Click here and press the right key for the next slide.
(This may not work on mobile or ipad. You can try using chrome or firefox, but even that may fail. Sorry.)
also ...
Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)
Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)
Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)
Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts
Thomson’s Other Method of Trolley Cases
[email protected]
Could scientific discoveries undermine, or support, ethical principles?
preview
If we accept Thomson’s other method of trolley cases, it is coherent that they might. (And we can identify how they might.)
‘why is it that Edward may turn that trolley to save his five, but David may not cut up his healthy specimen to save his five? I like to call this the trolley problem, in honor of Mrs. Foot's example’
(Thomson, 1976, p. 206).
Foot (1967): because duties not to harm rank above duties to help
‘Edward is the driver of a trolley, whose brakes have just failed. [...] Edward can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, killing the five’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 206).
May Edward turn the trolley?
‘David can take the healthy specimen's parts, killing him, and install them in his [five] patients, saving them. Or he can refrain from taking the healthy specimen's parts, letting his [five] patients die’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 206).
May David kill the healthy person?
‘Frank is a passenger on a trolley whose driver has just shouted that the trolley's brakes have failed, and who then died of the shock. [...] Frank can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, letting the five die’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 207).
May Frank turn the trolley?
Why may Edward but not David?
Why may Frank but not David?
Why may Edward but not David?
Foot (1967): because duties not to harm rank above duties to help
Thomson’s argument
If Foot, then Frank may not.
But Frank may.
Therefore: not Foot.
‘Frank is a passenger on a trolley whose driver has just shouted that the trolley's brakes have failed, and who then died of the shock. [...] Frank can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, letting the five die’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 207).
May Frank turn the trolley?
Thomson’s proposal
‘what matters [...] is whether the agent distributes it by doing something to it, or whether he distributes it by doing something to a person’
(Thomson, 1976, p. 216).
‘Frank is a passenger on a trolley whose driver has just shouted that the trolley's brakes have failed, and who then died of the shock. [...] Frank can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, letting the five die’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 207).
May Frank turn the trolley?
‘David can take the healthy specimen's parts, killing him, and install them in his [five] patients, saving them. Or he can refrain from taking the healthy specimen's parts, letting his [five] patients die’ (Thomson, 1976, p. 206).
May David kill the healthy person?
distinguish normative from psychological claims
1. [normative] Why may Edward turn the trolley while David may not cut up the healthy human?
1. [psychological] What determines why some people judge, on reflection, that Edward turn the trolley while David may not cut up the healthy human?
Foot’s method
Thomson’s method???
Thomson’s method
[premise] There is a morally relevant difference between David and Edward.
[premise] There is no morally relevant difference between Edward and Frank.
[premise] ...
[conclusion] The truth of Thomson’s principleis preferred to the truth of Foot’s principle.
conclusion so far
No straightforward link between moral psychology and Thomson’s method of trolley cases
Which, if any, discoveries in moral psychology could weaken someone’s grounds for accepting Thomson’s premises?