The Trolley Problem

Well, Science in a High-Dimensional World [LW · GW] means to hold some things constant. Does this approach work with ethics too?   

Looking to accurate answers as the purpose of such questions is bad methodology, that's not how you make them useful. Thought experiments, just like scientific experiments, should aid with isolating a particular consideration from other confusing things, should strive to make use only of well-understood principles to look into what's going on with one consideration under study, not settle a complex balance of everything potentially relevant.

This feels like you're avoiding the least convenient possible world [LW · GW], even if that wasn't your intention.

This analysis shows one advantage virtue ethics has over utilitarianism and deontology with its strong focus on internal states as compared to these and their focus on external reality. And it also shows aspects of the Kohlbergian analysis of the different levels of cognitive complexity possible in the moral reasoning of moral agents. Well done!

One concrete example I like to refer to is the Maori massacre of the Moriori tribe. The Moriori were radical non-violence practitioners who lived in their own island, to the point even Gandhi would be considered too angry of a person to their tastes. The Maori, in contrast, had a culture that valued war. When the Maori invaded the Moriori's island, they announced it by torturing a Moriori girl to death and waited for them to attack, expecting a worthy battle. The Moriori didn't attack, they tried to flee and submit. The Maori were so offended by having their worthy battle denied that they hunted the Moriori to extinction, and not via quick deaths, no. Via days-long torture. This is the one tale that helps me to weight down my own non-violence preferences down into reasonableness, to avoid over-abstracting things.

On the last point, you reminded me of a comedian impersonating different MBTI types. When playing the INTP profile he began acting as a teacher reading a math question from the textbook to his students: "There are 40 bananas on the table. If Suzy eats 32 bananas, how many bananas...", then stops, looks up at the camera while throwing the book away, and asks "Why is Suzy eating 32 bananas? What's wrong with her!?" 😁

Of course the right thing to do is to pull the lever. And the right time to do that is once the trolley's front wheels have passed the switch but the rear wheels haven't yet. The trolley gets derailed, saving all 6 lives.

In a law class, the binding question would be "who is my client"?  I believe I can make an argument for culpability or justification of any action, including flipping a coin or somehow derailing the trolley, saving all 6 but killing 20 passengers. 

I don't anticipate facing the question in reality, and don't have a pre-committment to what I'd do.  Analogous decisions (where I can prioritize outcome over common rules) are not actually similar enough to generalize.  In many of those, the constraint is how much my knowledge and impact prediction differs from he circumstances that evolved the rules.  In cases where I'm average, I follow rules.  In cases where I have special knowledge or capability, I optimize for outcome.

This is unsatisfying to many, and those who pose this question often push for a simpler answer, and get angry at me for denying their hypothetical.  But that's because it's simply false that I have a rule for whether to follow rules or decide based on additional factors.

It's easy to respond to a question that doesn't contain much information with "It depends" (which is equivalent to saying "I don't know" [LW · GW]), but you still have to make a guess [LW · GW]. All else being the same, it's better to let 1 person die than 5. Summed over all possible worlds that fall under that description, the greatest utility comes from saving the most people. Discovering that the 1 is your friend and the 5 are SS should cause you to update your probability estimate of the situation, followed by its value in your utility function. Further finding out that the SS officers are traitors on their way to assassinate Hitler and your friend is secretly trying to stop them should cause another update. There's always some evidence that you could potentially hear that would change your understanding; refusing to decide in the absence of more evidence is a mistake. Make your best estimate and update it as you can.
The only additional complexity that ethical questions have that empirical questions don't is in your utility function. It's equally valid to say "answers to empirical questions are usually context-dependent", which I take to mean something like "I would update my answer if I saw more evidence". But you still need a prior, which is what the trolley problem is meant to draw out: what prior utility estimates do utilitarianism/deontology/virtue ethics give over the action space of pulling/not pulling the lever? Discovering and comparing these priors is useful. The Harvard students are correct in answering the question as asked. Treating the thought experiment as a practical problem in which you expect more information is missing the point.

I don't think you can substitute "should you" with "do you" without hugely altering the problem.
(though it's true that "should you" can still include a load of instrumental selfishness)

They're both interesting questions, but different ones.
[EDIT if the Harvard justice class is also treating these as equivalent (are they?), then that sucks]

Another point on context: you can't assume readers interpret "should" as meaning the same thing when you provide different contextual information. E.g. "Should you (as a Russian general) x" may get a different answer from "Should you (as a person) x", even if that person is a Russian general, since the first will often be interpreted in terms of [duties of a Russian general] because the reader thinks that's what the question is asking about (perhaps subconsciously).

The more context you throw in, the more careful you have to be that you're still asking essentially the same question.

"No, obviously. That would be monstrous."

This feels like begging the question. Why is it obvious that a doctor shouldn't kill one patient to save five? It seems like it is obvious because we have an overwhelmingly strong intuition that it is wrong. Given that there are many people who have an overwhelmingly strong intuition that being gay is wrong, I'm unsure if it's a good idea to just rely on that intuition, and leave it there.

What year is it?

Current year.

Where am I? 

Near a trolley track.

Who am I?

Yourself.

Who's in the trolley?

You don't know.

Who's on the tracks?

You don't know.

Who designed the trolley?

You don't know.

Who is responsible for the brake failure?

You don't know.

Do I work for the trolley company?

Assume that you're the only person who can pull the lever in time, and it wouldn't be difficult or costly for you to do so. If your answer still depends on whether or not you work for the trolley company, you are different from most people, and should explain both cases explicitly.

If so, what are its standard operating procedures for this situation?

Either there are none, or you're actually not in the situation above, but creating those procedures right now.

What would my family think?

I don't know, maybe you have an idea.

Would either decision affect my future job prospects?

No.

Is there a way for me to fix the systemic problem of trolleys crashing in thought experiments?

Maybe, but not before the trolley crashes.

Can I film the crash and post the video online?

Yes.