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What's The Islamic Perspective On Trolley Problem?
The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics that presents a hypothetical scenario in which a trolley is headed towards a group of people on a track, and the decision-maker must choose between doing nothing and letting the trolley hit the group or pulling a lever to divert the trolley onto another track where there is only one person.
I am asking this because it relates to a number of other practical concepts.
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12 Replies
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What's The Islamic Perspective On Trolley Problem?
updated 1 year, 7 months ago
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12
Replies
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On lighter note, this could be an option
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From Islamic perspective, u can only take life if that person is murderer or spreading corruption in land.
So with this principle, we cannot pass any judgement to take a life.
On the other hand, if u make a decision to save the group, and you take life of single person, state can prosecute u with man slaughter charge. However, they may be lenient to not give death penalty
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Perhaps @faisalharoon sb can give a better response to it.
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If you could provide a few instances of those practical steps which relate to Tolley problem, it would be much easier for scholars to reflect on them.
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@JAC For example wars. Can we kill few to save millions.
Also this is also a problem when building autopilot cars.
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Islam holds a person accountable as per his knowledge and resources and as per his circumstances under which a particular decision is made. In case of genuine conflict between two moral values, a person will have no blame if he made an honest decision to the best of his knowledge and resources. For example, when a person has to lie to a criminal chasing an innocent person in order to divert his chase in a wrong direction, in such a situation, this lie would not make a person accountable.
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@UmerQureshi i think in the eyes of Allah, we cannot know.
But from state point of view, justice has been breached as a person has been killed by the decision maker without any crime. Saying that a person is not accountable will be injustice to society and that person.
It appears to me, you are thinking from the utilaritanian perspective rather than islamic perspective. Please clarify, if i am wrong
also plz comment on how you see Mignonette shipwreck case.
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@UmerQureshi According to how Ghamidi sahab understands Deen, a person doesn’t need any external guidence to decide weather theft(clear crimes) is wrong or not. For the ambiguous matters, if allah has revealed a direct judgement, it has to be accepted.
By principle, for ambiguities for which there is no such direct or indirect judgement, we have to try stay away from these gray matter.
When its impossible to skip judgement, we should do ijtihad.
Amr ibn al-‘As reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “If a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning and he is correct, he will have two rewards. If a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning and he is mistaken, he will have one reward.”
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7352, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1716
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A similar situation was quite recently witnessed during COVID pandemic where the physicians have to prioritize their choices of whom will be saved and whom to let go.
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You may find following article interesting for bioethics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3752859/
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Since the question is too hypothetical and not an objective question, it can only be answered in certain principle based statements.
As per Quran 5:48 and Quran 2:286 (See: Discussion 79805), we get to know that a person will be accountable on the day of jdugement as per his knowledge and resources and as per his circumstances under which a particular decision is made and on the honesty of those decisions of course. There will be situations where a person is forced to prioritize one value over another or forced to make a decision in the face of conflicting values, in all such circumstances, he will be judged based on the factors mentioned above.
Example mentioned by Jameel Ahmed Sahab is very relevant and practical where doctors were at times forced to proritize patients on the basis of ther age and their immunity or at instances, they made such decisions on their own because of limited resources and limited time frames. In all such circumstances, as long as such decision was made with utmost honesty after deliberating on all the available information, then such decisions being made, even faulty at times, will not incur any sin on the person based on the Quranic verses referenced above. The Hadith of Bukhari and Muslim shared above on ijtihad is also an elucidation of one of the dimensions of the same Quranic principle.
For opinion of Ghamidi Sahab on the corona virus issue and prioritizing patients, please refer to the video below from 1:46:27 to 1:50:45
https://www.youtube.com/live/bLJp76ywjWA?feature=share&t=6387
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Thanks for your response,
Can you shed some light on Mignonette shipwreck case.? It was an actual case.
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