Trolley problem

The trolley problem, also called the trolley dilemma, is an ethical thought experiment. It involves a hypothetical problem with two courses of action—one choice allows people to die, while the other forces the individual to sacrifice someone to save the others. The dilemma seeks not only the choice one would make, but also the reasoning behind it.

The trolley problem has been adapted to fit a number of situations. It is based on the doctrine of double effect, and is often used as an example of consequentialism—the idea that the result of an action is the only real concern. The trolley problem was first developed in the context of examining the issue of abortion, and has become a staple of moral philosophy.

Background

The trolley problem is based on the doctrine of double effect, which is credited to Thomas Aquinas. The thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian addressed the dilemma of self-defense in his Summa Theologica. He noted that if one is attacked and kills the assailant unintentionally, the death is justified. The act has a double effect—self-preservation and the death of the attacker; however, only one effect, self-preservation, is intended. Self-preservation is a natural reaction to danger that Aquinas argues can be expected of any living creature. This argument runs counter to the earlier Catholic perspective about self-defense, which maintained that defending oneself from attack was an indication of self-love and therefore wrong.

Philippa Foot developed the trolley problem in her 1967 paper "The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of Double Effect," in which she explored Catholic opposition to abortion. She cited examples in which a pregnant woman's life is uncertain; actions that indirectly kill the fetus are permitted, while those that explicitly kill it are not. For example, a hysterectomy performed to save the woman kills a fetus, but the fetal death is not the intended result, so it is permitted. However, crushing the skull of a fetus to remove it to save the endangered woman intentionally kills the fetus, and therefore is not acceptable, even though the woman will die.

Foot's scenario is this: The driver of a runaway trolley has a choice—stay on the current track, or steer onto a sidetrack. Five men are working on one track, and one man is working on the other. The driver's choice will kill either five men or one man.

Foot contrasted the trolley scenario with one in which a rioting mob confronts a judge, demanding that the person who committed a horrible crime be turned over; if not, the mob will take revenge on a group in the community. The perpetrator is unknown. Should the judge frame an innocent person to save the lives of (presumably five) others?

According to Foot, most would agree that the judge should not sacrifice one innocent person to save others. Although the result in both scenarios is the same, she distinguished between direct and oblique intention. Direct, or purpose, intent is a situation in which the consequences of one's actions are desired, while oblique, or foresight, intent involves knowledge of the consequence of an action that is not desired. The driver of the runaway trolley must choose one track, knowing either will cause death, but the individual does not deliberately choose to kill someone. The judge's decision involves choosing an individual to die.

Philosopher Judith Jarvis Thomson further developed Foot's trolley problem in 1985. She revised the scenario: One sees the runaway trolley, and may choose to flip a switch that will send the trolley and its five passengers onto a sidetrack that leads to a sand pit, where it will stop. A worker on this sidetrack will be killed, however. She also created a variant known as the fat man dilemma: A person is on a footbridge over a trolley track (which has no side spur) when they see a runaway trolley approaching. It will plow into five workers, killing them. Also on the bridge is an overweight man, whose body is large enough to stop the trolley and save the workers. Does the person throw the man off the bridge, killing him to save the others?

Overview

The trolley problem, as formulated by Foot and Thomson, became a teaching tool in philosophy and ethics. The basic questions revolve around the morality of causing harm and the obligation to save others. Moral dilemmas have also been used in research projects, such as the online Moral Sense Test by Harvard University and a variety of studies in psychology and sociology. Researchers have found that men are more likely to sacrifice the heavy man in Thomson's scenario and to flip the lever in Foot's dilemma. Studies have found that responses might be strongly affected by recent experiences—for example, people who had just viewed a comedy clip were more likely to throw the overweight man off the bridge.

The trolley problem is not simply an exercise; real-life examples have played out in wartime. For example, during World War II (1939–45), the Germans targeted London with bombs in 1944. The bombs missed central London but pummeled the suburbs of South London. The British government not only led the Germans to believe they were hitting their densely populated target, but it also fed false information to spies to encourage the Germans to shift attacks even more to the south. British leaders put South London residents in danger to save the most heavily populated part of the city and saved many lives. In 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in an effort to end the war more quickly and save lives. An estimated two hundred thousand people were killed in the attacks. Although the ethical implications are straightforward—civilians were killed and the desired result was achieved when Japan surrendered within days—philosophers and others have debated the decision for decades.

The trolley dilemma has frequently appeared in popular entertainment and has remained a common theme in movies and television. The comedy series The Good Place explored the trolley problem in season two in October 2017. In the afterlife, former philosophy professor Chidi finds himself living the dilemma when a demon puts him on a runaway trolley.

Issues raised in the trolley dilemma have been applied to changes in technology, such as driverless cars. For example, should a driverless car be programmed to protect its passengers above all else, or to save innocent pedestrians or those in other vehicles? Engineers who are developing driverless vehicles have incorporated ethical thinking into programming to prepare for such situations.

Bibliography

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Vemoori, Vamsi. "Navigating the Ethical Dilemmas of Self-Driving Cars: Who Decides When Safety Is at Risk?" Forbes, 23 Oct. 2024, www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2024/10/23/navigating-the-ethical-dilemmas-of-self-driving-cars-who-decides-when-safety-is-at-risk/. Accessed 16 Dec. 2024.

Yuko, Elizabeth. "How The Good Place Goes Beyond 'The Trolley Problem.'" Atlantic, 21 Oct. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/how-the-good-place-goes-beyond-the-trolley-problem/543393/. Accessed 25 Oct. 2017.