Why don’t we pull the trolley lever?
Omission Bias
, explained.What is the Omission Bias?
The omission bias refers to our tendency to judge harmful actions as worse than harmful inactions, even if they result in similar consequences.
Where it occurs
Imagine the following scenario.
You are on a walk when you see a runaway trolley car barreling down the railroad tracks. A group of five people are in the path of the trolley, and are unable to move out of the way in time to escape. You see there is a lever close to you that can switch the direction of the trolley onto another set of tracks. However, you notice one man standing on the other tracks that would also be unable to escape if you pulled the lever.
You find yourself in a moral dilemma with two options. You can A) do nothing and have the trolley kill five people or B) pull the lever and kill one person in order to save five. What is the right thing to do?
While neither option is optimal, most people would agree that option B is the most morally sound. However, you might feel like the action of pulling the lever and killing one person would instill more guilt than the inaction resulting in the death of five people. Even though the consequences of choosing option A are worse, our desire to abstain from any harmful actions (and the subsequent blame) can override the more ethical choice. This famous thought experiment, dubbed “the Trolley Problem”, demonstrates the omission bias in action.1