Trolley problem illustrates an ethical dilemma
The Trolley Problem is an ethics dilemma (described below in The Molecule of More – Lieberman, Long (2018)):
A runaway train hurtles down the tracks toward a group of five workers. If nothing is done, they will all die. It’s possible, however, to stop the train by pushing a bystander onto the tracks. His death will slow down the train enough to save the five workers. Would you push the bystander onto the tracks?
In this scenario, most people would be unable to push the bystander onto the tracks—unable to kill a person with their own hands even to save the lives of five other people. The [“Here & Now”] H&N neurotransmitters in play are responsible for generating empathy for others and will overwhelm dopamine’s calculated reason in most people. The H&N reaction is so strong in this situation because we’re so close, right in the peripersonal zone. We would have to actually put our hands on the victim as we send him to his death. That would be impossible for all but the most detached person.
But since H&N’s strongest influence is in the peripersonal space— in the immediate realm of what the five senses tell us—what would happen if we moved back, one step at a time, incrementally diminishing H&N’s influence on our decision? Does our willingness —our ability—to trade one life for five increase as we get literally farther away from our victim, as we move out of the H&N peripersonal space into the dopaminergic extrapersonal?
Start by eliminating the H&N sensation of physical contact. Imagine you’re standing some distance away watching the scene unfold. There’s a switch you can pull that will divert the train from the track with five people on it to a track that will kill only one. Do nothing, and the five will die. Will you throw the switch?
Pull back farther. Imagine you are sitting at a desk in a different city on the other side of the country. The phone rings and a frantic railway worker describes the situation. From your desk you control the path of the train. You can activate a switch and divert the train to a track with only one person on it, or do nothing and allow the train to hit the five people. Will you throw the switch?
Finally, make the situation as abstract as possible: squeeze out all the H&N and make it purely dopaminergic. Imagine that you are a transportation systems engineer, designing the safety features of the railway track. Cameras have been installed by the side of the tracks to provide information about who is standing where. You have the opportunity to write a computer program that will control the switch. The program will use the camera information to choose which track will kill the fewest people. Will you write the software that in the future might save five people by killing one?
The scenarios change but the outcomes will be the same: one life is sacrificed so that five can be saved, or five lives are lost to avoid the direct killing of one person. Very few people would put their hands on an innocent person’s back and push him to his death. Yet very few people would hesitate to write the software that would manage the track switches in a way that minimizes loss of life. It’s almost as if there were two separate minds evaluating the situation. One mind is rational, making decisions based on reason alone. The other is empathic, unable to kill a man, regardless of the big-picture outcome. One seeks to dominate the situation by imposing control to maximize the number of lives saved; the other does not. Whether a person chooses one outcome or the other partly depends on activity within the dopamine circuits.
This problem is more than just theoretical; it confronts developers of self-driving cars. If a fatal crash between two cars is inevitable, what should the self-driving car be programmed to do? Should it swerve in one direction to protect the life of its owner, or should it swerve in the opposite direction, killing its owner, if fewer people in the other car will die? Consumer tip: If you’re in the market for a self-driving car, ask the salesperson how it’s been programmed.
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Sometimes we act one way: cold, calculating, seeking to dominate the environment for future gain. Sometimes we act another: warm, empathic, sharing what we have for the present joy of making others happy. Dopamine control circuits and H&N circuits work in opposition, creating a balance that allows us to be humane toward others, while safeguarding our own survival. Since balance is essential, the brain often wires circuits in opposition. It works so well that sometimes there is even opposition wired into the same neurotransmitter system. The dopamine system operates in this way, so what happens when dopamine opposes dopamine?