Utilitarianism: The Trolley Problem, By John Stuard Mill

Utilitarianism theory is the most widely used ethical theory today, and also the most powerful and persuasive approaches to normative ethics in the history of philosophy. It is the rightness or wrongness of an action, which determined by its usefulness. It is based on the principle of Utility which John Stuard Mill stated that “Actions are right to the degree that they tend to promote the greatest good for the greatest number.” This means that in any situation, where there is a moral choice, one should do that which results in the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. In addition, many varieties of the view discussed that Utilitarianism is the morally right action that produces the best, in this case, means “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number.”
An example of this case is the trolley problem, which was first introduced by Philippa Foot in1967, but also extensively analysed by Judith Thomson, Peter Unger, and Frances Kamm as recently as 1996, and has also been revisited in 2015 by Larman and Oates).
It is a thought experiment in ethics, which there are five people tied up and unable to move on the railway. Then, the runaway trolley was moving down to the railway tracks and headed straight to those people. If you were in that situation, you would be able to pull the lever, so the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the sidetrack; this means that you will be killing him instead. This is a very difficult decision to make, as you could either or nothing, and the trolley kills the five people on the main track or pulls the lever, so the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one
person.

In my perspective, it is very hard to decide whether pulling the lever or not. Because if you think about people’s right, which is based on the principle of respect for the individual. It means that nobody can decide the others to be died or live, unless those people, who do something very bad, which harms a number of others, so they deserve the punishment. In this case, a person, who is in the different set of tracks, might be a father, who needs to work very hard to support his family, and sending his daughters or sons to school. This means if I decided to pull the lever to switch the railway, which allows the trolley to be in the different set of tracks, the men live has to be ending up by doing nothing wrong at all.

However, if I do not switch the trolley’s track, the other 5 people’s lives on the main track also will be ending up with doing nothing wrong. But if I think about the utility, it could be said that I would decide to pull the lever, which I can avoid, kill 5 people, but kill a person instead. It provides me with the wrongness of killing a person, but the rightness of saving those other five. Even though I cannot say this is an exactly the right decision to kill a person and save the other five, but I think it is the best way for “the greatest amount of good for the greatest number.” As saving a person, meaning that you make himself, and his family satisfied and happy. Nevertheless, if you save five people, you will make them happy, and also their families. Furthermore, these five might be able to do things that useful to the society, and this will make the huge number of people satisfy, which make the greatest amount of good for the greatest number.
Due to my decision, I think people normally use the Utilitarianism theory for making ethical decisions, in the way of making the rightness or wrongness determined by its usefulness.