalty. I’m not an advocate for it. (Primarily because I don’t have much faith in our justice system, but also because I don’t want anyone to have to die.) Then again, I can clearly see the case for guillotines, because I’m not keen on oppression. I don’t like seeing anyone suffer while those with extraordinary means are allowed to sit idly. But I know that not everyone is there yet. If governments would never consider someone like the UnitedHealthcare CEO a murderer—or even an accomplice or accessory to murder—despite his company being responsible for effectively harming and killing thousands of people, then is it just that we don’t have a proper legal definition for what constitutes murder that reflects our morals? If our laws say someone can’t go out and kill one person who is responsible for thousands of deaths, then how can we let someone be responsible for thousands of deaths to begin with? Shouldn’t that have stopped well before now? How do we ever end up here at the trolley switch anyway? It feels preventable. And if it’s not, then—as an entire society—we have to become very comfortable with flipping that switch. I know that no one wants to answer these questions because it makes us uncomfortable, but is it really nobler for us to stand there and let people like that continue to harm others at that kind of scale? If one person’s decisions lead to thousands of deaths, how can we justify inaction? Or—even better—why do we?