Vaniver comments on What Is Optimal Philanthropy? - Less Wrong

24 Post author: alyssavance 12 July 2012 12:17AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (35)

Comments (35)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: Vaniver 12 July 2012 04:27:13AM 1 point [-]

Upvoted for #4.

Singer compares philanthropy to a Trolley Problem. There's a set of train tracks, which a child is lying on, and a train is fast approaching. You're driving a luxury car, and if you drive the car on the tracks, the train will run into the car and save the child. What should you do?

Is that... really what Singer calls it? Why?

Comment author: juliawise 13 July 2012 03:48:56PM 1 point [-]

I think the Trolley Problem is a different one that involves taking pulling a switch that will send the trolley running over one person but save the five passengers, or similar. In other words, whether you let 5 people perish through inaction or take action to kill one and save 5.

This is different in that it's a tradeoff between a possession and a life, not 5 lives and 1 life. I don't know that this problem has a name... the sportscar problem?

Comment author: Vaniver 13 July 2012 04:58:43PM 3 points [-]

That's the source of my confusion: there's already something else out there called the Trolley Problem, and this is not it.

Comment author: jkaufman 13 July 2012 06:19:44PM 0 points [-]

I don't think it is; the OP got confused.

Comment author: [deleted] 12 July 2012 04:08:04PM *  0 points [-]

I'd be interested in a direct reference for this -- the linked paper doesn't even mention the word trolley anywhere. It is technically a trolley problem, but it's not a terribly interesting one; the variants I've read Singer propose in the past (e.g., sacrificing yourself to save five children) are usually more interesting.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit