And to add, there is not enough context so it is a fiction and tool to confuse. What if the 5 people were convicted murderers? No one has the right to infringe the sovereignty of a person by killing him. I find that many who read AS fail to understand this point and then conclude she supports "gains at all costs".

Cassandra, my post had nothing to do with attacking Objectivism nor you. Instead, I find this thread to be throwing around a lot of terms and concepts, ie. moral, ethic, value, etc. that are subjectivist in nature while trying to talk about objectivism that leads to a lot of confusion, particularly in relation to the messages of AS and the philosophical moorings of AR. Although it's been many years since I've read the entire AS, I'm pretty sure I'm still attuned to the message.
Although a moral philosophy can be self formed and thus a personal standard of values of what is right and what is wrong, it operates within a society's constructed morality. An Aztec murdering other humans or sacrificing their own children was a highly moral action, within the Aztec society. If your self generated morality feels and believes that to be wrong, then you are immoral, within that society. If, however, you decide that society's constructed morality is not moral to you, then you become amoral, choosing to be outside of the accepted morality construct of the Aztec society.
It is nearly impossible for an individual to form a moral, ethical, or value system in isolation from the society in which he/she finds themselves. Objectivist belief, believing that moral truths exist outside of the moral construct of society can be a way around that limitation, but only through self determination or recognition of value of the self. In a way, it is a search for the reality outside of ourselves that we actually experience.
For myself, I define myself as an unabashed amoral objectivist in that I believe, as it relates to morality, ethics, and personal value, that the definitions, systems, and rights/wrongs imposed by others that demands sacrifice on my part for some supposed good is nonsense and is personally destructive. From that I hope you can see that, at least in my case, that operating outside of the society's standard of morality is not the same as having no moral standard.
But as others have commented, the thread is entertaining.
KYFHO

This is a mistake: a moral standard is the result of values i.e. the content of the mind. This leaves an imprint on the brain. Not the other way round. The brain is not like a normal organ in that it is responsible for the quality it produces. Values do that.

cassandra, I agree with you. to the "operation destruct Objectivism from within" part-there are trolls on the email list. However, to give you more context about the site-the ONLY initial starting point that we all share is having seen and enjoyed the movies. There are many in here who have not yet read AS. and have learned about AR after they found this site. Zen is clearly not an Objectivist. I am enjoying this thread.

What TF is this? Operation destruct Objectivism from within? I can hardly believe the crap I'm getting here.
No, I do not mean an immoralist. I mean an amoralist. Someone without a moral standard. An immoralist has one, but acts against it.
A moral standard is NOT a social construct, but a personal standard of values. A healthy human being derives his standard from his life, as Ayn Rand learnt. Not from ffing society! That's a socialist premise, for crying out loud!
I'm wondering about the people on this site. WTF is your interest in Atlas Shrugged if you haven't got a CLUE about the underlying philosophic tenets?

This is a "good" use for emotion, setting axioms. Once you have them, you have to use reason to work out if complex actions in life are violating the value of pushing the guy into the path of the train or changing its direction. Emotions will steer you to contradictory results if you apply them directly to a complex problem. They are only good for working out values.

Quite so--Ayn Rand and Objectivists are often smeared as psychopaths (a completely obsolete medical term). Nothing could be farther from the truth. Objectivism holds life as its highest standard and recognizes that the best decisions regarding life are made using reason, not emotion.

You have to accept the facts in the scenario. 5 strangers as opposed to one stranger. The fast man WILL stop the train. This is a scenario and these are the FACTS given. If you couldn't personally kill one man to save 5, don't flip the switch because it's the same thing. If you wouldn't go knock down some ones door and have a shoot out with them because they don't want to pay for your health care, don't pay someone else to. If you want the road infront of your house paved and maintained but can't afford it, and you could put on a bullet proof vest and group up with a bunch of well trained soldiers and storm a mansion because he wouldn't help pay for it, don't agree that other people should. Just because you can't see the violence doesn't mean it isn't there.

thank you, tem!

"A psychopath has no concept of values, he is an amoralist"
I think you mean immoralist. Amorality is simply not accepting other's definitions of what is/is not moral, but to form your own morals. Immorality is having no morals.
I would argue that values, ethics, and morals is most strongly constructed by the society in which one is raised.
A psychopath is simply one that has no empathy for others, doesn't have much to do with some subjective term such as 'value.'

I think the test is not which choice you would make, but whether you have a qualm about having to make it.

And by the way: we're not psychopaths here. If anyone's talking about the great strike in AS, let's lay the blame where it really belongs: with a government that violates people's rights, and a philosophical system that informed that government's policies.

also, the guy in the youtube looks like a psychopath

The example given is presented merely to see whether it triggers an emotional response or not. There is not enough information given to make a decision, were this a real world situation.

Notably: nothing is said about the train. How many people are on it? What is it carrying? Is the switch you are standing at in a populated area and/or will one decision or the other send it into a populated area?

After all, part of the scenario involves the possibility of wrecking the train ("stopping" it). In that case the engineer/crew or anyone else on the train may die (is it carrying passengers?). If it's in a populated area (a reasonable assumption since you can see that there are six people on the tracks) and carrying a full load of flammables, derailing the train could kill hundreds.

An implied, but not mentioned premise here is that the train is a "runaway" and therefore likely to derail at some point. What if you are standing in the middle of a densely populated area and interfering with the train will cause it to derail at high speed and presumably burst at least some of a cargo of LP gas? What if leaving it alone will send it out into the countryside where it will derail in the middle of a bunch of empty fields?

The commentator makes an interesting point as far as how the brain works, but his presentation is so simplistic that it left me confused more than anything else.

lol

Wow! So interesting! Was happy to find out that at least in THIS example, I'm not a psychopath.

great points, zen

Pretty interesting to see all of your amygdilas lighting up, combined with the willingness to accept that ethics and morals are determining factors. Piling on more details and definitions and analogies doesn't change the facts given or the question or the answers. The ethical and moral load belongs to the person(s) setting up this situation, usually both victim and perpetrator, in this case the psychologist/ethicist/psychiatrist/etc..
My ethical burden occurs at the point of accepting/rejecting the burden of saving lives or not. My objectivist self interest is brought to the fore at that point. What self interest is served by loading myself with the ethical/moral consequences of saving lives - feel good/feel bad, good reputation/bad reputation, did I save the good one/did I save the worthless one? Sooner or later you come to the point of saving what you can, but in neither option do you actively or directly sacrifice any life. Murder can only be acceptable in actual defense, not in correcting the actions of someone else.
I suppose that last would seem to be an ethical/moral decision, but I can argue that it is a self interest and objective decision based on self protection from society.

KYFHO.

You are putting words in my mouth. I told you that I did not decide if he should stop the train, I would only explain what I thought the options were to the large man. I, also, said that if he chose to not to block the train, I would not force him! I don't understand why you are being so dense. I WILL NOT FORCE HIM. The value and goal of his life is not for me to decide. If I was the large man, I would not block the train and would fight the person trying to push me in front of it.

You made a decision as to whose life was more valuable and you would influence to that end. Since that would be illogical and irrational-what's left? force

You are mistaken if you believe I am collecting anything. Speaking to someone about a situation is not force and you are making an error to suggest otherwise. I did not say I get to decide anything, but to initiate force on the large man or not. I chose not. I do not see how you equate not initiating force on someone with slavery and communism since the examples you gave are examples of initiation of force.

btw, I detest your responses, but I want this argument front and center and put to bed.

sacrifice is leading us to concentration camps. sacrifice is always being collected by somebody. Your goal in this test. You said you would try to influence the fat man to sacrifice himself. You clearly think that you get to decide who lives and who dies. You want to collect the sacrifice. You are in the same moral category as a slave holder, Mao, Pol Pot. Your last statement is chilling.

Actually, we got in the position by sacrificing someone else for the greater good, which is exactly the question posed when you are asked to throw the large man in front of the train. It is AS that is trying to have us say, "You want someone to sacrifice, it wont be me!" If we only had people sacrificing themselves, our battle would be so much easier.

our fallen heroes fought to win not to lose-they were not and are not just cannon fodder. sacrificing oneself for the greater good is exactly how we got to the position we are in today.
didn't Patton say that no one wins a war by dying for their country. They win by making some dumb bastard die for HIS country.