Absolute Morality: Does it exist?

The train problem, if I recall correctly, became popular as part of a larger set of moral dilemmas that supposedly, when taken as a whole, illustrated inconsistencies, or at least quizzical features, of human decision making.

So, it wasn't so much that there was a "right answer" to the train problem, but that certain answers in this problem were "incompatible" with other popular answers in other problems.

I don't think the train problem bears on the existence of absolute morality, but only its completeness. There are problems which moral considerations, absolute or relative, may not decide. That does not mean that there is or isn't an absolute morality, and surely doesn't mean that there aren't problems which can be decided on moral grounds.

For the record, as to the train problem itself, I lack the authority to kill even one innocent person. I could conceivably acquire that authority, or I could have some specific duty to somebody on the train, or the operator of the railroad, or whomever. But here and now, I don't.

Having the power to intervene confers no right to kill anybody, IMO. I make nobody's situation worse than it is if I decline to intervene (that's called a Pareto solution, if you're keeping score).

So, nature takes its course. Sorry, trainful of people.

reply to post by adjensen

No, I don't think that the physical environment is judgmental in the right and wrong sense.

I mean that our morality is predicated on our social and parental instincts.