In class we have discussed the trolley problem numerous
times and with various situations, but we have yet to talk about a real life
situation. A similar situation that happened in real life was the Mississippi
River flood in 1927. In 1927, there was a lot of rain in a short amount of time
in New Orleans and a lot of flooding going on already in the city. People
feared that the city would flood and that the levees would break so they
decided to blow the levees further down so that it would flood other smaller
Parishes, the idea was risk the few to save the many (or greatest amount of
happiness for the greatest amount of people). They ended up blowing the levees
with the idea to save New Orleans while flooding the other Parishes, but it
turns out that there was no need to blow up the levees; there were other levees
that broke so New Orleans was in no danger.
This is
obviously not exactly like the trolley problem but it is about as close as
anyone can come to in real life. The main question with this problem is: was
blowing the levee the right thing to do? Obviously if the people had known the
outcome, they wouldn’t have made the decision they did, but in the situation
not knowing what would happen was this the right decision to make? New Orleans
is obviously more populated and contains more business but that doesn’t mean
that the people in the other Parishes are any less important. According to Utilitarianism,
blowing the levee would be the only option, but is that the case? Would you
blow the levee or not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Mississippi_Flood_of_1927
If we are looking at this situation from a purely Utilitarian perspective, then blowing up the levee would most likely be the right decision. When you are calculating the lives at stake in New Orleans as opposed to the lives in the others smaller areas, it is obvious that more people would be saved in the event that you save New Orleans from being flooded. It is unfortunate that in this instance, blowing up the levee caused more problems than it fixed. However, no one could know that others levees were going to break instead. That is one of the big problems with utilitarian calculus; you can never truly predict all of the things that could possibly go wrong.
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