Forget the “trolley problem”… How about the “airline seat reclining problem” as a thought experiment for the ethical determination of the effect of one’s actions.
Say you’re flying on an airline and have two options: To recline your seat or not to recline your seat. Reclining your seat makes your experience more enjoyable but makes the experience of the person behind you twice as terrible as a result… Do you recline?
Let’s take this to more of an extreme. Take those “push the button” questions where you can get a million dollars for pressing a big red button, but every time you do, a stranger somewhere in the world dies. Would you press it? Do you sacrifice someone else to improve your own life?
In my view, we shouldn’t be compromising the experience of other people for the sake of our own enjoyment… I’m not saying that means you should never recline your seat, but there’s a special place in hell for people who recline at takeoff and don’t return their seats upright until landing. Bonus points if they do it even when they’re not supposed to and refuse to return it to an upright position for meal services without a flight attendant’s intervention. It’s the perfect way to show that you care only for yourself and will do anything for yourself, even at the cost of others.
I don’t see reclining as a guaranteed right, as some of the readers in this thread did. The ability to do something for your own gain doesn’t mean that you should do that thing. (Like cutting down a shoulder or an empty lane to avoid traffic…)
Space on airlines has been a hot topic on AITA recently, with commenters being torn on whether or not reclining is an automatic right for passengers and whether larger, taller, or wider passengers should just not travel if they can’t secure a suitable seat.
Keep scrolling for the thread that sparked this conversation below, and let us know your take in the comments. Next, check out this previous AITA about a similar subject.
