The trolley problem, decided the Gita way

The short answer

Pull the lever, and own the one death as the cost of your act. Do not push the man from the bridge: the numbers are the same, the acts are not, and the Gita weighs acts.

The problem, stated fairly

A runaway trolley is heading for five people on the track. You are standing beside a lever. Pull it, and the trolley turns onto a side track, where it will kill one person instead. Do you pull it?

The philosopher Philippa Foot posed it in 1967. Judith Jarvis Thomson later gave it its name and a harder twin, the footbridge: this time you can stop the trolley only by pushing a large man off a bridge into its path. Five saved and one killed, in both. Most people pull the lever, and most refuse to push.

Two schools answer it. One counts outcomes: five lives outweigh one, so pull, and push as well. The other counts duties: killing is worse than letting die, and no person may be used as a tool, so never push, and perhaps never pull.

Facts first: who are you on this track?

A KarmaLens reading starts with the fact that decides a dilemma, and here that fact is your role. In Foot's version the choice was the driver's; Thomson moved it to a bystander beside the track. That small change is exactly where the Gita begins. Its word is svadharma, your own duty: the duty of the role you actually hold. A driver or a signal operator holds the safety of everyone on the line, so for them the lever is the job. A passer-by holds no such role, and the lever is still in their hand.

The eight lenses, one by one

• Duty (svadharma): the driver's duty is the lives on the line. The passer-by's choice is still a choice.
• Truth (satya): the puzzle promises a certainty no real track gives. In life, the first honest question is what you actually know.
• Non-harm (ahimsa): someone is harmed either way. With your hand on the lever, the harm you allow is also yours.
• Detachment (nishkama karma): refusing to act so that your hands stay clean is still acting for yourself.
• Clean intent (shaucha): pulling aims at five lives, and the one death is a cost you foresee and carry, never your aim. Pushing makes the man's death the plan.
• Restraint (sanyama): in real life the lever is decided before the moment, in rules and drills, which is why railways have them.
• Welfare of all (lokasangraha): what standard does your act set for everyone else?
• Discernment (viveka): the lever and the bridge carry the same numbers and are different acts. Seeing that is the whole skill.

The verse behind the call

The welfare lens rests on a line about example:

"Turn a harm already moving towards fewer people" is a standard a society can live by. "Anyone may be pushed to save others" is a standard under which nobody could safely cross a bridge. Same arithmetic, different standards, different calls.

The call

Pull the lever, and don't call your hands clean: the one on the side track died because of what you did, and the lenses say so plainly. Do not push. If you are the driver, the duty is plainer still: steer towards the fewest lives.

Your trolley problems are smaller and realer

Nobody you know will meet a runaway trolley. Everyone meets the smaller version: one person's comfort against another's safety, a job against the truth. These were brought to KarmaLens and decided.

• Integrity. An employer overbilling a client, and you the only one who knows. The call: "Speak. The job that costs you this silence isn't a job — it's a lease on your conscience." (see the card)
• Relationships. A partner's secret that could put a friend at risk. The call: "The moment a secret protects harm, it stops being yours to keep." (see the card)
• Health. A child who wants to keep competing on an injury that could become permanent. The call: "Give them the full cost. Then it's a choice — until then, it's just consent without information." (see the card)
• Community. A community group shutting out a family, where speaking up risks your standing. The call: "Speak. Standing that survives silence in this room isn't standing — it's complicity with a nicer name." (see the card)

Each one has a lever, a cost on both tracks, and a call. See them all in real ethical dilemmas, decided.

Decide yours

Your lever is real, and it is already in your hand. Write the situation as it is. KarmaLens asks for the one fact that decides it, weighs it on the same eight lenses, makes one clear call with the Gita behind it, and gives you the first step.

More: ethical dilemmas, explained · Ethics case studies for UPSC GS4 · Analysis paralysis