The Trolley Problem

            The trolley problem goes as follows: A group of four people are about to be hit by a runaway trolley. Luckily, there is a lever you can pull to save them. However, if you pull the lever, one person will be hit on another set of tracks. The question remains, do you pull the lever?

            I would not pull the lever. All lives serve the same level of importance; therefore, I would let fate continue to determine the lives of the people. One might argue that fate brought me to that spot to pull the lever. Nevertheless, the train was already be heading on the path to kill the four people. If I were to pull the lever, I would be choosing to kill the person on the other tracks. This act would be the same as pushing somebody in front of a bus against their will in order to save four people. Another argument made is: what if there were one hundred people on the “death” track, and still the one person on the other track. One life is as meaningful and important as the lives of one hundred people. In theory, I would say I would not pull the lever. However, if I were put in this situation in real life, I would hesitate to pull the lever. Nonetheless, I would most likely choose leave the train on its current tracks, and not choose to kill lone person.

            The trolley problem is similar to the death sentence. Every life is important regardless of what they have done. The saying, “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” is relevant because if the government kills a murderer, they are committing the same crime the murderer committed. If a murder has to live in jail for the rest of their life, they earned their right to be there. However, nobody deserves to be killed because that is doing the same injustice that has already been done.

            The trolley problem opened my eyes to my views on human life. Humans cannot be used as numbers, every life matters equally. Similarly, the death sentence should be outlawed because it is still the act of murder.