I want to ask people what do they think about solving the most standard trolley problem (1 person on a track, 5 on the other, nobody knows each other, you are the trolley driver) with chance? Throwing a coin seems like it is too simple. The solution I'm thinking about is rolling a dice, and say if you get 1 save the one person, and if you get 2 or higher save the group of people.

That way, you make the chance of surviving per person the same. That seems good to me! Can you think of formal problems with this? The most serious one I have heard is from an existentialist or Kantian view, that'd be denying your own powers of reason by leaving it to chance. I think it is the opposite. It is precisely because of me being a rational animal using those powers---say thinking that ideally every life is worth saving---that I conclude using the dice is (at least apparently) the fairest thing for me to do.

EDIT:

I think I have a way of explaining myself more. I'm going to assume that my actions about the trolley problem can only provide the world with some "goodness" G (for now assume finite, bare with me for a little), and I want to distribute that G as equally as possible between the 6 involved people to be fair.

Given the initial description of the trolley problem, I can send that G to the one person, or send that G to the five people. To give give a number, say it is 6000. I'll evaluate goodness by the average value of the distribution of G, and unfairness as the variance of the distribution of G (justice and fairness will be maximal when the differences among subjects are minimal,and so the std dev. will be minimal too).

A) I pull the lever and I send G to the five people, then I give 1200 to each, so the G distribution looks like this 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200, average G is 1000, std dev of G = 490

B) I don't pull the lever, and send G to the 1 person, then 6000 0 0 0 0 0, average G = 1000, std dev of G = 2459

so A) is better than B), same good, less unfair.

Now bring my roll the dice solution C) Roll the dice, so with a chance of 1/6 I get the distribution 6000 0 0 0 0 0 and with 5/6 I get the distribution 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 then the average distribution taking into account the probs. is 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 Average = 1000, std dev = 0

Then C is even better! It is the only way of keeping the same goodness of average and also minimizing unfairness.

Now of course, saving a life cannot be assigned a number, but there is no problem, take the limit G --> inf, my solution is still the only one that minimizes the std dev of the goodness. Just to clarify, given the description of the trolley problem I cannot take G and directly distribute it among the 6 people, because I cannot "half-save" or "1/6-save" a person's life.

I think sompe people saytthat A) is better because you give every alive person 1200, which is greater than 1000, but I think the cheating part is that you would be somewhat ignoring the other person.

I want to ask people what do they think about solving the most standard trolley problem (1 person on a track, 5 on the other, nobody knows each other, you are the trolley driver) with chance? Throwing a coin seems like it is too simple. The solution I'm thinking about is rolling a dice, and say if you get 1 save the one person, and if you get 2 or higher save the group of people.

That way, you make the chance of surviving per person the same. That seems good to me! Can you think of formal problems with this? The most serious one I have heard is from an existentialist or Kantian view, that'd be denying your own powers of reason by leaving it to chance. I think it is the opposite. It is precisely because of me being a rational animal using those powers---say thinking that ideally every life is worth saving---that I conclude using the dice is (at least apparently) the fairest thing for me to do.

EDIT:

I think I have a way of explaining myself more. I'm going to assume that my actions about the trolley problem can only provide the world with some "goodness" G (for now assume finite, bare with me for a little), and I want to distribute that G as equally as possible between the 6 involved people to be fair.

Given the initial description of the trolley problem, I can send that G to the one person, or send that G to the five people. To give give a number, say it is 6000. I'll evaluate goodness by the average value of the distribution of G, and unfairness as the variance of the distribution of G (justice and fairness will be maximal when the differences among subjects are minimal,and so the std dev. will be minimal too).

A) I pull the lever and I send G to the five people, then I give 1200 to each, so the G distribution looks like this 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200, average G is 1000, std dev of G = 490

B) I don't pull the lever, and send G to the 1 person, then 6000 0 0 0 0 0, average G = 1000, std dev of G = 2459

so A) is better than B), same good, less unfair.

Now bring my roll the dice solution C) Roll the dice, so with a chance of 1/6 I get the distribution 6000 0 0 0 0 0 and with 5/6 I get the distribution 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 then the average distribution taking into account the probs. is 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 Average = 1000, std dev = 0

For completeness, here is the case D) where instead of a dice you use a coin flip: distribution is 3000 600 600 600 600 600, avg = 1000, std dev = 816 (better than B but not A)

Then C is even better! It is the only way of keeping the same average goodness and also minimizing unfairness.

Now of course, saving a life cannot be assigned a number, but there is no problem, take the limit G --> inf, my solution is still the only one that minimizes the std dev of the goodness. Just to clarify, given the description of the trolley problem I cannot take G and directly distribute it among the 6 people, because I cannot "half-save" or "1/6-save" a person's life.

I think some people say that A) is better because you give every alive person 1200, which is greater than 1000, but I think the cheating part is that you would be somewhat ignoring the other person.

I want to ask people what do they think about solving the most standard trolley problem (1 person on a track, 5 on the other, nobody knows each other, you are the trolley driver) with chance? Throwing a coin seems like it is too simple. The solution I'm thinking about is rolling a dice, and say if you get 1 save the one person, and if you get 2 or higher save the group of people.

That way, you make the chance of surviving per person the same. That seems good to me! Can you think of formal problems with this? The most serious one I have heard is from an existentialist or Kantian view, that'd be denying your own powers of reason by leaving it to chance. I think it is the opposite. It is precisely because of me being a rational animal using those powers---say thinking that ideally every life is worth saving---that I conclude using the dice is (at least apparently) the fairest thing for me to do.

I want to ask people what do they think about solving the most standard trolley problem (1 person on a track, 5 on the other, nobody knows each other, you are the trolley driver) with chance? Throwing a coin seems like it is too simple. The solution I'm thinking about is rolling a dice, and say if you get 1 save the one person, and if you get 2 or higher save the group of people.

That way, you make the chance of surviving per person the same. That seems good to me! Can you think of formal problems with this? The most serious one I have heard is from an existentialist or Kantian view, that'd be denying your own powers of reason by leaving it to chance. I think it is the opposite. It is precisely because of me being a rational animal using those powers---say thinking that ideally every life is worth saving---that I conclude using the dice is (at least apparently) the fairest thing for me to do.

EDIT:

I think I have a way of explaining myself more. I'm going to assume that my actions about the trolley problem can only provide the world with some "goodness" G (for now assume finite, bare with me for a little), and I want to distribute that G as equally as possible between the 6 involved people to be fair.

Given the initial description of the trolley problem, I can send that G to the one person, or send that G to the five people. To give give a number, say it is 6000. I'll evaluate goodness by the average value of the distribution of G, and unfairness as the variance of the distribution of G (justice and fairness will be maximal when the differences among subjects are minimal,and so the std dev. will be minimal too).

A) I pull the lever and I send G to the five people, then I give 1200 to each, so the G distribution looks like this 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200, average G is 1000, std dev of G = 490

B) I don't pull the lever, and send G to the 1 person, then 6000 0 0 0 0 0, average G = 1000, std dev of G = 2459

so A) is better than B), same good, less unfair.

Now bring my roll the dice solution C) Roll the dice, so with a chance of 1/6 I get the distribution 6000 0 0 0 0 0 and with 5/6 I get the distribution 0 1200 1200 1200 1200 1200 then the average distribution taking into account the probs. is 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 Average = 1000, std dev = 0

Then C is even better! It is the only way of keeping the same goodness of average and also minimizing unfairness.

Now of course, saving a life cannot be assigned a number, but there is no problem, take the limit G --> inf, my solution is still the only one that minimizes the std dev of the goodness. Just to clarify, given the description of the trolley problem I cannot take G and directly distribute it among the 6 people, because I cannot "half-save" or "1/6-save" a person's life.

I think sompe people saytthat A) is better because you give every alive person 1200, which is greater than 1000, but I think the cheating part is that you would be somewhat ignoring the other person.