Hi,
We haven't got much of this yet, but a useful reminder for the future -
how much a human touch can change things sometimes : )
"Mr. Lehrer refers to an experiment conducted by a Harvard scientist
named Joshua Greene. In the experiment, which is intended to shed some
light on why people make moral decisions the way they do, participants
are asked to respond to moral questions while hooked up to a brain
scanner. The first of the questions is as follows:
You are the driver of a runaway trolley. The brakes have
failed. The trolley is approaching a fork in the track at top
speed. If you do nothing, the train will stay left, where it
will run over five maintenance workers who are fixing the
track. All five workers will die. However, if you steer the
train right—this involves flicking a switch and turning the
wheel—you will swerve onto a track where there is one
maintenance worker. What do you do? Are you willing to
intervene and change the path of the trolley?
According to Mr. Lehrer, roughly 95% of participants in this study agree
that they would throw the switch—that changing the track is the right
thing to do. Some even go so far as to claim a moral imperative—that
not changing the track is a moral failure on the part of the trolley
driver. A second thought experiment is then posed:
You are standing on a footbridge over the trolley track. You
see a trolley racing out of control, speeding toward five
workmen who are fixing the track. All five men will die unless
the trolley can be stopped. Standing next to you on the
footbridge is a very large man. He is leaning over the railing,
watching the trolley hurtle toward the men. If you sneak up on
the man and give him a little push, he will fall over the
railing and into the path of the trolley. Because he is so big,
he will stop the trolley from killing the maintenance workers.
Do you push the man off the footbridge? Or do you allow five
men to die?
Lehrer notes that in this scenario, despite the fact that the
mathematics of the situation—five lives or one—are identical, almost no
one is willing to make the decision to kill the one and save the five.
The experimenter reasons that these represent two different classes of
moral decision, calling them “personal” and “impersonal” moral
decisions.
(...)"
http://alpha-build.net/2010/08/23/how-chemicals-in-your-brain-make-you-a-jerk-on-the-internet/
Xavier.
_______________________________________________
Hackit Bar mailing list - [email protected]
Wiki: http://community.hackit.cx/
List: http://community.hackit.cx/ml/
Forum: http://community.hackit.cx/forum/
Ideas: http://community.hackit.cx/ideas/
IRC: irc://irc.freenode.net/#politis
