E.J. Masicampo is a psychology professor from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He has a 2-year-old son, called Nicholas.
This week, Masicampo discussed the trolley problem with his moral psychology class. When he got home, he thought it'd be interesting to see how his son would react to the moral dilemma.
View this video on YouTube
The trolley problem is a thought experiment. The basic idea is there is a runaway tram or train going down some tracks, heading for five tied-up people. You are standing away from this, next to a lever, but only able to witness the events. If you pull the lever, the carriage will switch to a different set of tracks. However, there is one person tied to this other set of tracks. Do you do nothing and let five people die or pull the lever and let one person die?
It didn't go great.
No, Nicholas. Please, no.
Since it was uploaded yesterday, the video has been watched over a million times.
Psychologists, this one's for you. Bet you've never seen quite this solution to the trolley problem... https://t.co/grMG77DISC
Masicampo told BuzzFeed News that the video was originally made for his class, but after he put it on Facebook it gained a huge amount of unexpected attention.
