Cult of Tarot Forum

The Trolley Dilemma: Divert the course of nature and kill one to save five or let nature take its course and let the five die.

What happens if one does nothing ? – L’Amoureux VI (Lover)
What happens if one does intervene? – Tempérance XIIII (Temperance)
What one should do ? – Roue de Fortune X (Wheel of Fortune)


What happens if one does nothing ? – L’Amoureux VI (Lover)



Again, the Tarot continues to surprise us. Here we have a perfect representation of our dilemma. The Lover card is often considered (rightly or wrongly, but in this case it seems rightly) to be the card of doubt and uncertainty, the card of choices. There are two people edging on our young Lover, the person we can assume is the one having to make this choice. The one on his right (our left), the older one, the man or woman, is sort of even physically pushing him. I think he/she is telling him “go on, divert that course – save the five – go on, get a move on”. She’s in a very active pose. The other one, the young woman, is telling him to stay put, it would seem. She’s less in an active pose than the older person but is sort of pushing in the other direction than the older person. Her arms look more barrier like. “Don’t move – just stay where you are”, she seems to be telling him. (I get the impression I’m watching an action movie – the suspense is terrible – what will he decide ? Quick!!! That trolley is hurling down the rails. I dare hardly watch!)

But we have here as well a cupid. An angel with an arrow, ready to shoot and aimed at the heart of our Lover. It’s on the same side as the young woman telling the young man to stay put and do nothing. He’s also reassuring the Lover that if he does nothing, he will be able to live with himself better. It's all to do with the heart. His heart may be a bit wounded though (it’s an arrow after all that will pierce it.) The angel is also telling him that this decision is not for him to take, but is part of a divine plan maybe, but at the very least, that there are other forces taking care of this for him. It’s not his responsibility. He can go home now and put on some trousers.

So, it would seem that by doing nothing, thereby letting five people die instead of one, is a decent choice for the Lover as it will give him more peace of mind. The weight of responsibility for the situation would be less heavy. It’s out of his hands. It’s not a question of washing one’s hands of the matter, just an acceptance that this is not his decision to make.


What happens if one does intervene ? – Tempérance XIIII (Temperance)



So here we have the opportunity to save five lives, but one person will die. And Temperance to tell us all about this option.

Well, there’s no contest here. Even a three-year-old child would tell you that this card speaks of harmony and equilibrium and rightness. I don’t really have a lot to say about it (which is unusual for me because I’m normally quite a chatterbox). You intervene and you make things right. The 5 and the 1 become all mixed in the alchemy of the pouring between the two urns. Temperance doesn’t speak of death here. She speaks of life and the mystical and mysterious alchemy that occurs within this life force. This is not a cute little cupid. This a pretty impressive angel. Sort of the kind that one stands in awe of (I would think, I’ve never met an angel.)

So I reckon our Lover can, without any hesitation, intervene and save five lives. Temperance isn’t even sad for the bloke that gets killed. All’s well if you intervene.


What one should do ? – Roue de Fortune X (Wheel of Fortune)



There’s this Wheel. Going round and round. If you stay on it, you’re doomed to go round forever and ever and ever. Up and down like on a Ferris Wheel. I mentioned in another post somewhere how I hate Ferris Wheels. They’re slow, boring and take forever to go round at least a million times. On the TdM Wheel of Fortune, we’re fortunate enough to have a handle that seems to be a functioning one. With a handle one can take things into one’s hands. Although the trolley dilemma seems impossible to solve, both of these creatures (the two people on the left and right of the Lover perhaps – is that maybe him at the top of the Wheel?) could very easily hop down and turn the handle....

...the handle which diverts the trolley from its path and kills one to save five.

I believe the Tarot is indicating throughout this reading that a decision based on utilitarian considerations would be the best option in the Trolley dilemma. The Lover can breathe again. His heart need not be pierced.

But now the question arises : would utilitarian considerations be the best way to resolve all of our dilemmas ?

The Trolley Dilemma: Divert the course of nature and kill one to save five or let nature take its course and let the five die.

Deck: The Charles Dickens Tarot

1st Card: What happens if one does nothing ? – 5 of Earth Bob Cratchet & Tiny Tim

Answer: Tiny TIm suffers from a life-threatening illness and, as Scrooge is shown by the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, Tim will die if his malady is not attended to. In a broader sense, Bob Cratchet and his family face hardship and the likelihood of an early grave due to their impoverishment, a condition both brought about by and embodied by Bob's employer, the miser Scrooge. To answer the question posed, then: if Scrooge does nothing, people will die, needlessly - people who could be saved. He considers the plight of his employee and humanity in toto none of his concern. But doing nothing in this or any situation is, despite the phraseology, doing something - on both ethical and spiritual grounds, one cannot avoid responsibility by looking away or with the sophistry of washing one's hands.

2nd Card: What happens if one does intervene? – The Hierophant V Social Mores

Answer: In a certain sense, if one intervenes, one is "playing God". Looked at another way, every human in their way plays God. Here on the Hierophant card are 2 priests from Dickens' oeuvre - one truly Christian, the other a shameless fraud. Between them is what the French call a bull's eye - a Catharine Wheel - the centre of which could be the all-seeing eye of God, or the viewer's Super-Ego in Freudian terms. It may also be the viewer's own I - the subjective vantage of consciousness from which we each of us see. What happens if we intervene, then, is we act from motives of either good faith or ill, and we do it based on our beliefs. We take responsibility for ourselves and by extension others - morally, and societally, we have a duty to others as to ourselves. As with the 5 of Earth, the 5th Arcanum along with all cards numbered 5 are cards of conflict - here, it is the struggle to find balance between the disparate worlds of the spirit and matter. Whatever the result of intervening turns out to be, the consequences will be difficult to live with.

3rd Card: What should one do? – The Hanged Man XII Sydney Carlton

Answer: The Hanged-Man connotes a paradox and demands an extraordinary solution. Sydney Carlton, the unlikely hero of A Tale of Two Cities, unexpectedly gives his life to save another. The Trolley Dilemma does not demand such an exacting sacrifice, but it does nevertheless involve a sacrifice - the responsibility of choosing the good of the many over the good of the one. Many times, people risk their own lives to save a total stranger - a hands-on version of the golden rule: doing unto others what you would have them do unto you. While there may be many variables and mitigating factors, it is likely the one sacrificed for the many would have chosen and acted similarly. The Hanged-Man is sometimes seen as affiliated with Judas Iscariot, suggesting that whichever way a person acts they will be seen as contemptible. In the Gnostic tradition, Judas was an instrument of Divine Wisdom following God's purpose. The Hanged-Man is a momentary crossroads, one that demands action. Given our dilemma, to act is to divert "the course of nature" - itself a false representation - and "kill" one to save five.


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chiscotheque wrote: ↑29 Oct 2019, 05:21 The Hanged-Man is sometimes seen as affiliated with Judas Iscariot, suggesting that whichever way a person acts they will be seen as contemptible.

Great reading, chiscotheque. Thanks a lot.

My bad. When I first saw the Wheel of Fortune in my reading, my first thought was "you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't". I was very confused because this didn't make sense to me considering Temperance. So I tried to force the meaning of the Wheel of Fortune onto my interpretation. I do this on occasion to not trust my first instinct. And usually I end up regretting it, however strange the interpretation may seem. Many times I've kicked myself for not going with my first impulse.

So yes, you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.

Thanks for your reading, Marigold. While you probably should've stayed with your intuition, your reading was insightful. You dislike Ferris Wheels - I dislike the WofF card. Whenever it shows up in a reading, it's like a big fat buzzer goes off, a seat gives way, and the reading falls into a tub of water.

One of the foremost difficulties we humans have is getting ourselves out of the way, to see around ourselves. In a sense, of course, we're not meant to - the ego's always chanting I, I, I. And really, it's how we're here, the essence of consciousness. Intuition is a real thing, which isn't to say it isn't faulty. One of the reasons I believe in being as honest as one can is it keeps the intuition machine clean - the web of fibs and subterfuges is one of intellect and disingenuousness which ends up skewing the data. The age-old conflict of head and heart is a variation of this struggle. Often we get stuck in the idea of ideas - something should be a certain way, we think, but it's our thinking so which is wrong - often an idea gets reduced down to a stubborn bromide or law, when really it just represents like a symbol a larger organic reality (Plato and his forms be damned). Take the idea of the "best we can do" - it's the most we can ask from ourselves or others, on one level, but that's not to be confused with "the best" being good enough, let alone good.

As distinct from the RWS WofF, the Marseille WofF is a dubious contraption - emphasis on the trap. It is more of a rigged game one finds at a carnival than an abstract mechanism of the Fates. Surely, the WofF card is the Old Maid card of the tarot.

chiscotheque wrote: ↑29 Oct 2019, 16:58
One of the foremost difficulties we humans have is getting ourselves out of the way, to see around ourselves. In a sense, of course, we're not meant to - the ego's always chanting I, I, I. And really, it's how we're here, the essence of consciousness. Intuition is a real thing, which isn't to say it isn't faulty. One of the reasons I believe in being as honest as one can is it keeps the intuition machine clean - the web of fibs and subterfuges is one of intellect and disingenuousness which ends up skewing the data. The age-old conflict of head and heart is a variation of this struggle. Often we get stuck in the idea of ideas - something should be a certain way, we think, but it's our thinking so which is wrong - often an idea gets reduced down to a stubborn bromide or law, when really it just represents like a symbol a larger organic reality (Plato and his forms be damned). Take the idea of the "best we can do" - it's the most we can ask from ourselves or others, on one level, but that's not to be confused with "the best" being good enough, let alone good.

I've been pondering on and off all day what led me to, in the end, being dishonest. It was sudden doubt, no doubt (lol), that made me vacillate. I was so sure that Temperance had given the answer, that I was thrown a bit off balance, because I wasn't able (or did I not want to ??) to believe what the Wheel of Fortune was telling me, i.e. you're doomed if you do, and you're doomed if you don't. Choisir entre la peste et le choléra. So I figured my intuition must be wrong. My big mistake I think was then deciding to lean more on my so-called "knowledge" (much of it, although not all, quite useless most of the time) of the WoF- the sort of rote type you know. I must have been in denial. (I wonder what this says about me and my issue with utilitarianism.. hmmm.) Like that dumb thing I wrote about the handle. Even when I was writing it I told myself it sounded ridiculous. I didn't trust my intuition because I was blocked on that Temperance card. Maybe I was really in awe of that Great Angel (only kidding!).

Anyway, to cut a long story short I'm pretty annoyed with myself. I hang my head in shame. And dishonesty, even if one doesn't go out deliberately to do it, and even if it's because things get out of hand, is still dishonesty. One can make all the excuses one wants, it won't make a mote of difference. And it's really bad karma you see (only kidding again - I think ). I think I'll have to redo that last part how I wanted to. I may do it tomorrow or by the end of the week anyway. To redeem myself. I'm a firm believer in redemption but one has to do one's part. (balloon is not plastic - it's a paper balloon)

As distinct from the RWS WofF, the Marseille WofF is a dubious contraption - emphasis on the trap. It is more of a rigged game one finds at a carnival than an abstract mechanism of the Fates. Surely, the WofF card is the Old Maid card of the tarot.

It's a delightful card actually, la Roue de Fortune in the TdM. Nasty torture instrument though depending on the perspective and which side one is on. The little devilish sphinxy creature seems to be having loads of fun. What do you mean by the Old Maid card of the tarot ?

I just want to add that I didn't propose to do this reading in partnership with someone just as an experiment. I felt I was going to get into some difficulties and I remember thinking "I need some back up here". That being said, it has been an interesting experience which I would not mind renewing.

I came back to edit this because further up I spoke about that maybe I was in denial. And I went to check which name I'd given to the Wheel of Fortune in my Reversed Tarot of Marseilles that I'm working on in my CoT blog (I haven't memorised them yet) and lo and behold, it's DENIAL. And the picture I chose to illustrate is pretty close to what I think happened :



It's one of the pitfalls for a tarot reader. In particular if one is reading for oneself. And in a way, I was doing a reading for myself. I really do have some contradictions regarding utilitarianism which are hugely irritating.

Old Maid is a child's card game in which the old maid card acts as a joker, or a dud - the card no one wants and if you get stuck with it you lose. an almost meretriciously sexist and agist game if there ever was one. this view of the WofF card is just my own personal opinion, needless to say, and I meant it re the RWS deck. The TdM is a far more interesting card, both visually and metaphorically. the one thing the RWS card does stress is the connection between it and the World card - albeit ironically, or in a half-baked sense, as an outer layer compared with an inner teaching.

The Trolley Dilemma feels like a false dilemma to me. For it to be a real dilemma, at least for me, the person sacrificed for the many would have to be someone of crucial significance - a mother, a spouse, a child. taken further, the person could arguably be oneself. taken further, the trolley would be heading for the 5 strangers and acting would mean directing it to kill oneself; this way, not doing anything and claiming it an act of God would be more tempting. in the end, these are all just mind games - which isn't to say they don't or at any rate can't have an effect on a person's psyche; we learn as children through game-playing, after all, and really, what isn't a mind game? the difference it seems is the Trolley Dilemma is almost strictly speaking abstract, while real-life dilemmas are both abstract and actual. Like an engineer or architect's conception and blueprint, compared with the physical structure in its environ and lived in over time by people.



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chiscotheque wrote: ↑31 Oct 2019, 16:12 Old Maid is a child's card game in which the old maid card acts as a joker, or a dud - the card no one wants and if you get stuck with it you lose. an almost meretriciously sexist and agist game if there ever was one. this view of the WofF card is just my own personal opinion, needless to say, and I meant it re the RWS deck. The TdM is a far more interesting card, both visually and metaphorically. the one thing the RWS card does stress is the connection between it and the World card - albeit ironically, or in a half-baked sense, as an outer layer compared with an inner teaching.

I don't know this game. I don't know where you're based, but maybe it's of North American origin, or I've somehow managed to zap it. Sounds awful the way you describe it. And among the myriad of representations that the Wheel of Fortune has, the Old Maid could certainly be one of them. Another detail to place on the tapestry. I sometimes think of the cards as a tapestry that we painstakingly, with love and care, are creating. But we have to respect the rules of tapestry making.

Aah.. I just remember a European game with the same rules and purpose as the Old Maid. Here the name is worse, it's "Schwarze Peter" which means Black Peter. I don't think the racist undertones are an oversight.

The connection between the World and the WoF in the RWS has always irked me somewhat. Inner layer and outer layer. That makes some sense. But it still irks me. Am unable to put my finger on why I realise. One more thing to ponder. The observation of the Tarot is never ending. I assume then that the tapestry that is being created may also be never ending.

The Trolley Dilemma feels like a false dilemma to me. For it to be a real dilemma, at least for me, the person sacrificed for the many would have to be someone of crucial significance - a mother, a spouse, a child. taken further, the person could arguably be oneself. taken further, the trolley would be heading for the 5 strangers and acting would mean directing it to kill oneself; this way, not doing anything and claiming it an act of God would be more tempting. in the end, these are all just mind games - which isn't to say they don't or at any rate can't have an effect on a person's psyche; we learn as children through game-playing, after all, and really, what isn't a mind game? the difference it seems is the Trolley Dilemma is almost strictly speaking abstract, while real-life dilemmas are both abstract and actual. Like an engineer or architect's conception and blueprint, compared with the physical structure in its environ and lived in over time by people.

Yes. That's it!! A false dilemma. And you know, this makes some sense why also I couldn't make sense of my reading. Yes, I got stuck due to personal issues - there's no doubt about that that I coloured the whole reading with subjectivity and doubt and uncertainty. But at the same time, I was trying to read on something that was more vaporous. There was nothing really to stand on. I wonder if we went back now to our readings we did and observed them through this prism, whether they would not reveal a different aspect.

I already read recently for a false dilemma for dodalisque when he played a lovely trick on me - I'll never forget it. It was loads of fun. (Although, if one goes back to the reading, it was pretty obvious to pick up on. I mean the whole story sounded improbable and full of flaws. It was suspicious from the outset - I think I even literally scratched my head at one time.) Wouldn't a lot of the questions in Plato's Cave be false dilemmas then ?

As I want to go back one day to redo a bit my reading in order to redeem myself (not now though, am focusing on other things and don't want to get too distracted) I'll also look into this.

Mind games. Those are nasty pieces of work. Yikes. Role play, now that's cool. And the Tarot lends itself beautifully to role play. No. Not beautifully. Perfectly.

Marigold wrote: ↑01 Nov 2019, 17:00 Wouldn't a lot of the questions in Plato's Cave be false dilemmas then ?
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Role play, now that's cool. And the Tarot lends itself beautifully to role play. No. Not beautifully. Perfectly.

by false, i didn't mean fraudulent, like a huckster masquerading as a surgeon, but rather a hobson's choice, a non sequitor, a bogus premise. on one level, questions applied to invented characters like Hamlet or Scarlet O'Hara - as James Ricklef did which is where i got the idea - could be said to be "false", since they are not real people and their actions are prescribed. But 1). the tarot can still comment on things that have happened. And 2). why can't it comment on fictional people and situations? aren't fictional people and situations human constructions comprising real people and real situations? and aren't our quandaries also man-made, or by and large "false dilemmas"? The tarot itself is comprised of "false dilemmas" - fictional characters and scenarios - as with fiction, the fact it's allegorical makes it more real, not less.

That said, the philosophical questions posed in Plato's Cave can be arid, academic - it's the nature of the beast. seems to me a matter of taste - some people are drawn to documentaries, others to daytime soaps. with the questions i have read for, I tried to choose those that resonated or were otherwise meaningful on some level for me. Not because i couldn't sleep until i figured out the answer, but more because of the question's relevance to my life, even if abstract and ambiguous. in this way, it's akin to role-playing - issues which i experience and can explore as if they were people i encounter but who aren't me. these are not mind-games undertaken to deceive for nefarious purposes like propaganda, but games such as kids play to interact with the world and to learn from, like play-acting and art.

that the question, even though academic, has some resonance about it for the reader is key. Even if it's almost purely intellectual, because here's the thing: where things matter and have meaning often appear in conflict, in an affront to what we think we know, what we want to know is right and true. this in part is why falsifying cards in a reading is bad: there's no conflict, therefore it has no meaning. with philosophical questions, you'd think there'd be little to no incentive to fight what the cards say, but ideas and ideals are every bit as strong as feelings. in fact, i'd say they're just 2 sides of the same coin, which is in part why i think swords and cups are mated suits (the way Hindu gods have consorts). reading, then, for less personal and emotional issues - at least ostensibly - allows us to see the tarot from a different vantage, and - perhaps more importantly - see ourselves and our relationship with the tarot more clearly. and, akin to the same irony fiction leverages to enlighten fact, such dry and pedantic readings as philosophy provides can - god willing - supply the reader with a strange immediacy.

Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."

so ends my Plato's Cave apology.


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Sorry, I didn't realise this topic had already been explored. I posted my own thread.

viewtopic.php?f=232&t=2354

Here, in case anyone's interested, is my take. Incidentally, I did not ask the cards for what one should do but rather what they thought of the question. This is a significant difference, I think.

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The Trolley Dilemma: Divert the course of nature and kill one to save five or let nature take its course and let the five die?

Here is the full scenario:
There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a different set of tracks. However, you notice that there is one person on the side track. You have two options:

Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

What do the cards think?



Moon/Hermit/Temperance

From a point of splendid isolation the old man ponders his illusions while ignoring the angel on his shoulder.

Yes, I like this. For one thing, the 'dilemma' is most certainly an illusion for it is a pure, free-floating abstraction. It is not reality. I think the Hermit's association with isolation works well to reinforce this angle (perhaps it is also a good fit for representing philosophers, in the contemporary sense). And I am inclined to read the Hermit in a negative light here owing to its proximity to the Moon. Also, I think the Hermit's focus on the Moon and his disinterest in the angel of Temperance is a strong sign that the trolley dilemma represents a real danger to our better natures (Temperance). On this front, I worry that such abstract moral exercises or 'thought experiments' are a perfect tool for sucking one into the tyranny of rationalist utilitarianism - an ideology that encourages the committing of barbarous acts in the pursuit of some imagined or future, thus abstract, good. To back this up, it is interesting to note that, in such exercises, a large majority choose to murder the individual. However, when the scenario is changed from flicking a switch to psychically pushing a person onto the track, the vast majority do not elect to kill the individual. This highlights both the rigged nature of such scenarios and the importance of psychological distance in the committing of unpleasant acts. Abstraction is a distancing technique par excellence.

To the best of my knowledge, variations on such 'moral' problems are taught to school children.

What fearful dreams are made for use to dream.

Peace,
Dev.

P.S. I found this a hard one to articulate, so I hope it makes sense.