全通翻譯/翻譯社

看懂原汁原味原文書摘：The Runaway Trolley

Suppose you are the driver of a trolley car hurtling down the track at 60 miles an hour. Up ahead you see five workers standing on the track, tools in hand. You try to stop, but you can't. The brakes don't work. You feel desperate, because you know that if you crash into these five workers, they will all die. (Let's assume you know that for sure.)

Suddenly, you notice a side track, off to the right. There is a worker on that track, too, but only one. You realize that you can turn the trolley car onto the side track, killing the one worker, but sparing the five.

What should you do? Most people would say, “Turn! Tragic though it is to kill one innocent person, it's even worse to kill five.” Sacrificing one life in order to save five does seem the right thing to do.

Now consider another version of the trolley story. This time, you are not the driver but an onlooker, standing on a bridge overlooking the track. (This time, there is no side track.) Down the track comes a trolley, and at the end of the track are five workers. Once again, the brakes don't work. The trolley is about to crash into the five workers. You feel helpless to avert this disaster — until you notice, standing next to you on the bridge, a very heavy man. You could push him off the bridge, onto the track, into the path of the oncoming trolley. He would die, but the five workers would be saved. (You consider jumping onto the track yourself, but realize you are too small to stop the trolley.)

Would pushing the heavy man onto the track be the right thing to do? Most people would say, “Of course not. It would be terribly wrong to push the man onto the track.”

Pushing someone off a bridge to a certain death does seem an awful thing to do, even if it saves five innocent lives. But this raises a moral puzzle: Why does the principle that seems right in the first case — sacrifice one life to save five — seem wrong in the second?

假設你是名駕駛員，開著一輛以時速60英里飛馳在軌道上的電車。你看到前方有五名手拿工具的工人站在軌道上。你試著停車卻無法辦到。煞車壞了。你感到絕望，因為你知道如果你撞上這五名工人，他們通通會沒命。 （讓我們假設你很確定會如此。）

突然間，你注意到前面有個向右的岔道，軌道上也有人在施工，但只有一人。你明白你可以把電車轉向這一條岔道，只撞死一個工人，卻救了五個工人的性命。

你該怎麼辦？多數人會說：「當然要轉！雖然撞死一名無辜者是個悲劇，撞死五人卻更糟。」犧牲一條人命以保住五條性命的確似乎是對的做法。

現在來考慮另一個版本的電車故事。這次，你不是駕駛員而是個站在天橋上俯瞰著軌道的旁觀者。（這次軌道沒分岔。）軌道上駛來一輛電車，軌道終點有五個工人。煞車又再次失靈。電車就要撞上五名工人了。你因為無力避免慘劇而感到無助──直到你發現身旁一個跟你一樣站在橋上的大胖子。你可以把他推下天橋，摔到軌道上，撞上迎面而來的電車。他會死，但五名工人都會活下來。（你也有考慮自己跳到電車前，但明白自己個子太小，無法阻擋電車。）把胖子推到軌道上是對的嗎？多數人都會說：「當然不，把那人推到軌道上是大錯特錯。」

把人推下天橋致死看來確實很糟，即便此舉可挽救五條無辜性命。但這帶出了一個道德難題：為什麼第一個案例中看來正確的「犧牲一人以拯救五人」原則，到了第二個案例就是錯的呢？

資料來源：biz 互動英語電子報