Propaganda Speech Plan – Utilitarianism

(1) Imagine. You are standing next to a train track. A massive train is barreling down the tracks, on a path to hit 5 innocent workers. Their future seems doomed, but there’s still hope, as YOU are standing next to a lever. If you flip the lever, you will divert the train onto a second track, but on this second track, there is 1 worker standing. If you flip the lever, one person will die, but you will save the lives of 5 innocent people. Would you do it? I want you to raise your hand if you would flip the lever.

(2) Now, imagine this. Same train, same 5 workers, but this time, you are standing over the tracks at the top of a bridge. You are next to a physically overweight man, and if you push him off the bridge, he will land in front of the train and stop it. The 5 workers will survive, but this man won’t. Would you be willing to push this also innocent man off the bridge and ultimately be the cause of his death? Raise your hand if you would push him off.

(3) So my friend Steve is like most of you. When confronted with this problem, Steve said that yes, he would flip the lever, but no, he would not be willing to push this man off the bridge in front of the train. However, a deeper analysis of these choices reveals that Steve’s logic is dangerously flawed. So to prevent you all from committing the same moral misjudgment as he did, I would like to explain why in any situation, you must always choose the outcome which benefits the greater number of people, regardless of any other circumstances.

(4) If we take away the specifics, what this question comes down to is will you choose to save 5 people, or save just 1. The confusing details of how it is done are completely irrelevant to the question, and if you let them distract you, you are at risk of becoming like Steve. Steve revealed through his choices that he was willing to divert the train from a distance, but as soon as he felt more involved by physically pushing the man, the exact same decision suddenly doesn’t seem so moral anymore. How can we trust someone so morally ignorant as Steve to thrive in society and make truly logical and ethical decisions, if he will do anything he thinks feels morally right, rather than what is morally right.

(5) Because to save the 5 people is the only ethical decision, and here’s why. Firstly, if you weren’t there, the 5 people would have died anyway, so any actions you take are improving the situation. Secondly, even if one action feels worse than the other, it’s not. Many people choose to divert the train but not push the man because they argue that the situations are not equivalent. They say that switching the lever to save the 5 has a clear overall benefit, and the one death is an unfortunate but unintended result. Conversely, pushing the man just feels wrong, as it seems like intentional harm towards him, and therefore, its not morally ok to push him, regardless of the overall outcome. 

(6) However, ironically, this is actually a logical fallacy. How can choosing to switch a lever be less intentional action than choosing to push a man? These actions are just as intentional as each other, so you have to apply the same reasoning to both situations. 

If you sit back and let 5 people die when you could have prevented it at a lower cost, how can anyone say that this is the morally correct judgement? Regardless of what you must do to achieve it, you must chose the overall best outcome. If you don’t you have committed an act of moral failure, by deciding that your personal feeling of morality is more important than the actual lives of 5 other people.

(7) And finally, if you’re still not convinced, a 2009 survey published by David Bourget and David Chalmers shows that 70% of professional philosophers would sacrifice the one individual to save the five lives. So my point is here, even the professionals agree that the pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number of people is always the morally correct option. This is why switching the lever and pushing the man off the bridge are, in fact, the only ethical options.

(8) Now I would like us to look at this dilemma from another angle, [so we can gain a better understanding about why choosing for the overall greatest good is always the moral option]. I want you to picture someone in your head that you love. It could be a family member, a friend, anyone you like. Now I want you to picture them standing alone on the second track, with 5 other people on the first track. The train is on a path to hit the 5 people. Would you still divert the train onto the second track?

(9) Now if we go back to our friend Steve, when given this situation, he found these circumstances personally challenging. He decided that one of his family members was worth more than 5 other people, and so he changed from his previous choice and now would allow the train to continue. If you have any respect at all for human life and worth, surely you can see that Steve is deluded. 

He has once again committed moral failure, by letting his personal investment get in the way of making the logical, moral, and humane decision.

(10) To change your answer depending on the circumstances is to say that some lives are worth more than others, purely because of what you decide they are worth. It’s ludicrous to claim that this is an ethical viewpoint. People like Steve are ignorers of logic and reason, and the conclusions they come up with cannot be trusted. Together, we must look past this and make decisions for the greater good, regardless of what it takes to get there, if we want to be trustworthy, ethically conscious people in world where it is becoming more and more important to do so.

(11) Speaking of this, by now you are probably thinking, why is this even relevant? When am I ever going to be standing next to a runaway train and have to decide who to save? And fair enough, I completely agree, it seems a bit far fetched. But that is exactly why it’s a great example. 

Because it’s so extreme, once you can understand how you must act in this situation, you will know how to act in any situation. And we do face decisions similar to this on a daily basis.

(12) Have you ever had your feet comfortably propped up on a bus seat, but removed them so that someone else could sit down instead? How about just after lockdown, sanitising your hands before a class even though it makes them feel dry, because you want to reduce the chance of getting other people sick? How about this. Thinking of requesting an Excellence grade from your teacher, regardless of the quality of your work, but deciding against the request in order to uphold the integrity of the school system and therefore, benefit all the other students?

(13) These are just three examples of the constant decisions we make about what we value, applying this same reasoning that we have been exploring today. We know intuitively that choosing for the overall greater good is the right decision, and so the only thing stopping us from doing this in every situation is our own emotions and this false sense of morality we can create. 

Now those of you who know me well know that I don’t make moral decisions lightly. Do you really think I could live with myself, being up here and pushing so strongly for this course of action, if I didn’t know that it was the right one?

(14) Hopefully by now you understand that to divert a train, push a man off a bridge, or any decision which achieves the greater good is always the right decision. There are many things in life that seem temptingly ethical, but don’t achieve the best overall outcome, and so what I ask of you is please, don’t be like Steve, blinded by your own false sense of morality. 

Don’t trick yourself into making decisions that just “feel” moral. Don’t let trivial details or misguided emotions distract you from achieving the outcome with the overall greatest benefit. It is your duty as a citizen to wake up and realise that regardless of what it takes to get there, the pursuit of the overall greater good for the greatest number of people is the only moral option.