The Trolley Problem

Philippa Foot about the Trolley Problem

"The trolley problem is a thought experiment in ethics. It dates back to Philippa Foot’s discussion of a pair of examples: In the first case, a judge must choose between framing and killing an innocent man and allowing five innocents to be killed in a riot. In the second, a trolley driver must choose between turning a trolley so that it runs over an innocent man attached to a track and allowing the trolley to run over and kill five innocent people. Foot, claimed that it was wrong to kill in the first case, but not wrong in the second. Foot noted that such cases might motivate someone to accept the Doctrine of Double Effect, which distinguishes between harm that is strictly intended and harm that is merely foreseen. However, Foot argues that the cases can be explained by the distinction between doing and allowing harm: the judge must choose between killing one and merely allowing five to die, while the trolley driver must choose between killing one and killing five."

Judith Thomson about the Trolley Problem

"Judith Jarvis Thomson modified the case so that it was a bystander, not the driver, who had to make the choice. The difference was important, since the bystander is clearly choosing between killing and letting die and yet it still seems permissible to turn the trolley. This undermines Foot’s claim that the difference between doing and allowing explains our intuitions about these cases. So what made the difference? Recently, Thomson has argued that the consensus that it is permissible for the bystander to turn the trolley was mistaken. She argues by way of offering the reader a third option, of turning the trolley onto and killing oneself. Obviously, few of us would take that option. If so, she argues, we are not entitled to turn the trolley onto a stranger. Doing so would be like stealing someone’s wallet to give to charity. In response, it might be noted, first, that some few of us would be willing to make the sacrifice; second, in the original case, and perhaps in many real world cases, we are not faced with that third option. Thomson carefully urges that in these cases, it is still wrong to turn the trolley."

Alternatives

"A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory to steer to the track with one man on it. According to classical utilitarianism, such a decision would be not only permissible, but, morally speaking, the better option (the other option being no action at all). An alternate viewpoint is that since moral wrongs are already in place in the situation, moving to another track constitutes a participation in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible for the death when otherwise no one would be responsible. An opponent of action may also point to the incommensurability of human lives. Under some interpretations of moral obligation, simply being present in this situation and being able to influence its outcome constitutes an obligation to participate. If this is the case, then deciding to do nothing would be considered an immoral act if one values five lives more than one."

SOURCES

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/

Schmidtz D.The Trolley Problem. http://serious-science.org/the-trolley-problem-5774