The button that pays you to hurt a stranger
Ethical thought experiments reveal the hidden weights we assign to loyalty, honesty, and the greater good. Read the scenario below, lock in your choice, and then scroll down to explore the philosophy behind your decision.
You are handed a box with a button. If you press it, £1,000,000 will appear in your bank account. Simultaneously, somewhere in the world — a country you'll never visit, a person you'll never meet — someone will experience significant physical pain for exactly 10 seconds. They will recover fully. They will not know who pressed the button. No one will ever know you pressed it. Do you press it?
Tap to vote — results revealed after
The Philosophy Behind This Choice
Article Overview
- The psychology behind this self-vs-others
- Evolutionary advantages and origins
- Modern implications & studies
The moral dilemma of pressing a button to receive £1,000,000 while causing minor harm to an unknown person raises complex ethical questions. From a Utilitarian perspective, the action could be justified as it would lead to a significant increase in overall happiness, albeit at the expense of a brief moment of pain for one individual. However, this framework is challenged by the Deontological view, which emphasizes the inherent wrongness of causing harm to another person, regardless of the magnitude or circumstances.
The anonymity and distance of the harm may lower the moral stakes, but they do not eliminate the moral threshold that many people intuitively recognize. This threshold is rooted in the principle of non-maleficence, or 'do no harm,' which is a fundamental tenet of human morality. The fact that most people would not press the button, despite the potential for significant personal gain, suggests that this principle takes precedence over purely utilitarian calculations.
"Human behavior is rarely random. Even our strangest quirks are deeply rooted in evolutionary biology and social preservation."
This decision is also influenced by psychological biases, such as the 'identification' problem, where humans tend to prioritize the well-being of individuals they can relate to or identify with, over abstract or distant entities. In this case, the unknown person experiencing pain becomes more 'real' and relatable, making it more difficult to justify causing them harm, even if it is minor and temporary.
Philosophical Context & Sources
OddlyHuman Ethics Team
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