[\<- 07/02](07-02.md) ## Trolley Problem - 5 people are one one track, 1 person on the other. Which way to you set the train to go - The trolley is initially going towards the 5 people - A utilitarian would probably think of this in simple terms: one person dying vs 5 people dying - This is tough to talk about without knowing who the people on the track are - Ex. Assume that the 5 people have big families and were the family breadwinners. In this case, it would be exponentially more optimific to move to train to the track with 1 person - The way you think about this likely changes when the problem changes from turning a level to pushing a person in front of the train - These two versions brings up the ethics of gunning down people vs killing people with a remote controlled drone ## Beasts are Rational Reading - Circe is a witch that turns humans into farm animals - Odysseus lands on Circe's island - Gryllus is a pig who used to be a man - In the Ancient World, courage is a virtue - Gryllus criticizes humans, claiming that they are not always courageous. He claims that animals are instinctually courageous - A response to this argument is that perhaps humans are courageous when it is smart to be (fight or flight) - Note that the author is perhaps a bit biased, as he was a vegetarian