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radical_negative_one comments on Far & Near / Runaway Trolleys / The Proximity Of (Fat) Strangers - Less Wrong
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I thought most people chose not to push the fat man because there is no conceivably realistic way that a fat man could stop a train, even one as small as a trolley. Although the thought experiment tells us the fat man will stop the train, our knowledge of trains tells us that nothing stops trains. When I envision this scenario, I can't help but (realistically) imagine the trolly hitting the fat man, then continuing on and running over the five others.
See also: Ends Don't Justify Means (Among Humans)
Perhaps the thought experiment would benefit from a sentence like this: "Omega appears and tells you that using the fat man would work."
This is no better than stipulation.
Yes- our ethical intuitions weren't designed to work in impossible cases.