Essay on this hypothetical situation Trolley problem. I'm forced to push
someone off a cliff. That person is literally objective morality. It will cease
to exist if he dies. The alternative is to push two innocent children
Essay:
The classic trolley problem asks us to choose between tragic outcomes:
sacrifice one to save many, or refuse to act and allow greater harm. But your
hypothetical reframes the dilemma in a strikingly symbolic way. Instead of
choosing between anonymous strangers, we are told that one of the possible
victims is “objective morality” itself—personified as a single individual who
will cease to exist if pushed. The alternative is to push two innocent children.
The scenario forces us to ask not only what is right, but what makes “rightness”
possible in the first place.
At first glance, many moral intuitions lean toward minimizing immediate harm.
Two innocent children represent two futures, two centers of consciousness, two
irreplaceable lives. From a straightforward utilitarian perspective—associated
with thinkers like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill—the morally preferable
action is the one that reduces overall suffering. Saving two lives instead of
one appears to maximize well-being. Under this framework, pushing the single
individual (even if symbolically significant) would be justified if it prevents
the greater loss of life.
However, the twist destabilizes this calculus. If the single person truly
embodies objective morality—meaning that moral truths exist independently of
human opinion—then his death would erase the very foundation upon which we judge
actions as right or wrong. Without objective morality, moral claims might become
mere preferences, conventions, or power structures. In that world, the deaths of
the two children would not be objectively wrong; they would simply be events.
The dilemma becomes self-referential: if morality ceases to exist, can any
choice be meaningfully better?
From a deontological perspective, associated with Immanuel Kant, morality is
grounded not in consequences but in duty and rational principles. Innocent
people must never be treated merely as means to an end. Pushing either the
children or the embodiment of morality would be a direct, intentional killing—an
act Kant would likely condemn regardless of consequences. In this reading, the
correct action might be to refuse to push anyone, even if refusal leads to worse
outcomes. The integrity of moral agency matters more than outcome arithmetic.
Yet the scenario suggests that inaction may not be available: “I’m forced to
push.” This removes the refuge of non-participation and demands a positive
choice. If we take seriously the idea that objective morality’s survival is
necessary for any moral truth, then preserving it could be seen as preserving
the possibility of justice, rights, and moral accountability for
everyone—including countless future children. Losing objective morality could
mean that future atrocities cannot be condemned as truly wrong, only disliked.
In that sense, sacrificing two children might preserve a moral framework that
protects billions.
But there is a paradox. If objective morality requires us to sacrifice innocent
children to preserve it, what does that say about its content? A moral system
that demands the killing of innocents to secure its own existence seems
internally compromised. It resembles a government that suspends all rights in
order to “save” freedom. If morality is worth preserving, it must be because it
upholds the intrinsic value of persons—especially the innocent.
The dilemma exposes a deeper philosophical divide: Is morality something fragile
and external that can vanish with the death of a personified embodiment? Or is
morality grounded in rational beings themselves—in empathy, reason, and social
life—such that it cannot truly be extinguished by a single act? If the latter is
true, then “objective morality” cannot literally die with one individual. Moral
truths, if they exist, would persist independently of any single bearer.
In the end, the thought experiment forces us to confront what we value more:
immediate human life or the abstract foundation that gives life moral meaning. A
utilitarian might sacrifice the one for the two. A deontologist might refuse to
kill at all. A moral realist might argue that objective morality cannot be so
easily erased, making the symbolic framing misleading.
What makes the scenario powerful is not the answer it yields, but the tension it
reveals. To preserve morality by committing what seems like a grave moral wrong
feels self-defeating. Yet to let morality “die” risks plunging human life into
ethical uncertainty. The problem leaves us suspended between protecting lives
and protecting the very idea that lives matter—showing that sometimes the
hardest moral questions are not about numbers, but about foundations.