i dont think the first moral dilemmas are identical . instead of pushing the guy off the bridge you could jump yourself and even assuming youd worked out u not heavy enough to stop it you could join him. also in the first eg with the lever, ultimately the trolley is the "killer"no matter what u do. on the bridge if you interfere you become the agent of causation for a death. i reckon youd find this reflected in the laws of most countries too,the pusher being prosecuted the puller probably not

Anyone who believes that lower mammals do not feel shame or guilt have not owned a pet dog.

Gotta say I have some problems with this episode. First as to the thought experiment, amusing that it is a clearly yes/no problem, I would kill the one man in each situation. There is really no question there. The needs of the many out way the needs of the one, to quote Mr. Spock. My own personal emotions are totally irreverent on the matter. Secondly, considering that morality varies so greatly in different periods in history and from culture to culture I can't see how it can be biological defined. From everything i have read morality seems to be derived from the fundamental mythology of a society.

@nanatschool---The scenario makes the stipulation that the man is large, so I was under the impression that because the man is large, only his body is able to stop the train. Otherwise, you could just let the train go and then the first body of the 5 would stop the train, and still only 1 person would die and you wouldn't have to push the large man. So, unless you are as large or larger than the man, sacrificing yourself won't help anybody but the large man. You're still letting the other 5 people die.

I agree with Seth. The second scenario is different because you are selfishly chosing another instead of sacrificing yourself to stop the train. You are not in the same situation as when you had a switch to pull. To go beyond that to the baby in the basement choice; I think that also would be different if you sacrificed yourself and your baby rather than just the infant. Adding this to the mix would be interesting to study using the fMRI.

For the train experiment, in both versions, the first thought that I had was to do nothing at all. Hypothetically, I don't know these people and who am I to decide whether who lives or who dies. Somebody else had to have created this awful situation and I will not be the one to decide the resulting outcome. So, I would pull neither lever and not push the big guy over the edge. Now, if I knew these people or had more information about them, then my choice would be very different.

I would also LOVE to have a transcript of the Morality podcast. I would love to use it with my biology students.

What about the brain connecting the fact that you are directly the reason that someone died (pushing them) or pulling a lever where the lever is actuly the "direct" reason for the the one loss of life. Though they seem to essentially be the same situation resulting in one death vs several, I wonder if there is something wired in our brains that makes us not want to be the root cause, the direct cause, that makes us choose to not want to push someone vs pulling the lever. I can't help but feel that maybe some of the "guilt" is lost when there is that extra step of pulling the lever - it is somehow "removing" the person from the directness of the loss. Anyone else kind of understand where I'm coming from?

The last segment on East State Penitentiary was seemingly building up to questions about the development of morality in confinement. Unfortunately the story was incomplete. I assume the tone of the piece intended to convey that true penitence and subsequent moral growth did not occur through the means of confinement. The piece would have been incredibly more engaging were it followed by discussion regarding moral development later in life. The examples involving children were thorough enough to touch on nature/nurture, and seemed to conclude that the vast majority of children truly adopt morality through independently witnessing the consequences of their own actions; a pure and simple answer that likely rings true to most. Though in the case of the Penitentiary, no discussion brought attention to morality development in later life. While I intuitively lean toward adult morality reaching a relatively stagnant state, no consideration was given to morality + neural plasticity.

Each example was striving to create a division between morality as either naturally innate, catalyzed via personal experience, followed rules of culture, consideration of divinity, or a combination of these ideas. Despite the source, most of the discussions treated morality as a firm and static process of the human brain. Again, I lean heavily toward this. Entertaining the role of neural plasticity in the sphere of morality would greatly enrich this discussion.

I think people are missing the point about the lever/train scenario. Yes, they are fundamentally different as one scenario affects the train "directly" and the other affects the person directly. However that is the point. They both have the same effect of saving 5 people, so how does morality play its role more prominently in scenario 2? It's a hypothetical situation which has some great questions about human nature.

I think one thing that's overlooked in the situation is that the man you push versus the man you choose with the lever isn't equivalent - because of this:

in one situation, someone NOT YOU will die - regardless.

in the other situation, YOU could be the one to jump instead of pushing another individual.

that to me makes it a non equivalent situation. you are morally making a judgement that YOU ARE NOT AN OPTION. and if you are not an option, then perhaps this other person is not an option. the push situation becomes more selfish than moral. and your empathic selfishness saves you from pushing the guy.

In this situation even though we are told pushing the large man will stop the trolly we don't know that it will. In the first situation where we pull a lever we know for sure this will prevent more people from dying. I think this might have something to do with the results. If you push the man over and it stops the train, can you prove that you saved other peoples lives? If not, you're in trouble even if you meant for the best.

I'm so outraged at the confusion, I'm writing before hearing the whole program. The question about the trolly and pushing someone to his death assumes this a numbers question and it is not. In the scenario with the lever causing one person's death rather than a group's it is about allowing one man to die who would have died anyway--even if you didn't pull the lever. If you push a guy, you are murdering a guy who would not die if not pushed. Where's the confusion? One is lessening death of members of a group that is destined to die. The second case is murder.

It's interesting that there is an inconsistency of how people answer this question but the neuro-researcher's theory doesn't really speak to why the inconsistency is so CONSISTENT. 9 out of 10 people say they would pull the lever. 9 out of 10 people say they would not push the big guy on the tracks. If the fact that we are weighing out these decisions between two different parts of our brains were the only thing that made for an inconsistency in answers to these two questions, not everyone would answer yes and no to the same questions.

If I were to pull a lever to let a train kill someone I would be much more detached from the murder than physically pushing someone onto the tracks with my own bare hands. Detachment is the difference between the two questions. Can't help but think of hand guns and gun control on this one.

Or maybe it has to do with anonymity. The person on the bridge is within arms distance from you. You could speak to him. You can see his face. The workers are, all six of them, anonymous. They are all the same to you. I wonder if the answers to the questions would change if there were 30 people on the bridge with you. If you pushed one off the bridge s/he would stop the train. Anyone will do. Would you pick the one closest to you and push him/her off?

Also, would the answers to these questions vary if the gender or ages of the people in question varied? Everyone in this scenario were male adults. What if the "big guy" next to you on the bridge happend to be a "big lady?"

Ty is absolutely right. The nearness of the "pushable" man equates the effect of his body landing on the tracks with one's own body landing there instead.

The problem I have with two trains, is that there is an unmentioned flaw in the second scenario. If pushing another person to the tracks would stop the train, this implies hurling yourself to the tracks also would stop the train. In the first scenario, there is no chance for you to substitute yourself for one of the victims, the train disaster is about to take place in an arena with only one point of interaction, the lever. By considering pushing a person directly, when your own body potentially can fulfill the same role, this creates a rather straight forward moral situaltion, where if decide that you arent willing to risk your skin, youve no right to risk the skin of another. This was absent from the set up but i believe is part of what the brain would be having to wade through.

Didn't hear the first part of this show but in the latter part, ie. the teacher that taught morality to kids, I believe in it the commentator said that "pretty much everyone will do the right thing if given the chance and the education" I don't totally agree with this but it does get to the heart of many so things! ie. crime and punishment, whether society should pay for those unable or unwilling to work, how often to lock one's house or car, political decisions, "free" medical care for everyone, etc.
As an political independent I think I'm somewhere in the middle; ie. about one it 15 will be dishonest if given the opportunity, ie. either that they lack a sense of empathy for others or that their own greed or immediate gratification outweighs all other considerations. A far left liberal would probably believe that nearly all people are honest in this regard and that some "extenuating circumstances is responsible for any deviation. A right winger would probably believe that nearly all are inherently "sinners" and only practice the moral path if shown the way by religion or the "Lord".
As I said it gets to the heart of one's life-approach and decision-making. But as a biased observer I do wish more people believed as I do!

Ahh! I was so excited to see morality again up as the latest episode. But, I thought it was going to be a new or updated episode. I have always had a problem with the first thought experiment. It doesn't isolate the variable intended to be tested. The conclusions drawn from the experiment seem like a stretch, given that there can be a myriad of reasons that someone would not want to push the large man over the bridge. There are far too many differences between the first situation and the second.
First, when you pull the switch in the first situation, you don't know for sure than the train will kill either the five or one man, even if you tell the subject such. So, your choice is to decide the fate of six people. It is a simple risk assessment case. In the second situation, you have to almost certainly kill a man, even more so if you assume that his body could STOP A TRAIN. That is quite an assumption for a thought experiment. On top of that, you have to assume that he would land exactly where you wanted him to. In the back of your mind, you know that the train would probably continue on its way toward the five people anyway and kill all six.
So, if you want to simplify it logically, your choice is to either kill one man over five indirectly or directly kill one man to give a slim chance of saving five. The point of the experiment should be focused on directly and indirectly killing a man. That's where the conclusions are drawn.
So, from reading other people's comments, perhaps the second situation should involve delivering a lethal electric shock to one man when the lever is pulled. So, when you pull it beforehand, you have to see the man suffer, so you switch it back. Then you have to make the decision in say 10 seconds before the train arrives.

darwin's theory of evolution is still not proven. yet mr. josh green(e) and so many others believe it is a fact.
i can provide experiential proof which we all can see hear perceive and understand that mr. darwin's theory is, at best, half a theory...
hasn't any one ever considered that the reverse is also true?
that the human is not a descendant of the ape but the ape is a degenerated form of human...eh? anyone for tennis??

actually, what goes up must come down, progressive evolution dependent upon time is absolutely fallacious...anyone can see that the human race is degenerating, everyone who can reflect quietly only has to review the horrors of the 20th century wars to see we are not progressing but are falling INVOLUNTARILY...
anyone for tennis?? i challenge every scientist, psychologist to a duel, anytime anywhere...not that i know too much from my own experience, but that the ancient knowledge has come into my hands, and all the (materialistic) scientists today don't know anything. I am sorry to say, but the truth does not exist in the mind... all is theory and all is babbling..

I'd like to smooth out a few kinks in the train track thought experiment, to do away with the hold ups or get-out-of-jail-free cards many people have proposed to avoid the problem.

In the first scenario 6 innocent victims of a twisted psychopath are bound to the tracks- 5 on the first set of tracks, 1 on the other set. They cannot jump free, and they are not there through any fault of their own. You are separated from the tracks by a high metal fence, with the lever. You cannot jump onto the tracks to stop the train.

In the second scenario the 5 innocent victims are again strapped to the tracks, and you stand behind the high fence with the lever. This time the lever opens a trap door below a man, who would drop to his death onto a pressure plate changing the course of the train to a track with no victims. You do not have to push the man physically, or deal with any uncertainty as to what might happen if he doesn't stop the train before the victims, or misses the track when he falls etc.

Now, you are equally detached from both scenarios- you can pull the lever, or you can not pull it.

I agree in part with Frank C, lower down in the comments, when he says in scenario 1, either way, you are not personally responsible for any deaths that occur- it is a guilt free situation- no one will blame you for what you did, either way.

However pulling the lever to drop the man to his death in scenario 2 feels like much more of an active decision, and most people would rather 5 people be killed by fate, or a psychopath, than one who they personally killed.

whilst a passive decision may just be an active decision in disguise, it still holds a definite weight on our moral instinct. (wouldn't we all be relieved if the lever were already set to the 1 man track in scenario 1?)

I have a critic regarding the train scenario:

My problem with the train scenario is that it has a fundamental flaw that makes it impossible to compare the two.

The first scenario is very simple. We all watched enough Hollywood movies to be able to imagine a super villain strapping innocent individuals to a train rail, with a lever that decides the fate of one group to another. In this scenario, you are not the super villain; you are an unfortunate soul that just happened to come by and is forced to make a choice. Looking at it like this, which I believe most people do, it is easy to understand why one will instinctively choose to pull the lever and save the five individuals (sacrificing the one).

But, my problem begins with scenario two. We are logical creatures, and thus, we follow a logical trail in our brain. And scenario 2 defies our logic. If a train comes that is able to roll over five individuals, than our mind struggles to understand why will one person be able to stop the train. One might say, “Well, it’s a really big guy…”, but that is still insufficient. A big guy needs to be a giant, an equivalent to 5 men. When our mind is confronted with scenarios that defies our logic, it usually tries to bypass it by convincing itself that it makes sense. This kind of brain activity can very well mess up the entire brain scan and lead you to false conclusions regarding the source of the moral decision.

I think this also explains why so many individuals automatically answered that they will not push the guy but could not explain why.

In scenario #1 the person is detached from the situation... only the lever can make a difference in the outcome (as it's described). In the second scenario the man next to the tracks would suggest you are close to the tracks as well and could potentially throw yourself on the tracks to the same effect as pushing someone else which does present a large moral difference from the first scenario. The whole exercise depends on the idea that lives are of equal value and if one is unwilling to throw themselves on the tracks it's hard to convince yourself that this man next to you should be put in the position you are hesitant to put yourself in. I know this may go "against" the spirit of the exercise but this may inevitably play a role in the decision making.

Love the show!

The lever is a red herring. If you wouldn't push the fat guy, then you wouldn't pull a lever to open a trap door under him either. The lever isn't the main difference. The difference is that you can replay the first scenario without the one guy on the tracks, but you CAN'T replay the second scenario without the fat guy on the bridge because the fat guy is the MEANS of stopping the train. The guy on the tracks is incidental. That's the difference between murder and collateral damage.

The baby smothering scenario is a no-brainer. Either everyone including the baby dies, or only the baby dies, your choice. In both cases, the baby dies and the enemy is culpable.

Regarding the 1 vs 5 men on the train tracks: pulling an inanimate object, such as lever and letting machines do our dirty work, feels different from actually making physical contact with another being and causing its direct demise. Same feeling as buying meat wrapped in cling film at the market rather then killing and gutting the cow oneself.

Whether it be one's inner chimp or one's brain chemistry I can't say for anyone else.

As for myself, there's one main reason why I would pull the level to save the five, but not push someone onto the track. With the level scenario, my assumption was that my only choice to save life was to pull a lever.

In the bridge over the tracks scenario, the reason I can't push another person is because I have ONE other choice. I could jump on the tracks myself. I could sacrifice MYSELF. To choose killing another over my own sacrifice is what makes this immoral.

If I was able to stop the train by sacrificing myself RATHER than pull the level, I could never pull the lever.

When it comes to the M*A*S*H scenario, I would be VERY interested in having my brain scanned because I believe I would create a third group. As for me, I would be in the mix who would NEVER kill my child (or any child). However, that doesn't mean that my logic is switched off.

You see, in my mind's eye, I would create a third scenario. In it, I would leave my child in the care of someone I could trust to raise them and then I would leave the group and venture out into harm's way. I would create a diversion that would lead soldiers away from those in hiding. As with the train scenario, this would mean I would allow myself to be sacrificed (best case scenario, be captured --- worst case, die) in order that the larger group would live.

It is incredibly interesting to me that in a show dedicated to morality, there is no mention of self-sacrifice.

Why is that?

1st of all I would never pull the lever for its the G-d that orchestrates the scene and not me, so who am I to change things unless U hold that we come from chimps and than I'm kinda responsible and I don't get why?
2nd How about to do the same survey in pre biblical times when killing others was not such a big deal?
I bet U than most people would push the heavy guy down absolutely without no remorse!!!

I'd just like to point out that the math isn't the same on the lever versus pushing thought experiment.
With the lever, there is only a say right and a left option, and at the moment you notice the lever, its within your power to either murder the 5 men, or murder the 1, there is no option for not murder. The pushing of the man has chances and is not a straight forward right or left answer. If you are talking about pushing him, you could push him in any direction, he could fall the wrong way, maybe it won't stop the train (of course you "know" it will in the thought experiment, but your gut reflex still governs your decision).
I know that I would not push the man off the track, it probably wouldn't even occur to me to. On the other hand, if per say a serial killer left me in a room with a gun, and told me that if i didn't shoot this one guy, he would shoot 5 other people, i would have no problem shooting the one man, because it would become a choice with no variables.
It's not a matter of an odd morality, it's simply the variables that people cannot get around.

Ironic. Today my Lt. and I discussed morality. He is an American Patriot and Christian. I am an American Patriot and, well, polytheistic is the best description. We never completed the discussion due to work, however, driving home I heard this episode. How fantastic. I appreciate scientific research, showing that morality is a chemical, physiologically necessary behavioral characteristic, and unique to humankind (due to regret or guilt-animals do not have this behavior.) My Lt. appreciates religious institutions (yes, God) as the origin and moderator of morality. This episode was perfect for comparing the possibilities of what is morality.

I finally found this. I heard it a few years ago. I have learned much since then. First, that this whole discussion is a display of "Freudian" architecture. The "Ego, Id, and Super Ego". Second is that it also upholds a theory that I have. It says that we have "womb envy". With that comes a desire to recreate the environment we left at birth. Every behavior we have today is the result of this quest. It is a quest to fill the 3 basic needs. We long to be 98.6 degrees (shelter), nourished (food), and Secure (shelter). The first two are easy to obtain. The last one is a "relative concept" it is perceptive and lucid varying from person to person depending not upon a mostly physical mechanism such as warmth and fullness, but a completely emotional one, that employs everyone in the mental health field. It is why we pay $100 for $5 shoes. It is why we are in the state that we are in economically, socially, and psychologically. In this example, it isn't a decade of what is right and wrong that stops us from pushing, but a deep rooted subconscious understanding that we would loose a level of security if we pushed a person, maybe a friend, off the overpass.

@Patrick Couldn't agree more. It's definitely important to understand that the will of the person in the second scenario should never be treated simply as a means to an end (humanity formula via Kant)

However, I feel like for the sake of making the episode an hour, it was impossible for Jad and Robert to ask for a thorough moral response. The moral response one can get from the train dilemma in this case is way too general. Morality is so much greater than just guilt or right/wrong. If someone were to argue a utilitarian argument, then clearly saving 5 is appropriately "moral". If someone were to argue about the importance of human will, they can say that both pulling the lever and throwing the person off the bridge are both clearly more immoral because both involve treating a person (and his will) simply as a means to an end (which revokes the dying person his/her right to exercise his/her will). Then there's the question of negative responsibility, which Bernard Williams uses to critique utilitarian thought, saying that we are just as morally responsible for the things we do NOT do as the things we do. In that case, it's a lose-lose moral situation because regardless of whether or not we chose to pull the lever/push the person or not, we are morally responsible for the fate of the dying individual(s).

The point I'm trying to make is that if these questions were so easy to answer, they wouldn't be considered dilemmas at all. The depth at which we can go to attempt to take every single factor into consideration is herculean in itself. Simplifying it to guilt or right/wrong will forever be a personal choice, and a choice based on one's own views on morality.

Based on my training, here is what they are missing:

1) The thought problem.

The question of whether it is better to kill one than many is an ETHICAL problem, not a moral one. There is no moral law against accidental death. There is one against murder. That makes the question of murdering someone a MORAL one. So you are really asking these people (on the thought level) if they are willing to violate their morals to do something that seems more ethical.

Moral rules usually make ethical sense. But as they are rules they can only be used as guidelines. What is ethical is what results in the best survival for all involved. What is moral is what results in the least guilt for the individual.

2) The emotional problem.

The problem as posed at the beginning of this episode was not a real thought problem. It had a huge emotional content. As you tell the story of the problem, the listener will get emotionally involved. That means they are looking at (or even feeling) the actual body efforts associated with the story. And something that involves a lot of body effort (like killing someone with your own hands) is much more disagreeable than an action that takes relatively little (like pulling a lever to kill a man). So in such a scenario, most will shy away from the choice that takes more effort. If there is also a moral prohibition to such an action, the choice will be even easier to make. The better test, when it comes to effort, is to make it an effort that has no particular moral or ethical implications.

3) "Moral sense"

Beings have an innate moral sense. It is based on empathy (the "Golden Rule"). But the researchers must assume we are "born" with it because they don't know that it belongs to the being, not the body.

However, this moral sense, which is active to some degree even in animals, has been perverted in man. Men can become confused enough to completely believe that other men are too dangerous to be left uncontrolled, and will set about to create a system of control for the people around them. In the "civilized" world this is known as the "rule of law" (or something similar). It is based fundamentally on the threat of pain. Confused people think this is the best way to control others. It is not.

In the "perfect" civilization, people who follow the rules (are moral) will live a pleasant life and those who break the rules (are immoral) will experience pain. We know that it really doesn't work this way. But the system continues due to a general confusion on the subject. A big part of this confusion comes from ignoring the fact that beings exist, not just bodies.

In an actual perfect civilization, all beings would strive to follow the rules, but would above all seek to be ethical in all their decisions, even if this meant breaking a rule here and there. They would recognize that the true hierarchy of thought and effort starts at the spirit and descends through the mind to the body, and they would act based on this understanding.

Jill, you are missing the point entirely. It is about a moral quandry, not about the inane physics of the situation. People like you ruin every good discussion you are ever in.

How is a trolley, that could be stopped by one man, going to run over five men in a row?

I think that a important detail is missing to the rail-road-track question. There is a big difference between pushing the fat guy and triggering the train to change its path. When considering pushing the guy you are not the only one having a choice. If you push him, you are reducing him to a tool. Because he is the one with the ability to save the people on the railroad track, he should be making the choice. That is why 9 out of 10 decides that it is moraly wrong to push him (which I too think it is) but not to trigger the train to change its path (which I too think it is not)

It is never as easy as yes or no. As the individual choosing the outcome, I'd take into consideration for instance, the kind of life style each group lives. For the sake of equality, let's say both groups will end in the same place and live the same exact life. From here I'd decide based on the laws. Am I to be punished for executing this one individual and save the five, or am I to be celebrated? Am I to be punished for not saving the five men and allowing them to die, having not done anything? Here lies my decision.

Now if the lives are not equal and the five are destined to live a life of poor quality while the one lives a life that will help others (assuming I can know this for whatever reason), I might be inclined to let the five die and allow the one to survive.

What I'm getting at is there is more than one circumstance running through some of our heads. Personally, I take many aspects into consideration. Much of what I decide would weigh upon how I believe the court would favor. Secondly, I’d decide based on which side was worth more alive.

When it comes right down to it, a situation such as this is not one I'd be willing to sacrifice my life in prison over and unless savvy with how the investigation would play out, would probably just sit and watch.

Definitely gives me something to think about.

again, what a wonderful show! but boy do you ever prove the point about the experimenters fingerprints being all over the experiment. so those neurons are shouting at each other and battling it out and contesting like mad, eh? you obviously did your show on 'words' after this one. how about they worked together passionately to mutually strive towards their best light?

This whole pulling the lever / shoving the man seem like 2 completely different scenarios to me. In the one case you're directing what is essentially a large inanimate object, in the other case you're directing another human being, who presumably has a will of his own,

mandreas,
It seems the lesson we learn from this is:

If your level of mental impairment is such that you can not read a train schedule do not pursue a career in train track maintenance. Clearly you will be a danger to yourself and your coworkers.

IS from Colorado,

So you're suggesting that intelligence is the determining variable that validates a person's right to live? In other words because the one is smart and the others less smart, that they don't deserve to live as much as the one? So by that logic, mentally impaired people also don't have an equal right to life?

When I first heard this dilemma I immediately responded that I would let the 5 men die. I'm seriously appalled that 90% of people would choose to sacrifice one man to save the 5. To me pulling the lever defies both moral and logical thought. One man who is smart enough to read a train schedule before he works on a track is worth fifty men who blindly go to work on a track with a train scheduled to run on it (we all know about 'Train Time' thanks to the Radiolab episode on time - so look at a schedule and check your watches before you go to work on a track!).

How can you sacrifice a man who did everything right for 5 men who acted so foolishly and stupidly? I would never do it. Math has made me do some crazy things but it will not make me a murderer.

I think another reason people think pushing a person is wrong...why wouldn't I just jump rather than push another person? If I push a lever to alter to direction of the train, I don't have the option of sacrificing myself. When you push someone it is like "I volunteer you to save these men" *push* You are making a conscious decision to kill this person. Pushing a lever may be more of a reaction like "oh my gosh, these 5 men will die if I don't move this train. oh no! There's a man over there too."

Come on guys, it's simple. Pressing a button feels much less like directly being the cause of another's death in contrast to physically shoving the person. And the button scenario draws a mental picture of HAVING to push a button to save 5, at the cost of 1. In contrast to the shove scenario which draws a mental picture that isn't as certain to save 5, but definitely will be killing 1.

What an interesting podcast. I found it very interesting that 9 out of 10 would actually pull the lever! My immediate response was no way. I don’t know that I can boil such a decision down to numbers, I think if you do that then you open up another can of worms in regards to the value of each person. Are those five people more valuable to humanity than that one? Who knows, but it certainly isn’t up to me to condemn one person to die by my own hand to spare the misfortune of a few.

I'd like to ask the older moderator a question about the war thought experiment:

Let's imagine you're hidden there with your wife, your three kids, your baby, your parents and 4 other families.

Would you still refuse to kill the one baby and thus instead sacrifice EVERYONE else?

Imagine of there were two trials, one for the man that pulled the lever, and the other for the man that pushed the guy. Do you think that the survivors would show up in court in defense of their savior that pushed another man to his death? Do you think that the family of the single killed worker would sue the man that pulled the lever?

Would the law of the land be very kind the person that ended up making the choice to save 5 people, in either scenario.

Somehow I think that the court system would be the kindset to the man that did not push the large man, even though it ends up with the worst outcome of 5 people dead.

With all due respect to the other anonymous face known as Barbara P, I agree entirely, thus negating her point. My argument comes from a background in science.

Morality in the real world is not cut and dry, and the situations are rarely if ever closed. There are almost always additional options.

BUT.

The difference between the lab and the real world is that it's possible to do these kinds of experiments in the lab, even if it's just a thought experiment. Having an open system in the train-yard example would have opened other options, but it would have eliminated the importance of the experiment. That's why labs exist: they simplify life by controlling options.

The question, "Here's a situation, what do you do?" might be interesting, but it's not scientific.

Of course there are other options than killing the baby: chocking it to unconsciousness but not death would be one viable option, making it more likely that the town would survive. But open questions like that are still not useful for scientific research, because statistics just don't work on them, a point mostly lost on normal people.

With respect to the show, I think it's interesting that no one on the show mentioned that if the baby coughs, it's going to die anyway. The decision from a logical standpoint is literally, "save the town except for your baby, or don't." Alternatively, "kill your baby and save the town or don't kill your baby and she dies anyway, along with the whole town." At that point, the choice is simple. Would I have the fortitude to do it, I don't know. But I know what I'd want to do.

The problem with some of the hypothetical scenarios is that real life is never so cut-and-dried. In the baby-killing example, Nikki T. is right in imagining other options, because in real life there ARE other options, and other possible outcomes to any situation. If you choose to kill the baby, then you are no longer open to possibility. In the train example, pulling the lever to save 5 still leaves open some kind of chance that the one could survive (jump off the tracks maybe?), but the fat man in the second example would be far less likely to make it out alive. Our actions which have a closer impact are more likely to succeed (i.e. not be subject to chance) than things which occur further away, or at a later time.

Also, it is impossible to know how one will actually perform under pressure, but I understand that the study may shed light on how people MIGHT react.

The "math" for the pull-the-lever versus push-the-man-off-the-bridge is easier than you let on. Jump off the bridge yourself, if you can muster the courage, or watch five people die. Leave the man standing on the bridge if you choose to jump. Now the question of morality becomes more like, Do I sacrifice my life to save five others, or watch in horror as five people tragically die? Maybe one is heroic, and one is not, but is the choice a lack of morals, or typical self-preservation, for which most, if not all people would be understanding?

In regards to Frank C.'s February 14, 2009, 9:21 pm comment:

"Also, I do not think the question of, “Would you smother your crying baby in order to save your village from a murdering enemy” has to deal with morality, but more to do with guilt and courage."

I watched a segment that interviewed one of the Chilean rugby players about the incident of the plane crash he was in on a way to a game. Some of you might recall that the survivors, caught for more than two months in the freezing Andes, had to resort to cannibalism of the dead bodies in order to survive.

After the two months, they knew they had to try to find help or they would all die. The one being interviewed was one of the two that trekked through the Andes to find help. He said, "What we did was not courage. There was no thought of courage in what we were doing. We did it out of pure fear that we were going to die if we didn't at least try."

I think in the situation of suffocating the baby or not lies in how much fear the mother may be feeling at the time of potentially getting caught. If she were out of her mind with fear, I could see her more easily killing her baby than if she were more resolute to the fate of being caught and killed.

In the trolley case, the way I see it, is that by pulling the lever I am primarily affecting the action of the trolley. While I know the man will be killed, it is as a consequence of changing the path of the trolley.

In the bridge scenario, by pushing the man I am directly affecting HIS fate (not that of the trolley).

I think the crux of the conundrum lies in the fact of the SEQUENCE OF EVENTS.

1. Pull lever -> save 5 -> 1 dies as consequence.

2. Push man -> 1 dies -> 5 saved as consequence.

I think we go with the FIRST thing we feel. In the first scenario, we would be saving five people first and that feels good. In the second scenario it would be committing murder first and that feels bad. Any resulting consequence is -- ahem -- farther down the track and therefor takes secondary precedence.

Regarding "Morality" in the scenario of 'choosing' to smother the baby, you stated EVERYONE WOULD DIE, INCLUDING THE BABY if you did not smother the baby. In later discussion you seem to have missed the one point that trumps everything, which is the baby dies either way. To describe it as a 'choice' between killing the baby or saving the village and yourself does not accurately present the real choice you are faced with. Also when people said they would not kill the baby, any attempt to evaluate their thought process should have included a reminder to them the baby would die anyway and evaluate their subsequent response.

This is one of my favorite episodes!
Here's my thing (I'm sorry if someone else has already commented with the same thought):
As a mother and a person who respects humanity, I literally cried during the segment about the villagers. However, is there a possible third option?
Could the mother not come forward and lead the soldiers to believe that she and the child are the only ones?
I could not kill my own child. But, I also wouldn't want others to be killed because of her. However, I can sort of stomach the idea of the two of us having to die together.

What I like about the show is the 4th grade game Homestead where Amy O’Leary remembers her scheme to own the middle of the board game the “town” and encourage others to join “the company”. She would take all of their profit from their farmland and pay her classmates pennies on the dollar in exchange for a small piece of “the town”. As she put it “crazy total power” and “selling her fellow classmates into slavery”. If the simulation farm people needed to go to town to see the doctor she could charge them more money than they have. When the fellow classmates complained to the teacher she was wondering what is the problem I am winning isn’t that what I was suppose to do? No I am not changing and why is this an issue what is wrong with what I am doing. In the real world I see this as American drug companies holding patents on drugs that cost pennies to manufacture and charge the uninsured hundreds of dollars for a few pills. Banks handing out millions of dollars of bonuses as their stock and companies are in ruins. Asian children making clothing for pennies a week while designers sell them in malls with fancy logos putting American workers out of business. African diamond mines using forced labor of children to find shinny rocks so others can where jewelry. The Owners of these industrys give capitalisim a bad name. Is it as bad as in Carl Marx day? So if you are the diamond mine owner would you say hey what is wrong with this I am winning?

I enjoy Radiolab but every time I've heard this train conundrum, whether from sophomore psychology majors or Jad and Robert, I've found it utterly stupefyingly bogus. Who would be able to push a man big enough to stop a train that would otherwise kill five people? It makes no sense at all and is pointless as a thought experiment. It says as much about cacomorphobia, the "fear of fat people," as about morality. Aside from that, keep up the good work!

commenting on the inner chimp. I have to make a big
decision based upon the knowledge of dr. Andrew Newburg from university of Pennsylvannia.

I have recently walked out of domestic violence.
I left my house due to alcoholism.jan 20 ,2009
Ten years ago it had happened earlier
with younger childern. They are older now but
but they are doing it to me.

I moved out I don't need black and blues.

anyway my parents are from ukraine and

a doctors daughter. needless
to say they used drugs to put me to sleep .

I am bipolar and off the drugs do I tell the truth.

now that I remember the truth /and getting data of
the past.

I look at my breakdown and wonder why I needed
vacation from trying to help my husband and childern.

They would drugged me up and labeled me
so the alcoholic could continue.

also reading is not looked upon as something that is good. i in my family.

thank' for your help while i was writing this listened to the webcast of the childern in nursery school
do the right thing tell the truth.

I think the "inner chimp" conclusion as an explanation for our mental resistance to killing someone is somewhat myopic. For me, one of the fundamental human characteristics is agency. Because we each have freedom to choose we recognize that others possess the same ability, and we respect their agency because we would want ours to be respected. Most of our laws are designed to uphold this principle.

Our resistance to pushing the man off the bridge comes because we recognize as wrong things that take away others' agency (murder being just one example, albeit the most extreme). When we push the man, we take away his freedom to choose (whether to jump on his own, or not). When we pull the lever, we do not take away anyone's agency.

This seemed like such an obvious conclusion to me. I'm surprised they didn't discuss it.

I meant "Critical thinking will be the death of me". Man I suck at writing! Sorry.

Back Again! The Train experiment is racking my brain. I can't stop trying to figure it out.
First off, I disagree with the idea that some sort of distance to murder is made by the lever versus pushing someone. Jad said in the show, "Why is it ok to kill a man by pulling a lever, but not by pushing him?". The proof I have is if you switched the 2nd story from: pushing the man unto the tracks below, to: the large man is standing on a trap door that is right above the tracks and in front of you is a lever that if you pulled it will release the trap door making the man fall unto the tracks below. I still think people would not pull the lever because their brain still sees it as murder.
Lets take a page out of Robert Krulwich's book (listen to podcast dated 7-29-08 called "Tell Me A Story) and look at the story of the "Train Experiment", the narrative if you will. Notice where the death occurs. In part 1, the death always occurs at the end of the narrative. If you pull the lever or not, death will always be the sum of the equation: save 5 but kill 1 or do nothing and 5 die.
In part 2, you have a choice where the death will occur. If you push the man, now death is part of the equation and occurs in the middle of the story: kill 1 but save 5. But if you do nothing, now death shifts to the end of the story again: do nothing, 5 die.
Notice too that this holds true for the "Smother Baby" story. If you smother the baby, the death occurs in the middle of the story: smother the crying baby and the villagers survive. But if you do nothing, then the death again shifts to the end of the story: Do nothing, the villagers die.
If we do live our lives' in the narrative, maybe humans are so adverse to death that we need it to be the end of the equation. I admit that is reaching a little far, but as of now, that is the best I can come up with!
Critical thinks will be the death of me!

To summarize: When asked part 1 of the "Train Experiment", both parts of your brain are analyzing the question. The logical side of your brain figures out that you should pull the lever to save five but kill one. And the emotional side of your brain figures out that you are not to blame that the train is running out of control, so it is safe to pull the lever. In fact, you will be a hero if you pull it. Now with the second question, the logical part of your brain thinks the exact same thing as in part 1; kill one but save five. But the emotional side of your brain figures out that if you push the large man besides you, you will be committing murder to save five people, but if you do nothing, no blame can fall on you that a runaway train killed 5 people. So you do nothing. Proving that emotions do in fact play a large roll in choice.
Now I'm done!

Part 3 to my previous post's......
To further my thoughts on the "Train Experiment" invoking "Human Guilt/Shame" consider the following: The 11-17-08 podcast of Radio Lab, entitled "Choice", Robert and Jad investigate how humans make choice's. In that podcast Antoine Bechara, a psychology professor at USC, tells us about the case of Elliot, an accountant who, after having a tumor removed from his brain, became entirely rational. Which destroyed his ability to make decisions. It turns out, we need emotions to make a choice. Psychologist Barry Schwartz and Jonah Lehrer believed that there are 2 parts to the brain, the rational (in front) and deeper in the brain, we have the emotional, subconscious side. When confronted with a choice, both parts of the brain (the "duel systems") compete with each other. Jonah said, "There is constant competition between the rational brain and the emotional brain". With this information, if we look at the "Train Experiment", part 1, people make the choice to pull the lever killing 1 to save 5. Because their is no guilt (emotion) attached to their actions in this question (see my first post), it makes sense that the rational side of the brain wins. But in part 2, people choose not to push the large man beside them to save 5. They do this because it is murder which brings up the emotion of guilt and shame. So the emotional side of the brain wins. If this is true, the pictures that Josh Greene takes of human brains in his experiment are revealing the rational side of the brain and the emotional side of the brain. Which again supports my thoughts that the rational side is in fact the "inner chimp" side of the brain and the "emotional side" is the "evolved human" side of the brain. As Jad said, "we should embrace our shame!" because it separates us from the animals. Maybe Josh Greene should have lunch with Barry Schwartz and Jonah Lehrer!
Sorry for all the past grammar errors!

A great show! My humble contribution is for those who want to go further - Check out "The Moral Animal" and "Non-Zero", both by Robert Wright.

Part 2 to my last post........
Let me explain my thoughts on "Human Guilt/Shame" a little more. My last post, I said that "The Train Experiment" deals with guilt. Therefore, I think Josh Greene from Princeton has it all backwards. When he takes a picture of a persons brain while asked the 1st question of "The Train Experiment"; "Would you pull the lever to kill 1 but save 5". The answer to that question carries no guilt, therefore he is seeing what he calls the "Basic Primate Morality" in those pictures, not in the second ones. When he takes a picture of a brain while asked the 2nd question, "Would you push a large man off a bridge to save 5". The answer to that question carries a whole lot of guilt with it, therefore he is in fact seeing the true difference in a human brain versus an animals brain, the "Human Guilt/Shame" part if the brain. That part of the brain must be the part that we developed when we started to really think about who we are and where we fit in the world.
Also, I do not think the question of, "Would you smother your crying baby in order to save your village from a murdering enemy" has to deal with morality, but more to do with guilt and courage. I believe everyone knows that the crying baby must die so the rest can survive. The real questions is, "Do you have the courage to do it"? and, "Can you live with the fact that you killed your baby?" Maybe the questions should be, "If your village was hiding from a army bound to kill everyone they see, and someone else's baby started crying thereby giving up your position to the approaching enemy, and you had just enough time to vote, by show of hands, if the crying baby should be silenced by smothering it to death or not. How would you vote?" This takes a lot of the guilt and courage of "killing your own baby to save a village" out of the equation.
Ok. I will shut up now!

What I find interesting about "The Train Experiment" part 1 is if you pull the lever or not, you are free of guilt/shame. You did not cause anyone to die. The train conductor and/or the workers on the track are at fault. No jury would convict you of murder no mater what choice you made. But, in part 2, your choice to push the man next to you in order to save 5 workers is murder. You would forever live with the knowledge (shame and guilt) that you killed someone. What Robert and Jad did not due is link that information to what the Primatologist Dr. Frans de Waals said later in the show, "Shame and guilt are not particularly developed in a chimpanzee". This supports the idea that shame and guilt may be what really separates us from animals. That would explain why people would pull a lever (guilt free) to kill 1 instead of 5, but not push someone (murder) to save 5. Shame on you Robert and Jad for missing that!
By the way, that last guy on the show, from Eastern State Penitentiary, sure sounded a lot like President Obama!

As for the second option in the train experiment, why can't we throw ourselves onto the track? Why would we have to push someone else? At any rate, none of the options are pleasant, and I think we really don't know what we would do until faced with the reality.

And maybe I'm beating a dead horse here, but I really want to know what makes people act immorally.

I am confused as to how Princeton Josh came to the conclusion of the "chimp code" based on brain scans. While it is well documented that primates (and other social animals, such as dogs) have moral codes, how does Josh's data support this? It would appear that he based his "chimp code" hypothesis on the fact that portions of the brain are consistently "lit up" when decisions are made. Why did Josh not conclude that brain activity is a conditioned response from a lifetime of being human? Why does brain activity suggest an innate reflex? Of course, Josh is probably not at fault here. Josh likely has evidence that would have been beyond the scope of the program (for example, comparisions of chimp and human brain scans that are instructive). Instead Radio lab was a little sloppy, making a leap of logic without the data to support it.

Regarding the first thought experiment; I believe the act of physically touching someone 'connects' you to that person. Pulling the lever has a sufficient amount of physical distance which allows us to not feel connected with the victim. I would also imagine that it would be more difficult to stab a person that to shot that same person because stabbing is so up front and personal; you're face to face with the victim. The same is not necessarily so with shooting someone.

If the baby is heard won't the baby also be killed?

I meant to comment on this the first time but never got around to it. In the first segment, there is the train track thought experiment. The first time I heard it and again this time I thought that an obvious alternative decision was left out. I believe that switching the track to kill the one person is murder. In allowing the many to die, no action on my part is necessary. I am not saving anyone, but neither am I killing anyone. I know this is not the place for a PHIL 101 paper, but I just thought it was an idea worth putting out there.

I'm really glad you decided to rebroadcast this one. The idea that our morality evolved as a survival mechanism is fascinating, and sheds an interesting light on society's current so-called "morality" debates.