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I think I followed Thomson fairly well until the revised the tradeoff idea at the end of the article, and then I had more difficulty following her, so hopefully we can talk through it in class (and, more likely, when I go back and reread it, it will make more sense too).
I particularly liked the distinction she drew between the fact that Bloggs may flip the switch, but he isn’t required to do so. The entire time I was reading the chapter, a little voice in the back of my head was saying “What about fate? What about fate?” So, I was pleased to find that she had incorporated a brief discussion of fate into the larger argument. I’m not necessarily persuaded by the fate idea; it, for some reason, just kept popping up in the back of my head. In the end, I found that Thomson’s distinction matched what I was thinking throughout the article—Bloggs may, but it is not necessary for him to do so.
One area of confusion that I had was her discussion of the personal characteristics of the victims on the top of 180. She said that it is important to examine the personal characteristics of the victims to determine if Bloggs can flip the switch. I’m confused as to her reasoning why we must take those personal characteristics into account. Of course, her examples with the gardeners, workmen, and beam fitters provide examples of how the personal characteristics could be useful when trying to determine whether or not the switch could be flipped, but I don’t understand why we are required to do so.
Mental Models of Purpose of College
2 years ago
I think part of the reason she is saying we are required to do so or it makes a difference that we do, is because of the fact that how one came to be where one is at makes a drastic difference insofar as making a choice between who will get hit. I think it may be similar to why Surgeon may not proceed, because she talks about how one’s health to some degree can be controlled (smoking, gin, steak) and the Surgeon problem is not the same as the Trolley problem because of that that fact. It would deter one from being healthy, since being healthy would decrease one’s chance at survival. If one chooses to not take care of their body, only later to be the recipient of an organ from a healthy body, then how one came to be unhealthy makes all the difference. And since these are not the same cases, if one were to disregard how they the five came to be where they were at; it would turn into the Surgeon problem. Maybe? Because If the track has a fence around it and has signs posted “DANGER” and five people go into it anyways, while the one track there is a gardener who was promised the track he was working on was closed; makes a difference because of the fact that the five knew what they were getting into. It should deter the five from not being risk takers, but since it doesn’t and since this is different from Surgeon then Bloggs must not turn the switch. Because if he did, it would turn into Surgeon and Surgeon is different from Trolley.
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