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Comment from jayrowdy
Date: February 10, 2009, 6:46 pm

I’m really glad you decided to rebroadcast this one. The idea that our morality evolved as a survival mechanism is fascinating, and sheds an interesting light on society’s current so-called “morality” debates.

Comment from JE Parkey
Date: February 10, 2009, 10:19 pm

I meant to comment on this the first time but never got around to it. In the first segment, there is the train track thought experiment. The first time I heard it and again this time I thought that an obvious alternative decision was left out. I believe that switching the track to kill the one person is murder. In allowing the many to die, no action on my part is necessary. I am not saving anyone, but neither am I killing anyone. I know this is not the place for a PHIL 101 paper, but I just thought it was an idea worth putting out there.

Comment from KW
Date: February 11, 2009, 5:18 am

If the baby is heard won’t the baby also be killed?

Comment from Andre
Date: February 11, 2009, 10:13 am

Regarding the first thought experiment; I believe the act of physically touching someone ‘connects’ you to that person. Pulling the lever has a sufficient amount of physical distance which allows us to not feel connected with the victim. I would also imagine that it would be more difficult to stab a person that to shot that same person because stabbing is so up front and personal; you’re face to face with the victim. The same is not necessarily so with shooting someone.

Comment from EC
Date: February 11, 2009, 1:57 pm

I am confused as to how Princeton Josh came to the conclusion of the “chimp code” based on brain scans. While it is well documented that primates (and other social animals, such as dogs) have moral codes, how does Josh’s data support this? It would appear that he based his “chimp code” hypothesis on the fact that portions of the brain are consistently “lit up” when decisions are made. Why did Josh not conclude that brain activity is a conditioned response from a lifetime of being human? Why does brain activity suggest an innate reflex? Of course, Josh is probably not at fault here. Josh likely has evidence that would have been beyond the scope of the program (for example, comparisions of chimp and human brain scans that are instructive). Instead Radio lab was a little sloppy, making a leap of logic without the data to support it.

Comment from Ceridwynne
Date: February 12, 2009, 1:03 am

As for the second option in the train experiment, why can’t we throw ourselves onto the track? Why would we have to push someone else? At any rate, none of the options are pleasant, and I think we really don’t know what we would do until faced with the reality.

And maybe I’m beating a dead horse here, but I really want to know what makes people act immorally.

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 14, 2009, 6:27 pm

What I find interesting about “The Train Experiment” part 1 is if you pull the lever or not, you are free of guilt/shame. You did not cause anyone to die. The train conductor and/or the workers on the track are at fault. No jury would convict you of murder no mater what choice you made. But, in part 2, your choice to push the man next to you in order to save 5 workers is murder. You would forever live with the knowledge (shame and guilt) that you killed someone. What Robert and Jad did not due is link that information to what the Primatologist Dr. Frans de Waals said later in the show, “Shame and guilt are not particularly developed in a chimpanzee”. This supports the idea that shame and guilt may be what really separates us from animals. That would explain why people would pull a lever (guilt free) to kill 1 instead of 5, but not push someone (murder) to save 5. Shame on you Robert and Jad for missing that!
By the way, that last guy on the show, from Eastern State Penitentiary, sure sounded a lot like President Obama!

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 14, 2009, 9:21 pm

Part 2 to my last post……..
Let me explain my thoughts on “Human Guilt/Shame” a little more. My last post, I said that “The Train Experiment” deals with guilt. Therefore, I think Josh Greene from Princeton has it all backwards. When he takes a picture of a persons brain while asked the 1st question of “The Train Experiment”; “Would you pull the lever to kill 1 but save 5″. The answer to that question carries no guilt, therefore he is seeing what he calls the “Basic Primate Morality” in those pictures, not in the second ones. When he takes a picture of a brain while asked the 2nd question, “Would you push a large man off a bridge to save 5″. The answer to that question carries a whole lot of guilt with it, therefore he is in fact seeing the true difference in a human brain versus an animals brain, the “Human Guilt/Shame” part if the brain. That part of the brain must be the part that we developed when we started to really think about who we are and where we fit in the world.
Also, I do not think the question of, “Would you smother your crying baby in order to save your village from a murdering enemy” has to deal with morality, but more to do with guilt and courage. I believe everyone knows that the crying baby must die so the rest can survive. The real questions is, “Do you have the courage to do it”? and, “Can you live with the fact that you killed your baby?” Maybe the questions should be, “If your village was hiding from a army bound to kill everyone they see, and someone else’s baby started crying thereby giving up your position to the approaching enemy, and you had just enough time to vote, by show of hands, if the crying baby should be silenced by smothering it to death or not. How would you vote?” This takes a lot of the guilt and courage of “killing your own baby to save a village” out of the equation.
Ok. I will shut up now!

Comment from Craig
Date: February 15, 2009, 4:43 am

A great show! My humble contribution is for those who want to go further – Check out “The Moral Animal” and “Non-Zero”, both by Robert Wright.

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 15, 2009, 1:19 pm

Part 3 to my previous post’s……
To further my thoughts on the “Train Experiment” invoking “Human Guilt/Shame” consider the following: The 11-17-08 podcast of Radio Lab, entitled “Choice”, Robert and Jad investigate how humans make choice’s. In that podcast Antoine Bechara, a psychology professor at USC, tells us about the case of Elliot, an accountant who, after having a tumor removed from his brain, became entirely rational. Which destroyed his ability to make decisions. It turns out, we need emotions to make a choice. Psychologist Barry Schwartz and Jonah Lehrer believed that there are 2 parts to the brain, the rational (in front) and deeper in the brain, we have the emotional, subconscious side. When confronted with a choice, both parts of the brain (the “duel systems”) compete with each other. Jonah said, “There is constant competition between the rational brain and the emotional brain”. With this information, if we look at the “Train Experiment”, part 1, people make the choice to pull the lever killing 1 to save 5. Because their is no guilt (emotion) attached to their actions in this question (see my first post), it makes sense that the rational side of the brain wins. But in part 2, people choose not to push the large man beside them to save 5. They do this because it is murder which brings up the emotion of guilt and shame. So the emotional side of the brain wins. If this is true, the pictures that Josh Greene takes of human brains in his experiment are revealing the rational side of the brain and the emotional side of the brain. Which again supports my thoughts that the rational side is in fact the “inner chimp” side of the brain and the “emotional side” is the “evolved human” side of the brain. As Jad said, “we should embrace our shame!” because it separates us from the animals. Maybe Josh Greene should have lunch with Barry Schwartz and Jonah Lehrer!
Sorry for all the past grammar errors!

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 15, 2009, 3:13 pm

To summarize: When asked part 1 of the “Train Experiment”, both parts of your brain are analyzing the question. The logical side of your brain figures out that you should pull the lever to save five but kill one. And the emotional side of your brain figures out that you are not to blame that the train is running out of control, so it is safe to pull the lever. In fact, you will be a hero if you pull it. Now with the second question, the logical part of your brain thinks the exact same thing as in part 1; kill one but save five. But the emotional side of your brain figures out that if you push the large man besides you, you will be committing murder to save five people, but if you do nothing, no blame can fall on you that a runaway train killed 5 people. So you do nothing. Proving that emotions do in fact play a large roll in choice.
Now I’m done!

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 17, 2009, 1:31 pm

Back Again! The Train experiment is racking my brain. I can’t stop trying to figure it out.
First off, I disagree with the idea that some sort of distance to murder is made by the lever versus pushing someone. Jad said in the show, “Why is it ok to kill a man by pulling a lever, but not by pushing him?”. The proof I have is if you switched the 2nd story from: pushing the man unto the tracks below, to: the large man is standing on a trap door that is right above the tracks and in front of you is a lever that if you pulled it will release the trap door making the man fall unto the tracks below. I still think people would not pull the lever because their brain still sees it as murder.
Lets take a page out of Robert Krulwich’s book (listen to podcast dated 7-29-08 called “Tell Me A Story) and look at the story of the “Train Experiment”, the narrative if you will. Notice where the death occurs. In part 1, the death always occurs at the end of the narrative. If you pull the lever or not, death will always be the sum of the equation: save 5 but kill 1 or do nothing and 5 die.
In part 2, you have a choice where the death will occur. If you push the man, now death is part of the equation and occurs in the middle of the story: kill 1 but save 5. But if you do nothing, now death shifts to the end of the story again: do nothing, 5 die.
Notice too that this holds true for the “Smother Baby” story. If you smother the baby, the death occurs in the middle of the story: smother the crying baby and the villagers survive. But if you do nothing, then the death again shifts to the end of the story: Do nothing, the villagers die.
If we do live our lives’ in the narrative, maybe humans are so adverse to death that we need it to be the end of the equation. I admit that is reaching a little far, but as of now, that is the best I can come up with!
Critical thinks will be the death of me!

Comment from Frank C.
Date: February 17, 2009, 1:33 pm

I meant “Critical thinking will be the death of me”. Man I suck at writing! Sorry.

Comment from Matthew
Date: February 20, 2009, 6:52 pm

I think the “inner chimp” conclusion as an explanation for our mental resistance to killing someone is somewhat myopic. For me, one of the fundamental human characteristics is agency. Because we each have freedom to choose we recognize that others possess the same ability, and we respect their agency because we would want ours to be respected. Most of our laws are designed to uphold this principle.

Our resistance to pushing the man off the bridge comes because we recognize as wrong things that take away others’ agency (murder being just one example, albeit the most extreme). When we push the man, we take away his freedom to choose (whether to jump on his own, or not). When we pull the lever, we do not take away anyone’s agency.

This seemed like such an obvious conclusion to me. I’m surprised they didn’t discuss it.

Comment from ksenia stumpf
Date: February 20, 2009, 7:43 pm

commenting on the inner chimp. I have to make a big
decision based upon the knowledge of dr. Andrew Newburg from university of Pennsylvannia.

I have recently walked out of domestic violence.
I left my house due to alcoholism.jan 20 ,2009
Ten years ago it had happened earlier
with younger childern. They are older now but
but they are doing it to me.

I moved out I don’t need black and blues.

anyway my parents are from ukraine and

a doctors daughter. needless
to say they used drugs to put me to sleep .

I am bipolar and off the drugs do I tell the truth.

now that I remember the truth /and getting data of
the past.

I look at my breakdown and wonder why I needed
vacation from trying to help my husband and childern.

They would drugged me up and labeled me
so the alcoholic could continue.

also reading is not looked upon as something that is good. i in my family.

thank’ for your help while i was writing this listened to the webcast of the childern in nursery school
do the right thing tell the truth.

Comment from DR
Date: February 21, 2009, 2:52 am

I enjoy Radiolab but every time I’ve heard this train conundrum, whether from sophomore psychology majors or Jad and Robert, I’ve found it utterly stupefyingly bogus. Who would be able to push a man big enough to stop a train that would otherwise kill five people? It makes no sense at all and is pointless as a thought experiment. It says as much about cacomorphobia, the “fear of fat people,” as about morality. Aside from that, keep up the good work!

Comment from Andrew Mooney
Date: March 19, 2009, 5:18 pm

What I like about the show is the 4th grade game Homestead where Amy O’Leary remembers her scheme to own the middle of the board game the “town” and encourage others to join “the company”. She would take all of their profit from their farmland and pay her classmates pennies on the dollar in exchange for a small piece of “the town”. As she put it “crazy total power” and “selling her fellow classmates into slavery”. If the simulation farm people needed to go to town to see the doctor she could charge them more money than they have. When the fellow classmates complained to the teacher she was wondering what is the problem I am winning isn’t that what I was suppose to do? No I am not changing and why is this an issue what is wrong with what I am doing. In the real world I see this as American drug companies holding patents on drugs that cost pennies to manufacture and charge the uninsured hundreds of dollars for a few pills. Banks handing out millions of dollars of bonuses as their stock and companies are in ruins. Asian children making clothing for pennies a week while designers sell them in malls with fancy logos putting American workers out of business. African diamond mines using forced labor of children to find shinny rocks so others can where jewelry. The Owners of these industrys give capitalisim a bad name. Is it as bad as in Carl Marx day? So if you are the diamond mine owner would you say hey what is wrong with this I am winning?

Comment from Nikki T.
Date: April 3, 2009, 3:26 pm

This is one of my favorite episodes!
Here’s my thing (I’m sorry if someone else has already commented with the same thought):
As a mother and a person who respects humanity, I literally cried during the segment about the villagers. However, is there a possible third option?
Could the mother not come forward and lead the soldiers to believe that she and the child are the only ones?
I could not kill my own child. But, I also wouldn’t want others to be killed because of her. However, I can sort of stomach the idea of the two of us having to die together.

Comment from Bert
Date: April 18, 2009, 3:01 pm

Regarding “Morality” in the scenario of ‘choosing’ to smother the baby, you stated EVERYONE WOULD DIE, INCLUDING THE BABY if you did not smother the baby. In later discussion you seem to have missed the one point that trumps everything, which is the baby dies either way. To describe it as a ‘choice’ between killing the baby or saving the village and yourself does not accurately present the real choice you are faced with. Also when people said they would not kill the baby, any attempt to evaluate their thought process should have included a reminder to them the baby would die anyway and evaluate their subsequent response.

Comment from bloogery
Date: April 24, 2009, 12:08 am

In the trolley case, the way I see it, is that by pulling the lever I am primarily affecting the action of the trolley. While I know the man will be killed, it is as a consequence of changing the path of the trolley.

In the bridge scenario, by pushing the man I am directly affecting HIS fate (not that of the trolley).

I think the crux of the conundrum lies in the fact of the SEQUENCE OF EVENTS.

1. Pull lever -> save 5 -> 1 dies as consequence.

2. Push man -> 1 dies -> 5 saved as consequence.

I think we go with the FIRST thing we feel. In the first scenario, we would be saving five people first and that feels good. In the second scenario it would be committing murder first and that feels bad. Any resulting consequence is — ahem — farther down the track and therefor takes secondary precedence.

Comment from bloogery
Date: April 24, 2009, 12:54 am

In regards to Frank C.’s February 14, 2009, 9:21 pm comment:

“Also, I do not think the question of, “Would you smother your crying baby in order to save your village from a murdering enemy” has to deal with morality, but more to do with guilt and courage.”

I watched a segment that interviewed one of the Chilean rugby players about the incident of the plane crash he was in on a way to a game. Some of you might recall that the survivors, caught for more than two months in the freezing Andes, had to resort to cannibalism of the dead bodies in order to survive.

After the two months, they knew they had to try to find help or they would all die. The one being interviewed was one of the two that trekked through the Andes to find help. He said, “What we did was not courage. There was no thought of courage in what we were doing. We did it out of pure fear that we were going to die if we didn’t at least try.”

I think in the situation of suffocating the baby or not lies in how much fear the mother may be feeling at the time of potentially getting caught. If she were out of her mind with fear, I could see her more easily killing her baby than if she were more resolute to the fate of being caught and killed.

Comment from JR
Date: April 25, 2009, 6:07 pm

The “math” for the pull-the-lever versus push-the-man-off-the-bridge is easier than you let on. Jump off the bridge yourself, if you can muster the courage, or watch five people die. Leave the man standing on the bridge if you choose to jump. Now the question of morality becomes more like, Do I sacrifice my life to save five others, or watch in horror as five people tragically die? Maybe one is heroic, and one is not, but is the choice a lack of morals, or typical self-preservation, for which most, if not all people would be understanding?

Comment from JR
Date: April 25, 2009, 6:09 pm

Also, it is impossible to know how one will actually perform under pressure, but I understand that the study may shed light on how people MIGHT react.

Comment from Barbara P
Date: July 7, 2009, 10:34 am

The problem with some of the hypothetical scenarios is that real life is never so cut-and-dried. In the baby-killing example, Nikki T. is right in imagining other options, because in real life there ARE other options, and other possible outcomes to any situation. If you choose to kill the baby, then you are no longer open to possibility. In the train example, pulling the lever to save 5 still leaves open some kind of chance that the one could survive (jump off the tracks maybe?), but the fat man in the second example would be far less likely to make it out alive. Our actions which have a closer impact are more likely to succeed (i.e. not be subject to chance) than things which occur further away, or at a later time.

Comment from Joe
Date: July 7, 2009, 12:04 pm

With all due respect to the other anonymous face known as Barbara P, I agree entirely, thus negating her point. My argument comes from a background in science.

Morality in the real world is not cut and dry, and the situations are rarely if ever closed. There are almost always additional options.

BUT.

The difference between the lab and the real world is that it’s possible to do these kinds of experiments in the lab, even if it’s just a thought experiment. Having an open system in the train-yard example would have opened other options, but it would have eliminated the importance of the experiment. That’s why labs exist: they simplify life by controlling options.

The question, “Here’s a situation, what do you do?” might be interesting, but it’s not scientific.

Of course there are other options than killing the baby: chocking it to unconsciousness but not death would be one viable option, making it more likely that the town would survive. But open questions like that are still not useful for scientific research, because statistics just don’t work on them, a point mostly lost on normal people.

With respect to the show, I think it’s interesting that no one on the show mentioned that if the baby coughs, it’s going to die anyway. The decision from a logical standpoint is literally, “save the town except for your baby, or don’t.” Alternatively, “kill your baby and save the town or don’t kill your baby and she dies anyway, along with the whole town.” At that point, the choice is simple. Would I have the fortitude to do it, I don’t know. But I know what I’d want to do.

Comment from Taylor Watts
Date: July 28, 2009, 3:29 pm

Imagine of there were two trials, one for the man that pulled the lever, and the other for the man that pushed the guy. Do you think that the survivors would show up in court in defense of their savior that pushed another man to his death? Do you think that the family of the single killed worker would sue the man that pulled the lever?

Would the law of the land be very kind the person that ended up making the choice to save 5 people, in either scenario.

Somehow I think that the court system would be the kindset to the man that did not push the large man, even though it ends up with the worst outcome of 5 people dead.

Comment from Jerome
Date: August 6, 2009, 12:35 pm

I’d like to ask the older moderator a question about the war thought experiment:

Let’s imagine you’re hidden there with your wife, your three kids, your baby, your parents and 4 other families.

Would you still refuse to kill the one baby and thus instead sacrifice EVERYONE else?