The Trolley Problem -- An Introduction and discussion about Normative Ethics (continuing)

In the previous post, we talked about utilitarianism. Now, let’s carry on our discussion with deontology. Deontological ethics is widely known and usually associated with Immanuel Kant (康德), who considers morality to be a universal rule depending on the motives , or good will, in other words. That is, an act is moral if and only if everyone can do that way and will be considered moral doing that way. It implies that the morality is “absolute”, “impersonal”, and ”universal”.

More precisely, Kant believes that any human beings should not be thought of as a means to an end because humanity is the end itself! Hence, in the trolley problem, if you divert the trolley, then you seem to treat that one worker on the sidetrack as a means to save 5 lives. It will be seen as immoral in Kant theory.

However, there’s a question remained:

How can we explain the choice of sacrificing five instead of one?

The answer lies in duties, which is another important perspective in deontology. Kant thinks that as we make our choices, we should take responsibility for them. Perhaps we can’t deny that you have made a choice in your mind whether you switch the direction or not, but Kant thinks that we can’t attribute the responsibility of 5 death to you if you don’t do anything. That is because there aren’t any better solutions here! For instance, for someone who can’t swim, we will not blame him for not saving the man drawn in the river. We can do nothing in both cases, so the duties will not be imposed on us.