Murtaza Ibrahimi

Professor Reynolds
PHL 230
Essay #1
October 5th, 2019

The Fat Man

Saving five people who are standing on the track from the approaching trolley by

pushing the giant fat man off the bridge raises a moral question of whether it is right to do or not.

Based on the principle of deontology in ethics, I shall defend that pushing the fat off the bridge

and killing him is the wrong action to take for the reasons that, first, killing a human is against

the international human rights law, and secondly, killing the fat man is committing a crime of

murder.

First of all, pushing the fat man off the bridge is taking a human's freedom of living away

which contrasts with the international human rights law. As agreed by many states in the United

Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) serves as the basis for the

international human rights law; according to the article three of UDHR, all the humans are

entitled to the right of living as one of their principal rights ("Universal Declaration of Human

Rights", n.d.). Everyone must abide by the laws-whether they are national or international-since

they are made to create a safe, consistent, and sustainable society and world for everyone to live

in. Moreover, the universal laws such as the international human rights law have their origins in

the ethical theory of Immanuel Kant which he calls it the ‘Categorical Imperative'. The

categorical imperative theory of Kant, as he describes it as the central principle of morality,

states, "Act only on that maxim that you can will as a universal law." (cited in “Moral

Philosophy According to Immanuel Kant”, 2019). Hence, killing a human in any circumstances

is the maxim that no rational human wants to see as a universal law as it would result in the

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chaos that never can be justified. Also, killing the fat man is committing a crime of murder. The

crime of murder is killing a human by another human intentionally with premeditation (England,

n.d.). Although the consequence of pulling the fat man off the bridge would be saving the lives

of five people, the intention to kill the fat is against the ‘Good Will’ theory of Kant. Kant in his

theory of good will argues that an action should be unconditionally good and the intention for

doing that action should rely on an individual's moral duty not on the consequence that the action

may have; he describes this intention as the good will (Jankowiak, n.d.). So, pushing the fat man

and killing him contrasts with the theory of good will as the intention for killing relies on the

consequence which is saving five people. Meanwhile, killing the fat man opposes the Kant's

‘Golden Rule' which says, "Do unto others as you would them do unto you," (Walker & Walker,

2018). Accordingly, the person standing by the fat man never wants to be killed by someone

standing next to him on the bridge if he was instead of the fat man. Thus, the act of killing the fat

man by pushing him off the bridge, based on the deontologists' perspective, would be wrong

because it violates the international human rights law and is committing a crime of murder.

In contrast to the deontologists, the aforementioned claims would be invalid if seen from

the perspective of consequentialists for the reason that pushing the fat man off the bridge and

killing him would result in saving the lives of five other people who are standing on the track.

Based on the teleological theory of Utilitarianism by Jeremy Bentham, an action is morally right

to be done if the greatest pleasure is produced at the end (cited in Ethics for A-level, 2017, p.14).

So, applying the Bentham's axiom to the trolley problem pushing the fat man off the bridge and

killing him is morally the right action to take because five people will be saved as the

consequence of killing only one person. Besides, according to the act-consequentialism, the

morally right action that a person must take is the one which would have the highest balance of

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good consequences when compared to its bad consequences (McBaughton, D. & Rawling, P.,

1998). According to this theory, pushing the fat man off the bridge can have both good and bad

consequences. The good consequence is that five people would be saved and the bad

consequence would be that one person will be killed. When comparing the bad and good

consequences, the good consequence has the highest balance which is saving one life in

exchange for one life. Accordingly, killing the fat man is morally right. All in all,

consequentialists, like Bentham, would push the fat man off the bridge because by killing only

one person five people, which is a greater number rather than one person, would be saved.

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 References

Dimmock, M., & Fisher, A. (2017). Ethics for A-Level. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.

England, D. (n.d.) Homicide: murder and manslaughter. Criminal Defense Lawyer. Retrieved

from https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/murder-and-homicide.htm

Jankowiak T. (n.d.) Immanuel Kant. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Retrieved from https://www.iep.utm.edu/kantview/#SH5a

McNaughton, D. Rawling, P. (1998). Act-consequentialism. Routledge Encyclopedia of

Philosophy. Retrieved from

https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/consequentialism/v-1/sections/act-

consequentialism

Universal declaration of human rights (n.d.). United Nations. Retrieved from

https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

Westacott, E. (August 31, 2019) Moral philosophy according to Immanuel Kant. ThoughtCo.

Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/kantian-ethics-moral-philosophy-immanuel-

kant-4045398

Walker, P., Walker, A. (2019) The golden rule revisited. Philosophy Now.

Retrieved from https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/The_Golden_Rule_Revisited

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