The Trolley Problem Through Christian Eyes

When Any Decision We Make Gets Someone Killed

May 03, 2023

“For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.”
Mark 7:21-23

Imagine a runaway trolley car barreling down a track toward a group of four people who are tied to that track. There’s a parallel track to which only one person is tied. You can’t get to the five in time to untie them, but before you is a lever. If you pull that lever, the car will switch to the parallel track, saving four but hitting the one person. You can’t stop the trolley or put it in reverse. What do you do? Welcome to “the trolley problem,” a philosophical debate that’s been raging all over the world since the late 1960s.

The above is what we call a thought experiment. Thought experiments are specific scenarios that test how we would react to them, often with the aim of weighing one’s moral philosophy against practical application. Trying to solve a moral dilemma like the trolley problem tests are metal in a way that most real-life situations never do. Yes, we do run into ambiguous questions of morality in real life, but the stakes are almost never so high. The trolley problem highlights the clash between two disparate philosophies: utilitarianism versus ontology.

Utilitarianism

Philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, among others, posited the theory of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism asserts that the best action is the one that maximizes overall happiness or pleasure while minimizing overall pain or suffering for the greatest number of people whom the action affects.

You might be familiar with the Star Trek quote, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one,” appearing in conversations between Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock in The Wrath of Khan, the second film in the franchise. The fourth film, The Voyage Home, revisits the philosophy behind the quote in a conversation between Spock and his mother Amanda. The exchange goes like this:

Amanda: Spock, does the good of the many outweigh the good of the one?
Spock: I would accept that as an axiom.
Amanda: Then you stand here alive because of a mistake made by your flawed, feeling, human friends. They have sacrificed their futures because they believed that the good of the one - you - was more important to them.

Utilitarianism is basically an application of logic, but the theory incorrectly assumes that logic has a particular nature. In an essay entitled “Spock’s Illogic: ‘The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few’,” noted libertarian activist Ari Armstrong brilliantly postulates that logic must always have a basis and that that basis is not uniform between situations. In other words, logic is not supreme; it has other considerations behind it in all cases to which we decide to apply it, and in no one such case is it any less logical than in another. Utilitarianism fallaciously reduces nuanced human questions to math and relegates or even summarily dismisses other considerations, especially, and most egregiously, spiritual ones.

Ontology

Ontology is the study of the nature of existence and reality. Part of this philosophy is that there are certain actions that are inherently right and wrong, a clear departure from utilitarianism, which strictly ways raw numbers. Ontology gives the sanctity of human life precedence over other considerations. Whether the authors of the screenplay of The Voyage Home recognized it or not, the exchange between Spock and Amanda beautifully summarizes the conflict between utilitarianism, to which Spock readily subscribes, and ontology, for which Amanda gracefully advocates by subtly pointing out that Spock would be dead if his crewmates had adhered to the former.

Knowingly or unknowingly, Christians undertake this study through the lens of their belief in God and the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christian ontology seeks to understand the nature of existence and reality through the perspective of a Creator, Whom they know to have created the universe and everything in it, especially all forms of life, particularly human life, with a purpose. Christian ontology often emphasizes the importance of understanding human nature and the role of humans in relation to God and the rest of His creation. In light of this, Christian ontology dictates that there are actions people take that are inherently right or wrong. Because the sanctity of human life is an integral tenet of Christianity, killing someone without proper justification, especially with malicious or selfish motivations, is inherently wrong, the specific kind of homicide legally and morally known as murder.

Regarding the trolley problem, ontology from a Christian perspective would lead one to consider the morality of taking human life, even in a situation where one life could be sacrificed to save others. Christian values hold that human life has inherent worth and value, but it also recognizes that not all homicide is murder. For instance, taking the life of a person who poses an imminent threat to the safety and lives of others may be justified, such as in self-defense or in the defense of others. The pro-gun stance of many Christians, while a frequent impetus for accusations of hypocrisy against Christians by gun control advocates, is predicated on this notion.

In hopes of illustrating the ontological perspective a bit better, let’s examine a well-known version of the trolley problem that, while significantly more farfetched, is also more—well—problematic, and thus a more rigorous moral dilemma.

The Fat Man Problem

You’re walking on a pedestrian overpass spanning a trolley-car track and note the runaway trolley car as before, with five people tied to the track. Obviously, you can’t get to the people in time to untie and rescue them, but there just so happens to be a fat man nearby. You realize that the man’s bulk would be enough to stop the trolley and save the five people tied to the track, but for that to happen, you have to push him off the overpass and onto the track in front of the Trolley car. The five would survive. Needless to say, however, the fat man would die.

This version of the scenario, while extremely implausible, does vividly depict the problem from an ontological perspective. The vast majority of people who would pull the lever find the idea of tossing some innocent guy in front of a runaway trolley too abhorrent to justify. Most people understand that it would be an indefensible violation of the sanctity of human life. Utilitarianism would rightly get flung out its lofty corner office window and splat on the pavement below.

Not Just a Brain Game

Now let’s step out of the hypothetical into stark, tragic reality. What you’re about to read really happened, clearly demonstrating that the trolley problem can and does manifest in real life.

Cold Math in a Hot Zone

The Chernobyl explosion on April 26, 1986, was a catastrophic event in human history, and it had far-reaching ethical implications. The most significant ethical question the disaster raised was whether utilitarian decisions can justify exposing some populations to harm in order to protect others.

In the aftermath of the disaster, the Russian government made the controversial decision to use artillery shells filled with silver iodide to create rain clouds that would wash out cancer-causing radioactive particles in Belarus instead of allowing them to drift towards densely populated cities. While this decision helped to protect the populations of Moscow and other areas from the fallout, it exposed the people of Belarus to radiation. The impact on the children of Belarus was particularly severe, as they suffered from radiation poisoning that had long-term health effects.

Horrible, isn’t it? It was great for the people in the more populated areas, where children also certainly resided, but not so much for the kids in Belarus. Did the government do the right thing? What about the pilot, Major Aleksei Grushin, who carried out the mission? Did he do the right thing? What was the right thing? I don’t know. Do you?

But Wait! There’s More!

If you’re thinking that such awful situations are vanishingly rare, then I’m about to burst your bubble; there have been other such decisions throughout history.

During World War II, the British government used double agents to feed false information to the Germans about the accuracy of their V-1 rockets, causing them to adjust their aim further south and putting southern suburbanites in danger. However, this decision ultimately saved an estimated ten thousand lives.

The following year, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an ultimately effective effort to quickly end the war and save lives, despite the catastrophic human toll.

Sadly, human sensibilities haven’t evolved past such moral calculations. Today, similar ones are made in military strikes and justifications for torturing terrorism suspects.

It’s not hard to see the tangled nest of vipers we’re walking into with such reasoning. What’s the right thing to do? I don’t know. Do you?

Final Reflections

This post is by no means a comprehensive discussion of the trolley problem. I haven’t even touched on other thought experiments in the same vein that raise additional, highly nuanced questions of who lives and who dies. I haven’t discussed research suggesting that people assert that they wouldn’t “pull the lever” in the hypothetical but do just that in a practical exercise. I’ve made no mention of the cultural variations of attitudes toward the trolley problem.

Thinking about these impossible situations can be extremely uncomfortable. Speaking for myself, it’s a mental pain far easier to avoid than to face. The fact of the matter is that I don’t really have a clue what I would do if I had to face a trolley problem, and likely neither do you.

I can barely stand to think of either the hypothetical or the real-life scenarios. Each time I do, I arrive at the same thought: There but for the grace of God go I; may He never see fit to put me in a situation like that.

“I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Jeremiah 17:10

I further reflect that ultimately what matters more is not which action I would take but the motivation behind it. The question is whether in pulling the lever or choosing not to do so there’s murder in my heart. The thought process of the hapless individual facing this horrible choice is not going to be identical from one person to the next. The motivation behind making one choice or the other is something that God alone can discern in each and every case. Ultimately, only God can see whether a soul is making that choice in a sinful way regardless of what the decision is, but as a Christian, I would have the added burden of bearing in mind the sanctity of human life as ascribed by a holy God, Who will record my action and the motivation behind it. No sincere Christian has the luxury of thinking in utilitarian terms and leaving it at that. Still, this is profoundly unsatisfying in terms of the trolley problem because it doesn’t save every life involved.

Whenever I examine moral dilemmas like these, I can’t help feeling profoundly resentful at the unfairness of such situations. The very fact that they’re even conceivable is galling to me, so I recoil from such thought experiments. My aversion to enduring such a test is strong, and I’m not alone. Even thinking of having to make such a choice throws into stark relief the reality that I don’t possess nearly as much wisdom as I like to think I do.

Moral cynics and people with a particular axe to grind love to propose trolley problems to trap those of us who claim to live by a moral code. Think of the burning IVF clinic thought experiment, a favorite of abortion proponents to use as a sort of gotcha to justify disregarding the views of people who oppose murdering unborn babies. Such weaponization of thought experiments may be irritating—it certainly makes me wish those proposing them would just put a sock in it—but I have a love-hate relationship with these kinds of brain teasers. I can’t help but keep probing at them the way you might probe a sore tooth with your tongue.

So, why do it? If it’s so unpleasant, why put myself through considering life’s trolley problems despite the mental pain the exercise induces? What’s the point?

Considering impossible moral dilemmas, even if they may rarely manifest in real life or may be entirely fabricated, serves as a reminder that life throws people the world over into problems that don’t have clearcut solutions. Most of us never encounter anything as morally paralyzing as the Belarus incident, the V-1 rocket misdirection, or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as we have seen, the trolley problem is no mere hypothetical. If it happens at all, it could happen to me or you, and I feel strongly that it’s best to endure the discomfort of thinking about such a problem well ahead of a real-life manifestation. In that way, perhaps I’ll at least be prepared to face the question without the added stress of being completely flabbergasted. It’s my hope and prayer that running into a real-life trolley problem after having considered such questions beforehand might at least result in my handling it with a measure of grace and moral integrity in a way that is somehow pleasing to God.

The other major benefit to asking myself what I would do in a trolley problem is that it reminds me that my intelligence and whatever wisdom I might have acquired through life experience are a long way from being complete. As a species, we think we’ve come so far, and in many ways we have. The American experiment is a great example of the strides humanity has made. Technology is another. Still, there are problems we haven’t solved, philosophical and spiritual questions that, at least on the surface, don’t appear to have right or wrong answers. It's good for me to remind myself of that every now and then. In short, the proverbial trolley problem goes a long way toward keeping me humble, reminding me that I have limitations that range from the mildly vexing to the supremely debilitating.

My purpose for writing this post was never to supply an answer to the trolley problem but to examine how considering it could be beneficial despite the attendant unease. As a person of faith, specifically a Christian, I believe that grappling with such dilemmas can be a valuable exercise in strengthening my spiritual resolve and deepening my relationship with God. Through this process, I can go some way toward discerning how my beliefs and values inform my decision-making and gain a greater appreciation for the sanctity of human life. While such scenarios may be intensely provoking, they ultimately afford me opportunities for spiritual growth, self-reflection, and a deeper understanding of my faith.

“I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:”
Isaiah 45:2

As I navigate these challenging ethical dilemmas, I pray that God will condescend to guide me by His wisdom and the compassion of His Son and keep me steadfast in my commitment to doing what’s right in His eyes.