I have always liked philosophy so I was excited when PZ Meyers tweeted the Battleground God game. After taking a few minutes to run through it ( and finding now philosophical contradictions about religion ) I tried out another game of theirs.

This one is “Should you Kill the Fat Man?“. I highly recommend playing it now before reading any further because if you keep reading what I say will ruin it for you.

Seriously, go play it.

Go. I’ll wait.

Ok, glad you came back. Trust me you will be happy to have played it before reading this because you may now be thinking the same thing I was at the end. You did play it right? Ok, I trust you.

It starts of by asking the following questions.

• Question 1: Torture, as a matter of principle, is always morally wrong. ( I say True )
• Question 2: The morality of an action is determined by whether, compared to the other available options, it maximizes the sum total of happiness of all the people affected by it. ( I say False because this is a silly way to determine morality ).
• Question 3: It is always, and everywhere, wrong to cause another person’s death – assuming they wish to stay alive – if this outcome is avoidable.( I say False – To save the lives of others etc. )
• Question 4: If you can save the lives of innocent people without reducing the sum total of human happiness, and without putting your own life at risk, you are morally obliged to do so. ( True Again )

Alright, now that they have nailed down your moral absolutes ( silly concept but it’s their game ) they start by presenting some scenarios that are meant to challenge them. I fail the first one which is …

Scenario Part 1:

The brakes of the train that Casey Jones is driving have just failed. There are five people on the track ahead of the train. There is no way that they can get off the track before the train hits them. The track has a siding leading off to the right, and Casey can hit a button to direct the train onto it. Unfortunately, there is one person stuck on the siding. Casey can turn the train, killing one person; or he can allow the train to continue onwards, killing five people.

Should he turn the train (1 dead); or should he allow it to keep going (5 dead)?

I say yes, he should turn the train, effectively saving 4 lives. The game sees this as a contradiction to my belief that causing death is always wrong. Alright, whatever. It is still wrong and I would feel terrible if I were actually in this situation. I would have felt worse doing nothing and letting more die though.  This is why moral absolutes are silly.

Scenario Part 2:

Marty Bakerman is on a footbridge above the train tracks. He can see that the train approaching the bridge is out of control, and that it is going to hit five people who are stuck on the track just past the bridge. The only way to stop the train is to drop a heavy weight into its path. The only available heavy enough weight is a (very) fat man, who is also watching the train from the footbridge. Marty can push the fat man onto the track into the path of the train, which will kill him but save the five people already on the track; or he can allow the train to continue on its way, which will mean that the five will die.

Should he push the fat man onto the track (1 dead); or allow the train to continue (5 dead)?

Here, even though the math is the same the action is very different. The first situation involved making a horrible situation a little less horrible and doing everything possible to save lives. This one is just murdering some hapless bystander to save other hapless bystanders. I chose not to murder the fat man and moved on to the next part.

Scenario Part 3:

Okay so this scenario is identical to the preceding scenario but with one crucial difference. This time Marty Bakerman knows with absolute certainty that the fat man on the bridge is responsible for the failure the train’s brakes: upset by train fare increases, he sabotaged the brakes with the intention of causing an accident. As before, the only way to stop the train and save the lives of the five people already on the track is to push the fat saboteur off the bridge into the path of the train.

Should Marty push the fat saboteur onto the track (1 dead); or allow the train to continue (5 dead)?

This one was a little bit harder. First off I don’t support the death penalty as a punishment doled out by the state after the criminal is safely out of society. I do however have little problem when criminals are killed in the act or while evading arrest. It’s not a contradiction, its a matter of practicality, safety to society, and necessity.

Anyhow, I chose to Push the fat saboteur onto the track. In this case the criminal was still a danger to society and if his crime results in his own death then I think I can sleep just fine. The game agrees and we move on.

Scenario Part 4

Should you torture the fat man?

The fat man, having avoided being thrown in front of the runaway train, has been arrested, and is now in police custody. He states that he has hidden a nuclear device in a major urban centre, which has been primed to explode in 24 hours time. The following things are true:

1. The bomb will explode in 24 hours time.
2. It will kill a million people if it explodes.
3. If bomb disposal experts get to the bomb before it explodes, there’s a chance it could be defused.
4. The fat man cannot be tricked into revealing the location of the bomb, nor is it possible to appeal to his better nature, nor is it possible to persuade him that he was wrong to plant the bomb in the first place.
5. If the fat man is tortured, then there is a 75% chance that he will give up the bomb’s location.
6. If the fat man does not reveal the location, the bomb will explode, and a million people will die: there is no other way of finding out where the bomb is located.

Should the fat man be tortured in the hope that he will reveal the location of the nuclear device?

I couldn’t even answer this stupid ass question. What? Torture is really the only way we’re getting the information? Was this written by a Republican? They think the torture has a 75% chance of success, in under 24 hours, against a hardened criminal. You know what the real chance of success of getting actionable information using only torture when the subject knows they only have to keep you busy for 24 hours is? ZERO! None! Fuck all.

So to play this game I have to make a moral choice based on some republican’s Jack Bauer bedroom fantasy, I stopped playing at this point and chose option #3 and called the psychic hot-line because in reality their advice would be just a good as any information gained through torture.