By tram to Harvard University (almost) – Morals, fairy tales & model railways

Harvard, Morality & Model Railways – A Course with Switching Points,
"Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? – Episode 1 – THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"
🗓️ First broadcast: September 5, 2009
📍 Harvard University, Prof. Michael Sandel

🟩 PART 1: "The Moral Side of Murder"
► Introduction with a thought experiment:
"Would you kill one person to save five others?"
(So-called trolley problem)

Variation 1: A train is speeding towards five people → by switching the switches, one person dies instead.

The majority of students choose the utilitarian solution (kill one, save five).

► Other more complex variations:
A doctor with five terminally ill patients – can save them by killing a healthy person and removing their organs.

A judge must decide whether to sacrifice an innocent to prevent bloody riots.

Fat man on a bridge – by pushing him off, he could stop a train and save five people.

🧠 Discussion result:

As soon as the decision requires more physical action or a deliberate sacrifice, willingness decreases.

It becomes clear that our moral reasoning is contradictory, context-dependent, and emotionally colored.

-- shortbreak:
Beach House - Real Love
--shortbreak:
Sure, here's a short fictional scene that addresses your topic humorously but with sharp irony – sort of like "Harvard meets Orwell" in Professor Sandel's lecture hall. The scene could be inserted into your film as an interlude or insert, e.g., before or after the audience vote by a show of hands.

🎬 Scene: "The Selector" – Harvard, discreet.
INT. HARVARD – AUDITORIUM – NIGHT (EMPTY)
The lights are dimmed. A few red and green LEDs flicker on the empty seats.

A technician in a Harvard sweater stands at the back of the auditorium. He's typing on a tablet. Next to him stands an inconspicuous man in a suit – "The Selector." He speaks into his headset:

SELECTOR (whispering):
Row 3, Seat 12: "The life of the individual is inviolable" – very stable, but a bit too Kantian for us. Take notes.

TECHNICIAN (murmuring):
Roger. Also skeptical of self-optimization through cannibalism – could cause problems later in the corporate ethics lecture.

SELECTOR:
Row 7, Seat 8 – "Better to save five than lose one." Slight hesitation at the hand signal, but solidly utilitarian. Candidate for funding. Invitation to Rhodes preparatory seminar.

TECHNICIAN (laughs quietly):
Well, Harvard sorts things out neatly.

SELECTOR:
The selection doesn't start with the grade point average. It starts with the dilemma. Those who hesitate morally remain professors. Those who decide – become judges.

The camera slowly pans back through the empty auditorium – a name tag on each chair, a small QR code, and a silently blinking light.

CUT TO BLACK.
Subtitle: "Enlightenment doesn't mean freedom – it means visibility."

--shortbreak
LEAKED FILE: Harvard Ethics Lab – Internal Use Only
Date: April 3, 2025 | Clearance Level: Faculty 5+
Video: "Cognitive Divergence Recognition (CDR) Pilot Phase 2"

INT. HARVARD ETHICS LAB – OBSERVATION ROOM – NIGHT

A room without windows. Monitors on the wall show parallel video feeds from lecture halls, lounges, and libraries. In the middle is a long table. Four people with headsets, no names – just numbers. They observe, take notes, and evaluate.

A log is running:

VOICE (COMPUTER VOICE):

CDR system activated. Analysis of the lecture: "Justice 101 – The Moral Side of Murder." 73 participants, 31 divergent profiles, 4 significantly anomalous.

MONITOR A:
A student doesn't raise his hand for the trolley question. Instead, he writes something on a piece of paper. Zoom in on his forehead: slight perspiration.

OPERATOR 17 (noted):
Subject 104 – Decision denial. Possibility: ethical relativist. Suggested: extend observation. No fellowship access.

MONITOR B:
Another student argues against utilitarian logic. He brings up a quote from Hannah Arendt.

OPERATOR 23:
Subject 219 – Philosophy hybrids. Warning: Unpredictable in courtroom scripts. Label: "Debate Catcher."

MONITOR C:
Two students are quietly discussing after the lecture. The AI reads their lip movements: "What if the university tests us?" – short pause – "Of course."

OPERATOR 11 (quietly):
You got it.

CAMERA PANS:
A door opens. In comes a man in a suit with a Harvard crest on his chest – Dr. Elwin March, project leader.

DR. MARCH:
Are there any outliers?

OPERATOR 17:
Four interesting profiles. Two of them write better than they speak – could be included in the text analysis. One doesn't want to decide at all.

DR. MARCH (thoughtfully):
The truly dangerous ones are those who know there is no right answer – and yet remain calm.

He looks at a central monitor showing the students leaving the lecture hall.

DR. MARCH:
Funding?

OPERATOR 11:
As always: "strategic diversity." A little contradiction looks good in a prospectus.

BLACK
IMAGE.
The file ends with a flashing Harvard logo. Below are the words:

ETHICS ISN’T A CHOICE.
IT’S A PROFILE.

--
Continued in the auditorium:

🟨 PART 2: "The Case for Cannibalism"
► Historic court case: R v Dudley and Stephens (1884)
Four shipwrecked sailors drift at sea for 19 days.

Two kill the young, weakest sailor (the cabin boy) in order to drink his blood and survive.

They are later rescued – the British court sentences them to murder.

► Philosophy behind it: Utilitarianism according to Jeremy Bentham
Thesis: "The morally right thing is that which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number."

Bentham: Pain and pleasure as moral standards, independent of motives or rights.

► Classroom debate:
Is it morally justifiable to sacrifice the boy if it saves several others?

What matters more: the life of one individual or the survival of the majority?

Opposing positions: human dignity, individual rights, the inviolability of life

🎯 Key questions & food for thought from episode 1:
Where is the limit of moral responsibility?

Is the morally right thing always the one that brings the greatest benefit?

Do principles (such as human rights) take precedence over consequences?

--

Special thanks to Candace Owens: "Let's take a look around Harvard—there's a lot going on there..."

Closing Comment

"When, at the end of a moral philosophy lecture, the model tram slowly rolls out of the picture and your heart feels like it's on repeat during Beach House, then you know: You've understood Harvard for a moment—or at least been properly beamed through."

"No Harvard student has ever taken the tram to university—even if they were run over several times during the lecture. Instead? Walk. A long way. Time to think, they say. Or to mentally rehearse the next ethics debate: 'Is it permissible to sacrifice a fellow student if they've taken the last bagel?'"

"And Professor Michael Sandel? He doesn't ride the tram, but rather rolls through the minds of entire generations with the question of what is right—and he still does."

🧠 Fact Block
🏛️ Harvard & Public Transportation
Streetcar? Nope, no traditional tram line directly to Harvard Yard.

What's up?

The MBTA Red Line stops at Harvard Station, a subway-like train (underground, typical of Boston).

Plus shuttles, bus lines, and a whole lot of walking. Harvard students literally walk to their ideas.

Funny fact: There's no campus parking for first-year students—everyone is gently encouraged to be sustainable.

🧳 Getting there for students
Many come to Boston by train, then by subway or bike.

For those looking for style: Charles River Ferry in summer—almost like Venice, only with more cant.

--

👨‍🏫 Michael Sandel—What's he doing today (2025)?
Sandel remains a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University.

He's also active as a public thinker around the world—for example, with lectures on justice, democracy, and markets.

Popular since the 2010s in South Korea, China, and Japan, where he has even moderated some TV debates (!).

He continues to publish books – most recently, for example:

"The Tyranny of Merit" (about inequality and education)

"What Money Can't Buy" (about market ethics)

Does he know that his lecture about a toy tram and Beach House has been re-recorded? Not yet. Maybe it's better that way 😄.