Quote: "The trolley problem is a series of thought experiments in ethics and psychology, involving stylized ethical dilemmas of whether to sacrifice one person to save a larger number."
An ethical dilemma that involves a runaway trolley heading towards a group of people, and the decision to divert the trolley onto another track where there is only one person.
Ethical Theories: Understanding different ethical theories like consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics that can be applied to the Trolley Problem.
Moral Dilemmas: Familiarizing with different types of moral dilemmas like the Trolley Problem and the Fat Man variant.
Cognitive Science: Understanding how the human brain processes moral decisions and how emotions, biases, and social cues play a role in decision-making.
Utilitarianism: Understanding the utilitarian approach to the Trolley Problem, which seeks to maximize the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Kantianism: Understanding the Kantian approach to the Trolley Problem, which prohibits the use of human beings as mere means to an end.
Virtue Ethics: Understanding the virtue ethics approach to the Trolley Problem, which focuses on cultivating personal virtues like courage, compassion, and wisdom.
Witnessing and Intervention: Understanding the role of witnessing and intervention in the Trolley Problem and how they can affect one's moral decision-making.
Personhood: Understanding the concept of personhood and how it affects one's decision-making in the Trolley Problem.
Consequence vs. Duty: Understanding the difference between consequentialist and duty-based approaches to moral decision-making.
Cultural Variations: Understanding how cultural variations can affect one's moral decision-making in the Trolley Problem.
Artificial Intelligence: Understanding how the Trolley Problem is used in the development of ethical algorithms for autonomous decision-making in artificial intelligence.
Consequentialist Methods: Understanding the Trolley Problem variations like the footbridge dilemma, loop variant, and switch variant, which are used to explore consequentialist approaches to the problem.
Deontological Methods: Understanding the Trolley Problem variations like the one-for-one and rescue variants, which are used to explore deontological approaches to the problem.
Virtue-Based Methods: Understanding the Trolley Problem variations like the fat man variant, which are used to explore virtue ethics-based approaches to the problem.
The Original Trolley Problem: In this scenario, a runaway trolley is heading towards a group of five people who are tied to the tracks. You have the option to divert the trolley onto a different track where only one person is tied.
Fat Man Trolley Problem: In this scenario, a runaway trolley is heading towards a group of five people who are tied to the tracks. You have the option to push a fat man onto the tracks, which would stop the trolley but kill the fat man.
Loop Trolley Problem: In this scenario, the trolley is approaching a loop. On the other end of the loop, there are five people tied to the tracks. You have the option to divert the trolley onto a side track, but on this side track, there is one person tied to the tracks.
Switch Trolley Problem: In this scenario, the trolley is heading towards a group of five people who are tied to the tracks. You have the option to switch the tracks, but there is one person tied to the tracks on the diverted path.
Bridge Trolley Problem: In this scenario, the trolley is headed towards five people who are working on a bridge. If the trolley continues on its path, it will kill all of them. However, you have the option to push a person off the bridge and onto the tracks, stopping the trolley and saving the five people.
Footbridge Trolley Problem: In this scenario, a trolley is headed towards five people walking on a track. You are standing on a footbridge above the tracks with a large person standing next to you. You can push the large person onto the track, stopping the trolley, but in doing so, the large person would die.
Fat Villain Trolley Problem: In this scenario, there is a villain who has tied five people to the tracks. You have the option to divert the trolley onto a different track where only the villain is tied, but this villain happens to be extremely large, and it is possible that the trolley may not be able to stop in time, causing the death of both the villain and the five people.
Self-Driving Car Trolley Problem: In this scenario, a self-driving car is headed towards a group of people. The car can go straight and kill five people or it can swerve off the road and potentially cause harm to the passengers in the car.
Bystander Trolley Problem: In this scenario, you are an innocent bystander and have the option to intervene to save a group of people. However, intervening may harm one person, or may require the bystander to take a risky action that could result in harm to themselves.
Classic Multiple Rescue Trolley Problem: In this scenario, there are options for which an operative in a control center faces when a trolley becomes out of control. There is one track with five individuals, and another with one. The primary option of whether to divert the trolley or not come when the main track has five people on it.
Quote: "There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a lever."
Quote: "You have two (and only two) options: Do nothing, in which case the trolley will kill the five people on the main track. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person."
Quote: "Philippa Foot introduced this genre of decision problems in 1967 as part of an analysis of debates on abortion and the doctrine of double effect."
Quote: "Thomson's 1976 article initiated the literature on the trolley problem as a subject in its own right."
Quote: "Opinions on the ethics of each scenario turn out to be sensitive to details of the story that may seem immaterial to the abstract dilemma."
Quote: "Then other variations of the runaway vehicle, and analogous life-and-death dilemmas (medical, judicial, etc.) are posed..."
Quote: "Thus, in this subject the trolley problem refers to the meta-problem of why different judgments are arrived at in particular instances..."
Quote: "Beginning in 2001, the trolley problem and its variants have been used in empirical research on moral psychology."
Quote: "Philosophers Judith Thomson, Frances Kamm, and Peter Unger have also analyzed the dilemma extensively."
Quote: "Characteristic of this literature are colorful and increasingly absurd alternative scenarios in which the sacrificed person is instead pushed onto the tracks as a weight to stop the trolley, has his organs harvested to save transplant patients, or is killed in more indirect ways that complicate the chain of causation and responsibility."
Quote: "Frank Chapman Sharp included a version in a moral questionnaire given to undergraduates at the University of Wisconsin in 1905."
Quote: "German philosopher of law Karl Engisch discussed a similar dilemma in his habilitation thesis in 1930."
Quote: "In his commentary on the Talmud, Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz considered the question of whether it is ethical to deflect a projectile from a larger crowd toward a smaller one."
Quote: "In The Strike, a television play broadcast in the United States on June 7, 1954, a commander in the Korean War must choose between ordering an air strike on an encroaching enemy force at the cost of his own 20-man patrol unit or calling off the strike and risking the lives of the main army made up of 500 men."
Quote: "Trolley-style scenarios also arise in discussing the ethics of autonomous vehicle design, which may require programming to choose whom or what to strike when a collision appears to be unavoidable."