Trolley Problem

[jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx]

I learned about the trolley driver thought experiment today:

Suppose that a judge or magistrate is faced with rioters demanding that
a culprit be found for a certain crime and threatening otherwise to take
their own bloody revenge on a particular section of the community. The
real culprit being unknown, the judge sees himself as able to prevent
the bloodshed only by framing some innocent person and having him
executed. Beside this example is placed another in which a pilot whose
airplane is about to crash is deciding whether to steer from a more to a
less inhabited area. To make the parallel as close as possible, it may
rather be supposed that he is the driver of a runaway tram, which he can
only steer from one narrow track on to another; five men are working on
one track and one man on the other; anyone on the track he enters is
bound to be killed. In the case of the riots, the mob have five
hostages, so that in both examples, the exchange is supposed to be one
man's life for the lives of five.[1]

1) Do you consider these scenarios morally equivalent?
2) Would you frame the innocent person and execute him to prevent a
riot?

-- 
Aaron Lin
jrmu@xxxxxxxxxx
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