If you push your partner onto the rails, killing them, the resistance will be able to stop the train, saving the ten other people. Though, if you stand idle, ten families will grief when you could have acted.
Would your answer change if the ten people were tied up to the rails? If so, how?
You are on a train station with your significant other (or someone you care about), and you see ten people standing on the rails. They are about to be hit by an incoming automated train. There is no way of getting the people up on the platform, nor can you seem to find a way to stop the train - but wait.
The ten people are still tied to the rails. You can flip a switch to change the route of the train. In this scenario, your partner is tied to the rails as well. If you flip the switch, they can still stop the train before it goes in a circle and reaches the other ten victims. Due to the current speed of the train, the train will still reach your partner after hitting the ten other people if you do not act.
What do you do?
You could prioritize the person you know, prioritizing significant others is often considered to be ethical.
You could prioritize the stranger if you have concerns that you might be acting emotionally. Generally, treating relatives is frowned upon for this reason.
You could flip a coin and decide at random, which would be fair but arbitrary. It is generally not ethical to be arbitrary about how you treat others.
You, the only doctor available in a medical emergency, have two patients, and you know you only have enough time to treat one. The two patients are similar in every way except one - one of the patients is your romantic partner (or someone you care about). The patient who is not treated will inevitably die.
You recognize the name of the helpdesk request, so you want to resolve it quickly. As part of the procedure, you open the email manually to ensure that it is not spam. You find out that it is an email to your friend`s wife from her boyfriend. Scanning the rest of the email content, you conclude that there is no doubt that there has been an affair for some time now.
You are a network administrator for a moderately large company. Since you have a young family, keeping this job is crucial. Monitoring your organization`s email is part of your responsibility as a network administrator. Your usual day consists of allowing emails that have been accidentally blocked by spam filters. One day, you receive a request for technical assistance from an employee requesting to receive a blocked email. This time, the request is from your friend`s wife.
You and a close friend are soldiers in a war. On orders, you attack a compound and successfully recover a document.
While waiting for the helicopter, you open the document and quickly realize that the war is based on corruption, which means you are fighting in vain. However, your friend believes otherwise and is threatening to shoot you if you try to leak it to the press.
If you destroy the document, the war will rage on. If you leak it to the press, the war will end, saving the lives of millions of people. Yes, your friend will try to kill you. Either you die, or your friend will be dead because of you.
You put the email aside for the time being, but cannot decide what to do next. Your initial reaction is to call your friend and tell him about the email, but you quickly realize that the company has a strict policy against revealing the contents of staff emails, and the boss will fire you if he finds out.
Either way, you know that handing over this information poses an immense risk. Even if you do not do it directly, they will likely find out it was you. Nevertheless, you feel like you are helping his wife with committing adultery by not telling your friend.
What do you do?
You look at the seat next to them and see their lover. They are bleeding profusely from a wound on their neck, which means you need to stem the flow of blood immediately. It will only take approximately 5 minutes to stop the bleeding, but that will mean your spouse will die.
However, if you tend to your spouse, their lover will bleed to death when you could have prevented it.
Who would you choose to help?
You are an E.M.T. who has just been called to the scene of an accident. When you arrive, you see that the car belongs to your spouse. Fearing the worst, you rush over and see that they are trapped in their car with someone else.
Although they are barely conscious, they manage to mouth the words "I`m sorry" as your eyes meet theirs.
You do not understand, but the look on their face answers your question. The person next to them is their lover, with whom they have been having an affair.
You stagger back in shock, devastated by what their eyes have just told you. As you step back, you realize the wreckage before you. Your significant other is badly injured - they need immediate treatment. Even if they are treated, there is a very high chance that they will die.
Can we speak of "bad morals," or is this expression contradictory - an oxymoron - because the word morality implies "good morals"?
Is there one set of ethical rules that is always the right one, or must we have different moral guidelines in different situations in order to act appropriately ethically?
Is there a correct way of living? If so, what would you say that would be?
Does being a functioning member of society or not breaking ethical rules automatically make you a good person?
Are you a good person? What makes someone good or bad? Is it the way they think? Is it the choices they make?
Can you blame your cat for scratching you after you have been petting them for a while, or is that just an unintended consequence of too much cuddling?
Does a dog get more morale from being trained not to attack strangers, or not to start eating before you say the word, and so on? Is training about something other than morality?
Is there a difference between children learning what they can and cannot do and animal dressage? If so, what is the difference, and what allows us to say with certainty that children, but not animals, can learn to be moral?