THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY28, 2022 25
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Dear Ethicist,
I’d like to play a game. For years, I
considered myself above terrorizing pub-
lic transportation. But I’ve wound up
doing just that. At this moment, two
high-yield explosives are hidden on rush-
hour buses, and disarming one will trig-
ger the other. Now someone needs to make
a decision.
I’d love to leave it to law enforcement,
but they’ll never find my work in time.
And police violence is real. If something
happened to me, the dead-man switch in
both devices would go off. I’m not sure I
could live with that.
Thankfully, there’s you. Arbiter of eth-
ical and unethical. Right and wrong. Life
and death. Can you decide which bus sur-
vives? You have thirty minutes, so I hope
you check your in-box often.
Consider the riders. Among the pas-
sengers on Bus One is a retiree, uncertain
about whether to confess a long-past af-
fair. On Bus Two is a teacher who re-
cently caught a destitute honor student
cheating and is deciding whether to re-
port it. Which of them should live to pon-
der their separate quandaries?
Ideally, we spare the innocent, right?
Does that mean sparing Bus One, on which
sits a lifelong activist for a race she’s come
to fear? Or Bus Two, where the conflicted
heir of a tobacco billionaire dozes? If you
fail to choose, both will become ash.
Maybe our careers define our worth.
Bus One carries the transmasculine aide
to an Alabama legislator. Bus Two car-
ries the designer of a sustainable fashion
line that relies on Xinjiang cotton. In half
an hour, neither will exist.
Or perhaps love should decide. On Bus
One is a neurologist with a longtime love
of the N.F.L. Bus Two has a woman who
keeps her aging mother from watching
reactionary news networks. I doubt that
either will find peace before the explosion.
Finally, remember the workers who
make mass transit possible. The driver of
Bus One knows that her mother hides
money from the family. Bus Two’s driver
just received a friend request from an old
fling’s son. What’s best for them: silence,
confrontation, or C-4?
Thank you for your thoughts.
Name Withheld
Ah, the classic “two ships, two det-
onators” problem. I wish I could say that
this is the first time I’ve been asked to
choose between two buses, boats, or
theme parks full of people. But chal-
lenges from high-concept domestic ter-
rorists are a daily reality in my field. I
endured three trolley problems before
completing my dissertation.
Destroy both buses. I don’t care.
There’s no ethical way to engage in
your game. You’re an unreliable source,
so I cannot fairly evaluate the lives at
stake. Even if you’re telling the truth,
you’ve left out critical information about
the passengers’ dependents, their health,
and their willingness to explode. There’s
more variance in the latter than you
might assume.
Furthermore, my earnest engage-
ment would encourage you to target
other advice columnists. If you chal-
lenged Dan Savage with sexless cou-
ples suspended over a shark tank, I’d be
blamed. And rightly so.
I advise you to take a closer look at
your potential victims. As their captor,
you have a relationship with them, and
that gives you the responsibility of
choice. What do you want your bombs
to stand for? Destroy any bus that con-
flicts with your values, whether it’s one,
both, or neither.
I suspect that it is neither. Your note
implies that you’re not interested in
mass transit at all. That you’ve compro-
mised your values for attention. What,
then, do you want to terrorize? A stock
exchange? The U.N.? Your father’s
condo? Whatever it is, seek it out and
plant bombs you believe in. Even if it’s
hard. Then, and only then, will you be
ready to face the Batman.
DEAR ETHICIST, I’VE
PLANTED TWO BOMBS
BY DENNARD DAYLE
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ
