The Handy Dandy Potters Box

We have all had to make tough choices in our lives. Life loves to try to peg us in the face with it’s wonderful little curveballs of moral dilemma. Most people will curse, and fret, and wonder what they did in a pervious life to deserve such special consideration, but just about every single person can agree that them’s tha brakes.

Suppose you are at train station and, just like you, there are about six other people just milling about on the tracks. Now you happen to notice that a train is coming and is currently heading for a group of five people on one set of tracks. Now you also happen to notice that you are right next to a switch that could divert that train, but in doing so you will send it towards the other person in your group who happens to be on the other set of tracks. What do you do? Do you allow those people to be mowed down by the train? Do you save the five by sacrificing the one? A little unrealistic as far as hypotheticals go, but it gets my point across.

That’s where the Potter Box comes in handy. The Potter Box is an ethical system that allows you to take into account the mitigating factors of a problem and, by isolating them and thinking critically about it, allows you to solve your problem. By taking the facts, values, loyalties and principles of the problem and the others involved into consideration you can come to an ethical conclusion and an appropriate course of action.

First you define the situation by establishing the facts. You could potentially save a group of people by killing one, or you could save one person by allowing the train to continue its course.

You also consider that values involved, such as the fact that just about everyone involved has family members and loved ones that would be hurt by these deaths.

Then you have your loyalties, which in this case would be your duty to help your fellow man whenever possible.

And finally you must consider any ethical principles that apply to your situation and find the one that fits with the problem. In this case, the strongest principle is utilitarianism. By saving the five people you are increasing the happiness of the largest group of people. But the veil of ignorance also comes into play because if you where the person who was going to be killed, I’m sure you would rather not be killed. But then again if dying meant saving the lives of five other people you might agree to it.

Personally I hate trains and I have no idea why I’m at this train station in the first place, but if I was in this situation and was forced to make a decision, I would sacrifice the life of the one to save the five. This is the conclusion I came to with the Potters Box. I feel that by saving the five people I am not only saving them, but the families and loved ones of five different people. Whereas by killing the one person I am only affecting that person’s immediate family and friends.

The Potters Box is a pretty handy tool once you get the hang of it. And it can be used to figure out other problems as well, not just ones that have life and death consequences. I feel that using this tool in your daily life and help take some of the stress out of living. And that’s something I think more people could use.