Talk:Trolley problem/Archive 1

Archive 1

Up the garden path?

In the absence of sufficient qualifying information for the original problem, it may be justifiably argued that only one person will die in bringing the trolley to a halt, regardless of the position of the switch. It will be either the first of the five or the single person. The real dilemma then becomes which of two people is to die, not whether one should be sacrificed to save five.

The Wanderer

Who says that hitting the people will stop the trolley? The trolley might run everyone over and keep going. If you try to solve an ethics issue by attacking the basis, that raises a different ethics issue. -- Cecropia 00:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree the fact that his plan might fail and he might kill all five of the people (you can even guarantee this as a condition of the choice when setting up the problem) must be considered if you make decisions the way he did. But I disagree with your suggestion that he's trying to attack the basis of the problem or dodge the question. His plan runs a high risk of failure, or may even be doomed to failure, but he's not attempting to change the scenario at all, just his way of examining the scenario. Also, the fat man problem given in tandem with this one, in which one overweight person is able to stop an entire train, means that there's even merit in questioning the basis of the trolley problem. At least, a definition of the problem that is consistent between both questions should be agreed upon before anyone attempts to address it directly.

Suggested Revision

I don't get the bit about how the version of the trolley story contained in the text causes trouble for the 2nd formulation of the Categorical Imperative. I could be wrong here but I think that it isn't. Intuition tells us you may flip the switch. The CI tells you that you may not if your plan for action involves using a person merely as a means to some end. Since you aren't aiming at the person on the second track, I don't get this at all. Now, the loop case combined with the original case does cause trouble. As Thomson puts it, the extra bit of track seems not to matter at all. However, the only reason you could have to switch in the loop case (as she tells it) is that you switch in order to hit the fat man and stop the trolley. Here the man figures in your plan as a means to your intended end. We think (intuitively) that the extra bit of track makes no difference so if you should switch in the original case, you should switch in loop. However, the CI tells us that in loop, one may not switch. I think that at the very least, someone should explain why the CI forbids switching.

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The loop variant may not be fatal to the 'using a person as a means' argument. This has been suggested by M.Costa "another trip on the trolley", who points out that if we fail to act in this scenario we will effectively be allowing the five as a means to saving the one, as the five will slow the train down and prevent it from circling around and killing the one. As in either case some will become a means to saving others, then we are permitted to count the numbers. This approach requires that we downplay the moral difference between doing and allowing.

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A. Woodley

Wrong. The CI is pretty clear about this. You may not choose to do either (see the above reasons), but the conclusion is that you may simply not interfere. Unless, of course, you act out of (rational) moral responsibility, in which case you must fulfill that responsibility.

The idea is that if both, doing OR allowing are immoral and there are no other options, allowing is the way to go, unless your moral responsibility (that is, the maximes of your actions) says otherwise. So with Kant, there IS a difference between doing and allowing in that allowing is a valid option if all other options are not. With Kant there are no degrees of unethicalness: it's either an ethical action or not. In this case neither is, but inaction is the preferable one by default. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Effect of Size/weight of trolley and number of people on board

question arises why a shopping trolley should be fatal as they only weigh a kilo or so..., also, it's well known that shopping trolleys don't move in a predictable way so switch flipping isn't likely to affect the outcome. laissez faire shop result in no fatalities and thus no dilemma. otoh if you replace a trolley with a train.....does the number of people on board the train affect your choice......would running over 5 to stop a train save 100 on board ???

Zeph

Is that a joke? We're not talking about shopping trolleys. -- Cecropia 00:45, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Probably a misunderstanding. We are indeed talking about a train without passengers or crew. I think this may be an exclusively American use of the word, though. It certainly confused me the first time I read the intro. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:08, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It says that Alastair Norcross mightaccept the transplant in exceedingly unlikely situations. Where has he said this? Please cite.

Odd statement...

"This is puzzling, because, in flipping the switch, you are not passively allowing the death of the one on the sidetrack, but actively causing her death. It looks like a case of killing, not just a case of letting die. And we don't generally make favorable moral judgments about those who kill others, even if their actions have good consequences as well." I've cut this statement, as it is highly unencylopedic. There are two major problems: 1) "We don't generally make favorable moral judgments about those who kill others, even if their actions have good consequences as well." Who is "we"? Alos, "actively causing HER death" (emphasis added). Since no gender is given for the person on the track, shouldn't we use the generaic "his"? LaszloWalrus 22:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

There are heated debates over the question whether "his" or "her" is more politically correct if you don't know the gender of the person, but I don't care as long as either is used consistently throughout the article.

"We" probably refers to humans in general, although it is arguably a mere generalisation in this case. This sentence neglects the soldier problem ("Are soldiers murderers and if not, what sets them morally apart?" or some version of that), for example. — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 16:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Joshua Greene

Who is this Joshua Greene? Is he sufficiently well known to merit about 20% of this article? Seems like self promotion to me.

I agree; that part should be minimized; it certainly shouldn't be on the top of the entry as it is.

Removed the following text from the first paragraph:

This approach to the problem has been created and popularized by Joshua Greene during his postdoc career at Princeton University. It supports a dualistic framework for the formation of moral thought characterized by emotional responses in contrast and interplay with a cognitive response. Greene and his supporters suggest that this dualism is derived from the evolutionary background of human moral and social behavior.

This researcher seems to have been given too much prominence on this topic - he doesn't even have a wikipedia article. If he is in fact very eminent, belonging with Philippa Foot, Judith Jarvis Thomson and Peter Unger, he can be added back here. --Gargletheape 04:16, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems to me that there's a bunch of garbage here on Dr. Robert Jacobson's introduction of the President case. I'd flag it for content, but I don't know how; and I don't feel comfortable just deleting it.

This problem is raised by virtually every undergraduate who reads the trolley problem, and results from a misunderstanding of the case. I suggest deletion.

Sources

I've just placed some inline source links to the best of my ability. My sense is that many sources apply to larger sections of content than I made them point to, so of course if anyone knows better.... have at it. 67.36.192.234 (talk) 20:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

The Fat Man - issue

"Resistance to this course of action seems strong; most people who approved of sacrificing one to save five in the first case do not approve in the second sort of case. This has led to attempts to find a non-relevant moral distinction between the two cases."

Shouldn't this be 'attempts to find a relevant moral distinction', rather than a non-relevant distinction? As the two cases are otherwise the same in terms of outcome, we want to find a relevant moral distinction that explains why the majority of people have different intuitions about them. Power nap (talk) 09:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I've done the edit. Please discuss if you want to change it back!!Power nap (talk) 01:53, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Weasel Words

Where are the weasel words? —Dromioofephesus (talk) 05:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect the weasel words are the following:

… some non-utilitarians may also accept the view…. Opponents might assert that, since moral wrongs are already in place… Additionally, opponents may point to the incommensurability of human lives.

It might also be justifiable…

My inner Wikipedian is crying out, “Which non-utilitarians? Do they accept the view or don’t they? Are these opponents who might advocate non-participation purely imaginary, or are they real? Who are they? Do people actually point to the incommensurability of human lives, or is that a hypothetical strawman being used to attack hypothetical incommensurabilists? Anything might be justifiable; is there a school of thought that argues that the following ellipsis is justifiable?”

Unfortunately I don’t have enough of a background in ethical philosophy to answer these questions myself, or I’d fix the article and remove the “weasel words” tag. However, I assert that anyone who reads this article and has the relevant knowledge has a utilitarian obligation to edit the article so that the trolley runs over and kills the weasel words.

Wikipedia, not being written in the voice of any particular author, has little tolerance for descriptions of what hypothetical people might believe as logical consequences of premises they hypothetically hold, because that style of discourse has far too much scope for rhetorical abuse in the hands of effectively anonymous authors discussing contentious matters such as Scientology, the Armenian Genocide, or the Gaza Strip. There are an infinite number of plausible chains of reasoning by which one can plausibly derive odious moral consequences from the stated beliefs of one’s ideological opponents. Consequently this sort of thing is frowned upon, because it tends to lead to unproductive edit wars.

However, it would be entirely justifiable to say, “Thomson points out that a hypothetical utilitarian could reason that taking an action in the situation assumes responsibility for the consequences,” assuming she does, of course. The issue is the use of the “some say” device (in this case, worse: “some could conceivably say”) used by unethical journalists to inject their own opinions into ostensibly factual articles, cloaked in a thin veil of objectivity. I don’t think it’s being used that way here, but some clarification would help.

I originally posted this as (part of) a comment on a Crooked Timber post. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 19:13, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Cultural bias?

Coming from a German educational background, and thus a Kantian idea of ethics (unlike Utilitarianism, which is more common in Anglophone cultures), the reasoning seems flawed to me.

From a Kantian POV you are required not to interfere with the course of actions, if you think it would be unethical to kill anyone intentionally. Since in all scenarios it is obvious that any intervention would result directly in the loss of innocent (and uninvolved) life, any intervention would thus equal murder -- direct (as by pushing the fat man off the bridge) or indirectly (as by pushing a switch to divert the trolley).

Of course inaction would result in the, utilitarianistically (if that is even a word) worse, loss of innocent lives, but for Kantian ethics this does not seem particularily important.

The more interesting dilemma is the "plane heading for a nuclear reactor" one, in which you have the choices of intercepting the plane, therefore killing the innocent passangers, or don't, therefore letting the plane hit the nuclear reactor and kill not only the passangers, but also everyone in the vicinity of the reactor (not to mention the long-term damage caused by the radiation).

In that dilemma the lives that would be lost by you deliberately if you intervened are a part of the sum of the lives lost if you did not. That means you could actually save other people's lives by killing a few of them. Again, Kantian ethics forbid any intervention on the grounds of the Kantian Imperative, if you deem murder immoral (otherwise, you would say that it's not neccessarily unethical). — Ashmodai ^{(talk · contribs)} 15:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Your view is not unheard-of, even in the US, but definitely seems to be in the minority among philosophers (even those heavily influenced by Kant) publishing today. PurplePlatypus 07:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I think your view is quite common among deontologists, Ashmodai, and so the gedankenexperiment is not very interesting in a deontological context. It's only inside of a consequentialist ethical system that it poses interesting problems. I don't think that represents cultural bias, though. The debate between deontologists and consequentialists goes back much further than Kant and is found in some form in every culture. Kragen Javier Sitaker (talk) 19:29, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

the trolley, the fat man and moral hypocisy

I view the dilemma of the switched trolley and pushing the fat man in the path of the trolley rather differently.

The fine point of diverting harm or putting someone in harm's way seems to me to be morally equivalent, if the person throwing the switch knows, that by doing so, a person will be killed who would otherwise have survived.

The difference I see has a slight air of hypocricy to it, because throwing the switch gives you a certain deniability for your action, where pushing someone does not, but you know the result will be the same. So perhaps the person who thinks throwing the switch is OK but pushing the fat man is not is indulging in a little moral cowardice, by being unwilling to face the certain result of his actions. Cecropia 06:45, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The need of the many outway the needs of the few. Flip the switch.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.105.120.80 (talk) 20:40, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't see it as hypocritical, If I flip the switch, I am doing so in order to avoid 5 people, I'm not trying to hit the one person. The loss of the one person on the other track is regrettable. I have no choice but to hit someone. In the scenario with the fat man, I would be actively choosing to kill him if I were to push him. They are equivalent if you only look at it from a purely consequentialist perspective.--RLent (talk) 06:43, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see it as being hypocritical either. The difference for me is not so much that you know you're doing something wrong, so much as it is that at a very deep emotional level I don't know it will work. The satisfaction that everything will work exactly the way it's designed that the switch provides just isn't there. I believe, even if you state clearly with the "voice of God" that the fat man will definitely stop the train, people will still be more uneasy with the bridge scenario than the switch scenario. If, however, you made the scenario more switch-like, e.g. "the mad philosopher rigged the train with a motion detector that brakes when it hits someone, and the five passengers are a mile away, before shooting himself so he couldn't affect the outcome", then (at least to me) the option of pushing the fat man in front of the train seems a lot more palatable. This even adds a bit of "Kobayashi Maru" fun to the dilemma; the answerer is free to imagine scenarios where he pushes the fat man in front of the train in a way that ends up saving his life. Even if you state firmly that this will never actually happen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.184.142 (talk) 21:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

A Buddhist solution

Based on my understanding of the Buddhist perspective the person facing the quandry is the most important part of the moral equation.

The basic background is that whoever dies, it is the result of their own karma from past negative actions towards others. This means that the ultimate result is actually beyond the control of the person throwing the switch, who will generally also be driven by their own accumulated karma and inclinations.

What matters hugely is the emotional state, intention, vows, and spiritual level of the person throwing the switch.

If the switch is thrown or not thrown with indifference to the fates of the people effected or hatred then this merely adds to the net suffering of the world since the indifference or hatred has transformed any act into a negative one that will eventually manifest in the future life of the person throwing the switch.

If the switch is thrown or not thrown with a great deal of compassion for the fates of all involved and an intention to benefit them altruistically in future lives then any action can become positive.

If the person throwing the switch holds vows of personal liberation but is not compassionately dedicated to the benefit of others then the effect of throwing the switch should be net negative since the vow of not killing generates great positive karma which will be undermined by a decision.

If the person is an enlightened Bodhisattva with great clarivoyance and insight they can make the ultimate utilitarian decision and choose which ever outcome will result in least suffering based on the internal dispositions and karmas of the people on the track. For instance if the five had the intention to murder and the one was dedicated selflessly to helping others the Bodhisattva must choose the one over the five because the five if they live would only generate net suffering for themselves and others. In fact it is a Bodhisattva's vow to make that choice and not the ordinary utilitarian choice, even when it violates a monk's vow not to kill. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.103.48 (talk) 23:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The person you are describing doesn't exist. It's my understanding that the Buddhist whose answer we're both considering would point out that a philosophy that isn't immediately available to the person pulling the switch, who doesn't have omniscience enough to weigh the fates of the six people on the tracks, is not a philosophy worth considering, ever. It's also my understanding that, underneath our considering what a Buddhist might or might not think, there is a philosophy that is immediately available to the man pulling the switch. You described it as karma, and I think that's a more than adequate description. But, I think there's some value in considering what you would say to the man or woman making the decision, if that man or woman weren't a Buddhist. From a Buddhist perspective, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.184.142 (talk) 22:17, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

The fat villian

The fat villian is a problem that I've never heard discussed anywhere but on this article and it's completely unsourced. Now, I know retributivists are horribly flustered by the suggestion that human life has some sort of intrinsic worth greater than the pleasure that they get out of seeing other humans die, but for the purpose of this thought experiment, let's assume that the value of all lives involved is equal and nonnegative. The question of your personal valuation of other human beings life is not relevant to the discussion.130.18.131.194 (talk) 00:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Test it in real life

Somebody should test this in real life. Get a real trolley and train people to operate it. Make them think they are qualifying for a job operating the trolley. Then let them do a test run and put real people in the path of the trolley. The operator will be forced to make choice, divert the trolley or not. Either way the people in the way will be pulled to safety. I would love to see the difference between the percentage of people who SAY they will divert the trolley and the percentage of people who actually DO it. Should be fun.--RaptorHunter (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Flipping the switch

The problem changes a bit if we suppose it to be one's job to flip switches for the company - then one bears responsibility for whatever position the switch is in. It also changes if the switches can be controlled remotely - particularly if that remote control were in the trolley car and one were the driver --JimWae (talk) 04:36, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Seldom do we know the future consequences as clearly as stated in the scenario of this problem --JimWae (talk) 04:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The "ferry dilemma" in The Dark Knight seems to be related to this trolley dilemma. Does anyone know a general term for these kinds of dilemmas? Both also seem to ignore the possibility that the Evil daemon might be lying - you might blow up your own ferry, or flipping the switch might kill 5 instread of 1 --JimWae (talk) 05:55, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

What the dilemmas do show is that even when all the consequences are given (which is never the case in real life), consequentialism does not answer every moral question we would raise in those circumstances.--JimWae (talk) 20:01, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

General Comments

This article should be rewritten. It appears to be almost entirely POV. A good approach would be to focus on the relevant research rooted in instinct and evolutionary biology. There is quite a bit out there. 99.29.150.13 (talk) 01:50, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that this page is problematic. It does explain the Trolley problem but the discussion is very one-sided. It does not do a good job explaining the different points of view in the debate and giving references. It also doesn't mention the criticism that the scenario is highly artificial and unrealistic, that a trolley cannot run in a loop on its own, that in all scenarios there are alternative paths of action (e.g. warning the people in danger), that there is no guarantee that throwing somebody in front of the trolley would derail it and save the other people, etc. I am not familiar enough with the literature to improve the article but I hope somebody is up to the challenge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.184.20.15 (talk) 20:22, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

The Unger reference lacks a complete citation. Can anyone fill in? The biography is still very scanty. Does anyone know of a more complete "trolley problem" bibliography?

Alright, I've done the Unger citation.Evercat 17:11, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I also removed the link to virtue ethics, which I'm not sure is too relevant - the trolley problem is mostly a major point of contention between utilitarians and deontologists... Evercat 17:11, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

This is just a bit tricky. Foot, who came up with the Trolley Problem in the first place, advanced it as part of her very large metaethical project, which is ultimately aimed at virtue ethics. Her original paper is in her anthology virtues and vices. So it seemed to me that a link to virtue ethics was appropriate. I'll let this hang for a few days before I put the link back. Kudos to Evercat for the work on this entry. User:Lsolum

Oh, and I'm hoping to add some more to this soon. It's hopelessly incomplete at the moment. Evercat 17:11, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Agreed. It would be nice to get some of the substance in. Perhaps from Foot's original essay & then Thompson. Warren Quinn also has some nice discussion. User:Lsolum

Gee, one might think that since the author of the original Problem was a virtue ethicist, there would be some mention/treatment of virtue-ethics thinking on a solution. Seems like a major lacuna in the article, one that would disqualify it from any sort of decent quality rating. JKeck (talk) 20:27, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

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I'm kinda torn because I have a nice example that I think destroys the argument that it's wrong to use someone's death, but it's my own idea and would violate Wikipedia's prohibition on "original research" (of course, it's entirely possible someone else has thought of this:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. As in the first case, you can divert it onto a seperate track. On this track is a single fat man. However, beyond the fat man, this track turns back onto the main line, and if it wasn't for the presence of the fat man, flipping the switch would not save the five. Should you flip the switch?

I think the answer must be yes, because the only difference between this case and the original one is that there's an extra bit of track. That can't matter. Yet in this new case, you actually do use the death of the one to save the five - his death is part of the plan... Evercat 18:09, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Very nice example. Michael Otsuka (now at the Unversity of London) developed a series of similar cases in a seminar he did at UCLA several years ago. User:Lsolum

Ah. Perhaps I can find something close enough to be able to use it, then. :-) Oh, and if you feel virtue ethics is relevant, then go ahead and add it back in. Evercat 18:18, 22 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Ah I've got it. My version is similar to the "loop variant", I think (though the shape of the track is slightly different, I'm not sure if this makes a difference):

             /=====F====\
            //          \\
           //           //         Loop variant
 T -> =====/====PPPPP===/

The above is the loop variant, with P indicating a thin person and F indicating the fat man...

             /=====F====\
            //          \\         My variant
           //            \\    
 T -> =====/==============\===PPPPP=====

This was my idea - the difference between the two is that in the first case, if the five were absent the one would die (because of the loop), whereas in mine the one would be in no danger, even if the five were absent.

I don't know if this makes a difference... in the first case the fat man is more involved than in the second, since in the first case the deaths of the five are necessary for his survival... this might be claimed to make a difference.

So I prefer my version, but have used the loop version since that's the one that's not original research. :-) Evercat 12:37, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

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Thing is, I don't think this takes the Categorical Imperative out of the picture. I just think that, in this case, it's wrong to divert the train. And I think a lot of people would agree. This quite closely resembles pushing a bird-watching chap in front of the train, which many people also agree is wrong. Think about it. Would you intentionally kill someone to save others? I think this demonstrates the principal of not using a life as a means to an end in action. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.215.153.208 (talk) 05:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

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Man, I love Wikipedia's high Google page-rank. Trolley problem is already the top hit on a Google search for "trolley problem". :-) Evercat 13:28, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Or it was. Gone now, and I can't find it on Google at all. Odd. Evercat 12:00, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Evercat, it will come back. I've noticed this with other Wikipedia pages & with other pages as well. My hypothesis is that it has to do with load times. If Google revisits a page & the load time exceeds some threshold value, it eliminates the page. Anyone else know what's going on? User:Lsoum

minor problem with clarity

The Overview makes reference to a 'mad philosopher' as if the reader should already be familiar with who this, but it was never explained. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.170.35.138 (talk) 10:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Set up archiving

I am setting up archiving on this page. There are too many settled discussions here to navigate the talk page easily and besides that there is a lot of forum discussion which I am going to delete outright. I set up a bot to do the archiving just so that in the future the archives will already be bot-compatible. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:04, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Who do you let live, Steve Jobs or 5 welfare abusing serial child rapists?

What if the 5 people were all welfare abusing serial child rapists whereas the one guy on the other track was Steve Jobs or a brilliant scientist on the verge of finding the cure for cancer? What's the purpose of ethics, to maximize the benefit to society, protect the rights of every individual, or simply to best minimize remorse by answering to crude human psychology that always rationalizes that 5 people dying must be worse than 1 person dying? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Exander (talk • contribs) 06:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

This is not a forum for discussion of the subject itself.130.18.243.137 (talk) 06:52, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The assumption is that you don't know either of 5 or 1 people. Mehranshargh (talk) 22:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Transplant/medical ethics

Do you think it's worth mentioning that in real life, western medical ethics would specifically forbid one option? It wouldn't alter the validity as a thought experiment.- cyclosarin (talk) 07:50, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

This was already solved by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The "transplant" scenario is currently backwards Nazi philosophy. Extemporaneous Wiki entry. Aldo L (talk) 13:38, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

In real life it's still highly improbable to do 5 transplants in a row. On a separate note, why the "brilliant transplant surgeon" does not use 1 of the dying patient's organs to save the 4 other and let the innocent traveler go?! Mehranshargh (talk) 22:50, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Instances in real life

Is it useful to give examples in real life of situations the same (or very similar) to this problem? The one I am thinking of is a journalist who was visiting an embattled town in a civil war and challenged by a sniper to 'save' one of 2 civilians in his sights or stand by and watch both die from the sniper's bullets. In this case the journalist walked away. Obviously this would be fraught with proof of a certain situation and arguments as to if it is the same dilemma... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.246.46 (talk) 10:56, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I have a recent one. An article on Dick Cheney a few years ago said that he would have made the decision to shoot down the 4th hijacked passenger plane in order to save lives. (As it turned out, the plane went down on its own.) Someone with a few minutes could go on Google or Bing and find the story, then post a couple sentences in the article. Hanxu9 (talk) 17:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia guidelines would call that original research and disallow it. The appropriate examples to include might be cases in which a commentator explicitly compares the situation to the trolley problem. Blue Rasberry (talk) 22:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

My solution

Nobly, instead of switching, jump into the track yourself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.184.32.37 (talk) 21:47, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

The mad philosopher, seeing your noble deed, snipes you before you get to the tracks. Now you're dead and you cannot help. -- 12.116.162.162 15:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Which is why this is such a silly question. I take out my own sniper rifle hit the mad philosopher and then clip the rope tying the up the five people. Nickjost (talk) 16:03, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

You live a happy life comfortable in the knowledge that you did the right thing. A pandemic flu breaks out shortly thereafter, killing thousands. You are presented with a time machine, capture the first person that had the infection, and find out he was supposed to die by being hit by a train in the original timeline, and tie them to some train tracks. To make sure that the conductor hits him, five volunteers from your time agree to be tied to the other set of tracks. Something about this particular bridge and these particular train tracks strikes you as familiar... until you realize, with horror, your fatal error... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.184.142 (talk) 22:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

So instead of running them over, you quarantine them until a cure is found. The end.--75* 19:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

New Article

I suggest that this article should become part of a new one entitled "Philosophers with too much time on their hands."198.179.227.59 (talk) 00:56, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

No thanks. --75* 19:27, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The Fat Man

Has anyone considered that maybe a significant reason why people wouldn't push the fat man in front of the trolley is because they're not convinced that would be enough to stop it? Or perhaps they're unsure as to whether they're able to push the fat man precisely enough to land directly in front of the trolley. We're not told how far he is from the trolley's path. We're not sure how much effort it would take to push him in front of the trolley. I mean, fat people are difficult to push. We'd have to use a lot of strength and get the timing just right. This case is not just a matter of ethics; it's also a matter of practicality and of our confidence as to whether we could actually stop the trolley using the fat man. Surely I'm not the only one who has noticed the practical problems with this scenario.

The problem is not meant to be 100% practical, it represents a (semi-realistic) situation so the person reading it can identify with the dilemma. For this type of question you must assume the facts as they are presented to narrow down the choice to the moral fundamentals of the problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.246.46 (talk) 11:01, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Assuming the facts as they are presented, still leaves a lot of cognitive dissonance, for exactly the reason he's pointed out. The mystery is to where this resistance to the fat man scenario comes from, despite similarities in consequences, and I think his answer to that question is worth considering. I think this problem is an excellent case study about how the very methodology we use to examine moral problems, is capable of obfuscating nonetheless valid moral points. The temptation on my part is to say that the fat man scenario should be re-written, but the reasons why I feel it should be re-written add a lot of value to the problem, and those would be lost if the fates of the train and its passengers after the fat man was pushed in front of it were made more certain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.184.142 (talk) 22:30, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Judy Collins transplant situation is similar, and gets a similar response. 130.18.243.137 (talk) 06:55, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the OP. Even though the researcher may tell the subject that he must assume that the fat man will stop the trolley, the subject is considering his response as if it were a real life scenario, and surely he'll take these doubts into account. Branchc (talk) 19:57, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The scenarios are ONLY equivalent if you remove all the practical differences and abstract them all back to: "you're forced to save 5 and kill 1 or kill 1 and save 5". If you instinctively have a problem with the "pushing the fat man" scenario, might it not have something to do witht the practical impossibility of pushing a massive man? He presumably weighs a lot more than 5 men; since the scenario specifies that the "trolly" definitely will kill 5 people and definitely be stopped by one massive man. Assuming the men are big men weighing say 100kg including clothes etc, that means the fat man must weight a lot more than 500kg for him to stop it. I don't think I could push someone weighing 200kg against their will. So either you're adding superpowers to the scenario (raising the question why I cannot use my super strength to stop the trolly with my bare hands instead? The man must weight at least as much as the trolley if not more to guarantee he will stop it.) or you agree that the man might not stop the trolley at all and you'll end up murdering an innocent bystander AND killing 5 guys that willingly accepted the risk of being on the track. Qvasi (talk) 13:43, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

My responsibility

What if the fat man on the bridge is me, and I'm all alone? Then I have the option to either commit suicide by jumping down on the trail to save the 5 people OR they'll be run over by the trolley. If I jump I will certainly die but the other ones will live. What good is saving the 5 people when you're dead? On the otherhand since I'm not taking any physical action (like pushing a man over the bridge) will I have the same "blood" on my hands?

This was the thought of Anton Tyrberg.

What good is living when the entire world will see you as a lazy, self-serving coward? -- 12.116.162.162 15:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

To sacrifice yourself so that others may live is commendable, but it is "above and beyond the call of duty". It is something that people may highly praise you for if you do it, but also that people will not condemn you for not doing it. As for the question of what good is to sacrifice yourself if you die in the process, that's something only the individual in question can answer for themselves. --RLent (talk) 06:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

A fat man who jumps himself can certainly aim his fall and save the five much better than a fat man who is pushed unaware (who will presumably try to resist, perhaps resulting in him dying a failing to stop the trolly). So this is why the switch and the fat man are not moral equivalents. A switch cannot switch itself and thus someone standing alone beside it must be responsible acting or failing to act, however a fat man is fully capable of choosing whether to jump and die a hero or to live and the five to die, so the skinny guy next to him is a red herring. So yes, you just solved this stupid problem once and for all by thinking, "hey, if I was the fat man what would I do?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.254.231.147 (talk) 03:46, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Off-topic chat

Extended content

Responsibility to Act The trolly problem seems to rely on the relative lack of action as a moral stance in and of itself. What if the train was forced to go one of two ways but neither by default - so as to make the station manager forced to chose - and a line either going over one or going over five people must be chosen? The point being, the lack of action is an action. Those who have the ability to do something have the responsibility to do something; else, what is the point of ethics at all when we can just ignore the problem at hand? (PS - would love to hear contrasting views and alternate schools of thought) Amizzo (talk) 01:10, 7 February 2015 (UTC) This article talk page is for discussing improvements to the associated article, not for general discussion of the article's topic. - SummerPhD (talk) 01:23, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Suicide option

How about the variant where you can prevent the deaths by throwing yourself on the line? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.106.6.127 (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2015 (UTC)

Trolley Problem, Transplant problem

The Trolley Problem refers to the initial ethical problem posed by Phillipa Foot in 1967, NOT the developed problem created by Judith Thomson MUCH later in 1985. DO NOT just casually rewrite the article summary to reflect your own opinion without citing sources!Jmackaerospace (talk) 04:33, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

You're right that I should have added cites, but you're wrong about the problem. Read the first three pages of Judy's article: she explicitly introduces the problem in just the way I described. And note that the phrase "trolley problem" doesn't appear in Foot. (Also, fwiw, I'm a moral philosopher at MIT, and I've talked with Judy about this many, many times.)

--anon who made that edit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.54.222.20 (talk) 22:29, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

The Non-problem

I'm not sure why this problem should occupy philosophers at all.

(1) Trolleys do not steer themselves. If you are operating a runaway trolley, you follow the track for which the switch is thrown and are limited to using the brake (or the power reverse).

(2) Trolley and railroad sidings have derails installed to prevent cars on the siding from wandering onto the main line. The derails also would force a runaway trolley off the track were a switch tender able to throw the switch to the siding. No one on the track down the line would die, and the only people endangered by someone throwing the switch would be occupants of the trolley (which would derail or be thrown from the track by the sharpness of the curve into the siding).

(3) Of course, anyone in a position to throw the switch also is in a position to shout a warning to anyone on the track to get off the track. Since trolley tracks are private property, it is illegal for anyone not employed by the company to be on the track in the first place, and railroads have to employ extreme care to protect workers they send to work on tracks. Procedure here is set by the railroad's operating rules, which every employee must read, know, and keep with him.

(4) To get around this problem and maintain what after all is a silly dilemma, philosophers always add that some Simon Legree has tied people up and left them on the tracks (so they cannot move). But, that obviously changes the entire problem because now we're dealing with a criminal enterprise inflicted by a third party. To answer the question, one therefore needs to consult the criminal law (which says you cannot sacrifice one person to save another, even yourself).

(5) Finally, with regard to diverting the trolley into the derail, the railroad employee is bound by the law of contract and the civil law. He therefore has no authorization to endanger passengers on the trolley and in his care to save trespassers walking on the line. He can rush ahead to try to warn the trespassers (and certainly should try to do that); but, if he's unsuccessful, he does not thereby become the proximate cause of the trespassers' deaths. They had an obligation not to be on the tracks in the first place.

In short, the entire problem is a contrivance. The philosopher starts by imposing conditions which never would occur, precisely because railroads long ago had to answer to laws punishing negligence and therefore installed safety devices (like derails) precisely to prevent people from being run over by runaway trolleys.

We can, if we like, change the problem to eliminate the track (a runaway rig for example on a public road). But, the problem with a rig is that it can be steered in a multitude of directions. The truck driver would have additional options than to run over one to avoid running over several.

So, the problem is non-existent -- spinning castles in the air.

-- Robert Brian Crim

---

How have you made it this long into life without knowing what a thought experiment it? Sure this will never actually happen this exact way, but we deal with similar moral issues all the time, everything from deciding whether wars are justified, allocating limited resources, or even just considering the basic consequences of our everyday actions. It's just an example problem...

---

I've never understood why people are so hostile to these scenarios; it's like they trigger an emotional upset that causes the listener to completely miss the entire point of the exercise. The fundamental point is to address questions like "Would you let 1 person die to save the lives of 5 people", regardless of whatever story/scenario/mechanics are used to present the question. Arguing the mechanics of the scenario, rather than the actual topic question itself, shows a lack of higher comprehension. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.231.40.236 (talk) 20:27, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

ad hominem

The following sentence from this article is an ad hominem:

The main author, Marc Hauser, was subsequently sanctioned by his then employer, Harvard University, in eight (unrelated) cases of gross research malpractice and data falsification, which arguably makes the data in any case unreliable.

bse3 (talk · contribs · count · logs) 21:03, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

On the Infinite Trolley Problem

Infinite Trolley Variant

However, an argument in favor of autonomous cars uses a variant it calls the Infinite Trolley problem – where there is a single person on the tracks who can be easily saved at the cost of inconveniencing your passengers, and the question is no longer "would you stop", but "how many people need to be on the trolley for their inconvenience to trump someone else's life". This variant points out that given the current number of auto fatalities, waiting for autonomous vehicles to be perfectly safe ignores the fact that many of these deaths could be prevented once the fatality rate for autonomous vehicles merely dips below that of manned vehicles, even if that is still a nonzero number.

The text above was cut from the article page and posted here because it is mostly irrelevant. It's is a new variant that has received little attention in philosophy compared to the other variants in the page. It changes the argument into one of comparing values of time and values of life, which was never the intent of the trolley problem which instead discusses the relative values of human life in different contexts. Finally, this question has been investigated much more thoroughly in the field of risk management, which assigns statistical values to human lives and time.

128.143.80.140 (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)NoName March 10, 2016

References

Current article is ambiguous about the one person, is he tied or not?

Opening paragraph of current article does not actually say that the one person is tied, so I would pull the lever and shout "Look out!!" to the one person --Pasixxxx (talk) 15:53, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

The Loop

The depiction of the loop problem in the image is inconsistent with the problem as described in the text; namely the loop problem in the text should be made such that if the five people were not present, the trolley would hit the fat man from the other side. This is what supports the direct symmetry that we have to choose one set of people in order to save the other. Porphyro (talk) 16:28, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Harambe

Is the section 'The Harambe Problem' notable enough? I would say no. JoshMuirWikipedia (talk) 02:08, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

• It might deserve a sentence or two on the Harambe page if an RS has mentioned the Harambe Trolley Problem meme, but here would be undue weight. ---- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:01, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

• It might be appropriate to mention it in a "Reception"/"In popular culture" section. Especially with the recent popularity[1][2][3][4][5], I would not object to such a section, but I'd like to see other opinions first. Without it, Harambe does not hold up against the variants discussed in the learned literature. Paradoctor (talk) 00:22, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Definition: Trolley problem vs. Trolley case

Judith Jarvis Thomson wrote in Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem (1976) p.:

Why is it that Edward may turn the trolley to save the five, but David may not cut up his healthy specimen [and use his organs] to save his five? I like to call this the trolley problem, in honor of Mrs. Foot's example.

And in the The Trolley Problem (1985) she wrote:

Here then is Mrs. Foot's problem: Why is it that the trolley driver may turn his trolley, though the surgeon may not remove the young man's lungs, kidneys, and heart?

So for her the trolley problem is about explaining the contradiction in the decisions in the trolley case and the transplant case. --Thomas Leske (talk) 19:44, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Thomson's definition of the term trolley problem is still relevant: Chad Vance writes in his Lecture Notes:

 Note that this is only a problem for the moderate deontologist. … Utilitarians do not have a “Trolley Problem.” For them, an action is morally wrong if it fails to maximize happiness. … Similarly, absolute deontologists do not have a “Trolley Problem.” For them, certain types of action are just ALWAYS wrong—and killing is one of these wrong actions.

--Thomas Leske (talk) 08:01, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Vsauce experiment

Michael "Vsauce" Stevens published a video The Greater Good - Mind Field S2 (Ep 1) with (probably) real experiment on Trolley Problem. 2 of 7 shown participant pull the lever and 5 are not. Not sure if it should be mentioned in Survey data or References or else. About half of a video is about ethical problem of making the experiment and precautions made. OverQuantum (talk) 18:50, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

The actual testing bit of the video starts at begins at 14:35. – Nixinova ⟨T|C⟩ 05:10, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

There have been questions on whether this video is real or staged [6]. Without any explanation, the switch changes position twice from 27:22 to 27:30 at camera cuts without being acted upon by the test subject. --Fernando Trebien (talk) 10:24, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

The Greater Good - Mind Field S2 (Ep 1) If not, it should be included in popular culture.

Update: I just realized someone already mentioned this.

It's an actual experiment. I wonder if he submitted a paper of it anywhere but it isn't popular culture just because it was on a show. It's a real experiment, but some of his actual report would help way more than a video. Still, in absence of the paper, referencing the episode is definitely worthy of the article. 2001:1970:4F66:5900:2CB6:AE9B:4444:E05 (talk) 05:49, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure if the video is a reliable source. Even though the video is published by a reputable person (Michael Stevens) and is featured on YouTube Red, a paid streaming service, that doesn't necessarily mean that the content itself is verifiable and factual. I mean, just look at History Channel. YouTube videos are generally discouraged to be used as sources, since it's hard to verify the factuality of the content. See WP:YTREF.

Granted, there are exceptions made for sources that are known to be generally reliable, but this video is talking about an experiment, which needs external observers to verify the experiment as credible. Also, Stevens didn't publish an actual scientific paper or report about his experiment, and the video didn't feature any third party observers to ensure reliability, nor are there any third party reports to independently verify the experiment.

In short, despite the video being published by a reputable source, doesn't mean the video itself is reliable. Additionally, there aren't any credible, indepedent, neutral, third party observers that observed and reported on the experiment, nor did Stevens or any of the production team that worked on Mind Field publish any sort of scientific paper about the experiment.

So, in my opinion: No, without any credible sources, I don't think we can safely say that the experiment is reliable and verifiable. Therefore, it might be best to just leave it as in popular culture, since we can't know for sure that is really is an actual experiment, and not staged, as Fernando Trebien mentioned above. Weslam123 (talk • contrib) 11:08, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

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Current Affairs

Is the criticism from Nathan J. Robinson relevant? There doesn't seem to be any reason to value his opinions in the fields of ethics or philosophy enough to include them in an encyclopedia; he's a self-published polemicist, not a professional ethicist. Josh Burns (talk) 14:08, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Fat Man seems inadequately explained

The Fat Man variant seems inadequately explained, to an absurd degree, because there are an awful lot of differences in this variant that are currently unmentioned in this article. For instance the scenario is 'absurd' to the point of hilarity, and brought out student laughter when mentioned in a televised ethics lecture series (by I-forget-which American professor, possibly from Harvard, and allegedly the guy upon whom Montgomery Burns of The Simpsons is based despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the comparison seems utterly inappropriate). It seems utterly implausible as a way of saving the 5 - the fat man is heavier than you and will probably successfully resist you, saving nobody but getting you gaoled for assault and attempted murder, or he may fall off the bridge in the wrong place or at the wrong time, thus saving nobody but killing an extra person (the Fat Man) or possibly two (if you live where murder carries the death penalty, or if you both fall off in the struggle). In the TV lecture he was eventually inexplicably suspended in a cage to get round some of these problems, thus making the thing even more implausible. Nobody even considered that you might throw yourself instead of the Fat man (you don't know you're heavy enough, but then you can't realistically know the fat man is either). And so on (tho, per WP:NOTFORUM, I don't want to discuss any of these details any further). Needless to add, all these unmentioned points presumably help explain why people don't choose to go for the Fat Man. But it would be WP:OR for me to put any of this into the article unless a WP:RS can be found that says it, and, per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO, I won't be looking for one, but some other editor might, and might improve the article by doing so. (Of course I suspect much of this article is already OR, but I intend to ignore that possibility per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY, WP:BNO, and probably also WP:IAR). Tlhslobus (talk) 11:20, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Meanwhile the above-mentioned lecture series might go into the In Popular Culture section if anybody can be bothered to try to find citations for it (I just might try some other time, but probably not, per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO as usual). Tlhslobus (talk) 11:30, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

And I came here from the Wikilink at Eye in the Sky (2015 film), so that too might go into the In Popular Culture section if anybody can be bothered to try to find RS citations linking the movie and the Trolley problem (I just might try some other time, but probably not, per WP:NOTCOMPULSORY and WP:BNO as usual). Tlhslobus (talk) 11:35, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Incidentally, some of the above arguments about Fat Man also apply to Transplant (for instance it ignores the fact that the healthy young man, like the Fat Man, will try to defend himself), tho there are also other arguments that don't apply to Fat Man: the surgeon has time to ask the patients what they want, the patients presumably have shorter life expectancies than the healthy young man, and even shorter ones if you adjust for quality of life, and some of the patients may die of illness after the killing but before their transplant, or all 5 may die because somebody kills the doctor to avenge the murder, and the notion of 100% guaranteed transplant success and 100% guaranteed failure to detect the murder are logical impossibilities, and there's the damage to the rest of the health service if doctors are thought to have this kind of morality (so nobody could safely go near a hospital), and so on. There are also some options in Fat Man that are not present in Transplant (you can try to save 5 by throwing yourself off the bridge instead of the Fat Man, but the surgeon can't normally save 5 lives by sacrificing his own, except perhaps by accepting that he may be executed for murder after the operations). As before, some or all of this may be usefully available in some WP:RS, etc. Incidentally, once again with In Popular Culture in mind as above, I've also seen Transplant presented (irritatingly without any attempt to point out its flaws) as a criticism of utilitarianism in some TV program about philosophy and/or utilitarianism, tho I can't remember which program, except that it was not the TV lecture series already mentioned above (it's just possible that the irritating argument was made by AC Grayling, but probably not - also the blame for the irritating presentation may belong to the program makers and/or editors rather than the philosopher). Tlhslobus (talk) 11:43, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

And there's also a 'Shoot one or 20 Prisoners?' variant mentioned, if I remember right, in an obituary of I-forget-which British philosopher (tho I think his surname may have been Williams), and in my view inadequately discussed there, in which a Mad Captain tells you to choose one prisoner to be shot out of 20 prisoners, otherwise he will shoot all 20. (The inadequacies seemed to me to be failing to discuss such possibilities as trying to reason with the Captain, playing for time, trying to kill him or take him prisoner, considering the possibility that he is lying and testing you and that he may actually kill everybody if you choose one and spare everybody if you refuse to choose anybody, and so on). Obviously that obituary would be a WP:RS if it can be found, and there would presumably also be other such RSs. Tlhslobus (talk) 13:09, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Wrong illustration?

If it's a trolley problem, why is it illustrated with a tram? And if it *is* a runaway trolley, there's no problem, just reach out and grab hold of it, the only risk is the groceries falling out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.251.53 (talk) 22:30, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Foot (of Oxford and born in the UK) did say "tram" in her discussion of the subject. Most of the early work, however, was by Thompson (Columbia), Kamm (Harvard) and Unger (NYU). It would be wrong to say their work coloured later discussion. It colored it. - SummerPhD^v2.0 15:15, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Is 'trolley problems', by analogy with 'lifeboat problems', a standard category in philosophy?

The article is at odds with the literature (now less so after recent edits) in conflating the individual trolley scenarios with "the trolley problem" as used in philosophy since Thomson 1976, i.e the metaproblem of finding general rules that derive the moral intuitions seen in a range of scenarios. On the other hand there is a need to describe the individual scenarios that talk about trolleys.

This tension would be resolved if we could say that "trolley problems" (plural) are a category of philosophical problem, akin to "lifeboat problems", so that a particular scenario is "a" trolley problem (but not "the" trolley problem). The papers from Greene's psychology lab use "sacrificial judgements" in roughly this way.

Does anyone following this page know if this use of language is standard in philosophy? 73.89.25.252 (talk) 06:49, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

A real life incident?

In the article Sjursøya train accident it says "The train dispatcher central chose to lead the runaway train in the direction of Sjursøya" ... "Three people were killed in the accident while four people were injured". Maybe the runaway train would have rolled out on the main line and crashed with a local train without intervention? Does it make a difference weather some random person discovers he can change the trajectory of the runaway train or weather the person does it as a part of their job? It may be there is no moral dilemma involved at all, perhaps "divert a runaway train to the path causing the least destruction" is even a part of the basic train dispatcher training.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a02:c0:2:1:1194:17:0:1033 (talk • contribs) 04:13, February 12, 2019 (UTC)

The real-life incident mentioned in the article isalso listed here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rail_accidents_(2000%E2%80%932009)#2003 but I don'y know how best to link it. Salopian (talk) 05:40, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

To add the incident here, we would need an independent reliable source discussing it as being relevant to the "trolley problem", the topic of this article. - SummerPhD^v2.0 21:29, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Article misses the entire point of the Trolley Problem.

The point of the thought-experiment, from the earliest articles, was that seemingly irrelevant differences in phrasing the dilemma lead to opposite consensus of what to do. Diverting the train is seen as acceptable, but pushing a fat man onto tracks to stop the train much less so, and a surgeon carving up a healthy patient to harvest organs that will save 5 transplant patients is seen as ethically forbidden.

The article misrepresents the issue as being about solving particular formulations of the dilemma. That's an ancient topic in ethics, "lifeboat problems" with hard zero sum choices, but the Trolley Problem isn't directly about that, it is about using the thought experiments to reverse engineer the unarticulated ethical frameworks that people carry around. It's an experiment in psychology couched in the language of ethical dilemmas.

Due to the popularity of the original Trolley problem in which reactions to different dilemmas are compared, the phrase "Trolley Problem" has become a meme for any particular dilemma of that type (as its own exercise in ethics, not compared to any similar dilemma). The article should note this, but it's a cultural reference, not the original (and probably still current) philosophy/psychology meaning of the term. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 18:44, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I changed the lead paragraph to account for this, but the rest of the article could also use attention. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 20:35, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Assuming that you're correct about the original intention of the concept, it is nevertheless not well founded to assert that the culturally comon usage should merely be mentioned as an aside. Both would have to be covered, with there being no particular reason to give greater weight to the former than the latter. Salopian (talk) 05:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

See the section of Talk page immediately following. I have not done a survey, but from what I can see online, it looks like references to "the Trolley Problem" still predominantly refer to the metaproblem from academic philosophy whereas "a" trolley problem refers to individual scenarios (not sure if "trolley problems" refers to plural special cases, or the metaproblem). There aren't that many articles in RS about this question outside of academic literature, it is mostly web pages, so it's not clear that WP:COMMON or equal weight apply here. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 09:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I found an article on the Daily Nous confirming that academic usage of "trolley problem" is for the metaproblem. The author uses "trolley examples" for the specific scenarios.

"... some mistakes people make using the trolley problem:

- Using “trolley problem” to refer to the question of what one would do in one example. Among philosophers, today, the name “trolley problem” refers to the apparently conflicting judgments that arise from two different trolley examples." -- Trolley Problems: You’re Doing It All Wrong, by Justin Weinberg. July 2, 2018 http://dailynous.com/2018/07/02/trolley-problems-youre-wrong/73.89.25.252 (talk) 22:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

After a long series of edits, all references in the lead to particular trolley scenarios now are relatively clearly distinguished from "the" trolley problem in Foot and Thompson's sense. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 10:34, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Fundamental Question

What exactly is the point of any of this? Moral dilemmas of this type could have been formulated at any time in human history. The fact that time is still being wasted on discussing them can mean only one of three things: a) there is no rational solution and so there is no practical course of action but to flip a coin in each case, b) it is simply a source of paid employment for those who are cynical enough fruitlessly to discuss an intractable problem for personal gain c) there is what seems to be a reasonable solution, but that solution depends upon the current degree of 'humanity' of society. My bet is on b); consideration of the problem serves only to create a 'talking-shop' for those who love the sound of their own voice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.106.70.248 (talk) 14:45, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Much of academic philosophy can be considered as idle chit-chat, or careerism, or both. But the Trolley Problem (qua topic of such chit-chat, subject of a literature, occasional feature of popular articles, cultural meme, etc) is notable enough to get its own article and it's worth explaining even if the whole topic has a medieval scholastic flavor in the eyes of some observers. 73.89.25.252 (talk) 05:34, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

This page is not a blog, debate forum, or for Q&A ... please restrict your contributions to improving the article, and avoid offering personal opinions about the subject, which simply aren't relevant here (and could certainly be taken as a case of someone who loves the sound of their own voice while knowing nothing of the academic field of philosophy, its purpose, or its value, nor the purpose of Wikipedia). -- Jibal (talk) 00:03, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 vaccines

I've seen that this material added and removed over time so though a comment here could be useful. The source is a blog article representing the opinion of Cummings and Paris but it was presented as a fact in Wikipedia's voice. Other issues are that other vaccines exist, it's possible to limit particular vaccines where in certain populations or with certain conditions it is unsafe, noone is taking a decision to sacrifice part of a population in order to save the rest, every medication has side effects, etc. If restored, it should be using a better source that puts that argument in perspective (meaning it has been noticed and evaluated by others, possibly making it WP:DUE). —PaleoNeonate – 05:27, 22 November 2021 (UTC)