Comments on: Trolley Problems

By: OmerosPeanut

OmerosPeanut — Mon, 01 Sep 2003 21:07:01 +0000

If markets trumped moral/ethical judgements: Now suppose that in the basic trolley problem you are a personal injury lawyer. Do you let the trolley kill the five people in order to gain five clients (the innocents’ respective families) rather than a mere one were you to switch the trolley to the other track? My apologies.

By: Jurjen Smies

Jurjen Smies — Sun, 31 Aug 2003 11:53:46 +0000

If, in the case of the Loop Problem, the fat man will be hit (and therefore be killed) irrespective of the trolley’s route, the question is rather moot, isn’t it? Throw the switch and the fat man dies; don’t throw the switch and the fat man also dies, but five (or four, whichever) other people die with him. Where’s the dilemma? Unless we assume that if the trolley runs over the other five people first, there is some insanely steep gradient which will stop the trolley before it reaches the fat man, in which case I recommend shooting the railway engineer who designed the track (providing the ghost of Isambard Kingdom Brunel hasn’t throttled him already) before he does more damage.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Sun, 31 Aug 2003 03:24:40 +0000

Don't forget to consider what to do when, among other things, a brain in a vat is driving the trolley on twin earth. What's your intuition on this? (You do have one, don't you?)

By: Carolina

Carolina — Sun, 31 Aug 2003 02:39:56 +0000

JW is right. He is describing Judy Thomson’s Loop case. Thomson argues (in “The Trolley Problem”, reprinted in Rights, Restitution and Risks) that it is permissible to flip the switch in Loop. But I think it’s different from Fatman*.

By: Neel Krishnaswami

Neel Krishnaswami — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 23:21:22 +0000

Do moral propositions even need to be logically consistent with respect to classical logic? I mean, it’s a) obvious that people don’t reason according to classical logic, and b) they are correct not to do so. In classical logic contradictions let you infer any proposition, and in real life we have to reconcile lots and lots of inconsistent data. So maybe people reason using a relevant or paraconsistent logic that can tolerate a certain amount of uncertainty: moral reasoning can’t say anything useful in the case of killing the fat man, because it induces a contradiction, but it can still tell you that cuddling a puppy is better than sticking it in the blender and pureeing it.

By: JW

JW — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 23:13:36 +0000

I thought that there was already an extant trolley case like the one you describe, except that the setup involves a round track. 5 people are tied up on the track, exactly one of whom is large enough to stop the train if it hits him. A train is heading into the circle, and after it enters it will traverse the track to hit the fat guy last. You can throw a switch so that it will go around the track the other way—hitting the fat guy first, and saving the other 4. Ought/can you throw the switch? Isn’t this already in the literature somewhere? (Damnit, Jim, I’m an epistemologist, not an ethicist!)

By: Lawrence Solum

Lawrence Solum — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 16:08:05 +0000

There is a nice wikipedia entry on the Trolley Problem, with links & references: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 10:14:13 +0000

Isn’t this like cruelty to animals? Pulling the wings off flies is not obviously bad in itself but enyone doing so might be more likely to break an welcome taboo in a more important case. (Ithink it possible to attribute the good aspects of this argument to someone more eminent than myself but I won’t risk embarassing myself by guessing) It is quite important to me to know that those around me are unlikely to consider violence against me and I can function better as a result. As an example, suppose I am walking along a cliff when my rational philospher friend observes a trolley on the tracks below. The trolley operator looks very healthy while I, he knows, am going to have a minor operation which involves a small but measurable risk of death because of the general anaesthetic. The philosopher identifies two courses of action to save the peole in the tunnel—push me off the cliff to block the trolley saving everyone but me or push a boulder off the cliff stopping the trolley but killing its operator. I hope he would go for the operator but the expected number of people alive by the end of the week is less if he does.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 09:27:47 +0000

Not about the trolley problem at all, but does fact that Carolina Sartorio and Juan Comesana (from Philosophy from the (617)) and Harry Brighouse (from CT) are all at Madison, Wisconsin make the Philosophy Dept there the most blog-intensive one in the world?

By: Elina

Elina — Sat, 30 Aug 2003 09:14:30 +0000

I think the explanation for the different intuitions on these trolley cases is quite simple but has nothing to do with morality (which is bunk in my opinion). Intuitions need only to be emotionally understandable whereas moral propositions need to be rationally consistent and that’s why we even bother with these stories. I think the answer is that of course we feel that it’s better to kill one person than five, given that our emotional hand in the death will feel the same either way. However, when we think about actively sacrificing the fat man, pushing him, looking into the horrified whites of his eyes, we just can’t do it. Not very philosophical but it makes a certain amount of sense.