If such a faulty experiment is the basis of our ethics it’s little wonder why the world has become such a cynical and nihilistic place.
Suggesting an alternative isn’t refusing to engage with the hypothetical, it’s engaging in the hypothetical in a way that someone who thinks they’re so smart for studying philosophy should really fucking know how to entertain.
And again, the whole question was devised to point out that both answers are horrifying, morally bankrupt, and a logical conclusion of a faulty school of ethics, so insisting the question is “basic ethical philosophy” is just damning the entire foundation even more.
You’re not making a case that I should feel embarrassed about a snafu in philosophical thinking, you’re making a case that the real trolley problem is whether I should have gone back and shot the philosophy majors you think were snickering behind my back before they could do any actual damage by indoctrinating someone with actual deciding power into their effective death cult school of ethics where never thinking twice about “someone dies anyways” outcomes is perfectly reasonable.
Your “foundational ethics question” is equally as ridiculous as asking if I’d cheat on my SO if it would cure their cancer and also they wouldn’t forgive me for it. That’s not how anything ever works and insisting there’s some deep meaning in it is a farce, and the author of the question itself intended for it to be a farce, and trying to defend it as anything but a farce just makes you a farce
If such a faulty experiment is the basis of our ethics it’s little wonder why the world has become such a cynical and nihilistic place.
Suggesting an alternative isn’t refusing to engage with the hypothetical, it’s engaging in the hypothetical in a way that someone who thinks they’re so smart for studying philosophy should really fucking know how to entertain.
And again, the whole question was devised to point out that both answers are horrifying, morally bankrupt, and a logical conclusion of a faulty school of ethics, so insisting the question is “basic ethical philosophy” is just damning the entire foundation even more.
You’re not making a case that I should feel embarrassed about a snafu in philosophical thinking, you’re making a case that the real trolley problem is whether I should have gone back and shot the philosophy majors you think were snickering behind my back before they could do any actual damage by indoctrinating someone with actual deciding power into their effective death cult school of ethics where never thinking twice about “someone dies anyways” outcomes is perfectly reasonable.
Your “foundational ethics question” is equally as ridiculous as asking if I’d cheat on my SO if it would cure their cancer and also they wouldn’t forgive me for it. That’s not how anything ever works and insisting there’s some deep meaning in it is a farce, and the author of the question itself intended for it to be a farce, and trying to defend it as anything but a farce just makes you a farce