Let me explain my train of thought

This is going to be a fairly straight-forward blog. Although we spent the entire class period discussing this issue of the runaway trains, I think it can all be summed up and explained as follows:

In the first situation, you are driving the train and the only choice that you have is to kill five people or kill one. Of course most of us are going to choose the one person; we are acting to minimize damage. In the second situation, from an outsider's perspective, we are still faced with the same choice: kill one or watch five die. This time, however, the choice is radically altered by the fact that to take the one-death option, we have to actually push someone off of the bridge, directly causing the death of one very obese person. Thus, most of us would choose to let the five die, not because we think it is better that five would die than one, but because we are not willing to cause damage. Therefore, it becomes irrelevant whether we think it is better that one would die or that five would die, since only two of us have the stomach (or sadistic hatred of obese people) to actually push someone in front of a moving train, no matter how many lives it could save in the end.

In the movie, Wanted, the plot revolves around a group of assassins with the motto, "Kill one, save a thousand." It may be true that if the Hitlers, Stalins, bin Ladins, and other less sinister baddies are eliminated from the world, millions of lives can be saved in the end, but does that make it right to kill them? Or let me use a less extreme example: when we live in a country where 85% of the wealth is controlled by the wealthiest 20% of the population (citation), and the poorest 40% of the population controls considerably less than 1% of the money, thousands of people go hungry and have to sleep on the streets of America with no place to call home. Wouldn't it be better to kill off a few high-level corporate execs (starting at the top for maximum positive impact), and redistribute their wealth to save thousands of people from malnutrition and exposure? Isn't it always better for one to die than five? I think not.

P.S. I'm still waiting on that comment I'm supposed to get on one of my blog entries. I won't hold my breath.